Perfect Rice

After years of never being able to cook rice, we discovered a great way. All through a cookbook.

I know they make rice cookers, but as Alton Brown says they are uni-taskers. And the only uni-tasker you should have in the kitchen is a fire extinguisher. And we tried the thing about adding water up to the number of knuckles of cups of rice you cooked. We could never make that work. But this method comes straight from an expert...Paul Prudhomme. His family cookbook has a BAKED rice dish that is perfect every single time. Last week when we had red beans and rice the question was should we do that or just make the boil in the bag rice (I know terrible idea but fast). I knew it wouldn't taste as good so we went with the baked rice.

Basic Cooked Rice (makes 6 cups)

2 cups uncooked rice (we usually use Jasmine)
2 1/2 cups stock (we used can chicken broth)
1 1/2 T melted butter
1 1/2 T finely chopped onions
1 1/2 T finely chopped celery
1 1/2 T finely chopped green bell peppers (optional)
1/2 tsp salr
1/8 tsp garlice powder
A pinch of white pepper, cayenne pepper, black pepper

In a 5x9x2 1/2 inch loaf pan combine all ingredients; mix well. Seal pan snugly with aluminum foil. Bake at 350 degrees until rice is tender about 1 hour and 10 minutes.

We made this batch with bell peppers. Normally we don't use this but we had leftover from the red beans recipe. We ran out of celery so didn't add it. I prefer it with the celery instead of the bell peppers.