I have a closet for a kitchen… but I can cook rice in a pot

Trusty

Because, well, it’s just rice.

I have a closet for a kitchen… but I can cook rice in a pot

Yes, that is the doorway in the bottom left and right!

So I’ve moved to Switzerland. Their idea of what a kitchen is, er, interesting. My current kitchen is a closet. Have a look at the pics. You can see it’s tiny. There is enough room for one person – so no getting in and helping with the washing up. The stove tops – electric – are ridiculously slow to heat up, and aren’t really that hot on the highest setting. I have no kettle; to make myself a cup of tea, I need to boil water in a saucepan. I hate it. Thankfully, this is temporary. Emperor D and I are moving to a more permanent place – with a much bigger, newer, better kitchen – in a few weeks. I’ll post pictures of that kitchen once we’ve moved in.

Having such a small kitchen – and no room to put appliances – has forced me to go back to basics on some things, like cooking rice. I’ve always cooked rice in a rice cooker and I realise now that I completely took it for granted. Pour in rice; pour in water; put lid on; turn on; set and forget. 30 minutes later, white, fluffy cooked rice.

With no rice cooker, I’ve had to learn to cook rice the more traditional way – in a pot. I had done this once before, several years ago, when I cooked rice in a pot while house-sitting my grandparents’ place. It was a disaster. The rice was gluggy and it stuck to the bottom of the pan, which was subsequently a bitch to clean. I hadn’t done it since. So I was naturally a little apprehensive of trying it again.

There are a couple of different ways you can cook rice in a pot; the best and most common method is the absorption method. As the rice cooks, holes or funnels form. It’s not completely fool proof, but it is quite easy to do. As you can see from the picture, it comes out pretty good.

So, with a closet for a kitchen, you can see that I can’t really afford to be adventurous in the cooking stakes at the moment. But at least I know I can do the basics. It’s back to the more challenging stuff as soon as I have a decent kitchen, so watch this space.