How to steam rice
"Sadham" in Tamil language, is the steamed rice that we eat for lunch and/or dinner. "Sadham" is also called as "Sooru" or "Vadicha arisi". In Tamil language, "Arisi" means rice and "Vadicha" means boiled and filtered.
In English, some times we call this as "White rice" or "Cooked rice" or "Steamed rice".
The key for getting the best Sadham, is to understand how much of water in proportion to rice to be used. This depends on rice variety and the cooking method.
There are various ways to steam rice to make Sadham - cook rice. One way is using pressure cook and the other is the traditional way of boiling it in water.
Lets see how both the methods work.
Traditional way:
This is how our grandma used to cook rice. It is consider very healthy as the excess starch of the rice is been removed from the rice which reduces the sugar content of rice. The cooked rice is much more flavorful compared to pressure cooking.
Rice - 1 cup
Water - 2 cups
We need a large cooking pot for this type of cooking rice.
Take rice in a bowl, clean it by adding water to it and rubbing it nicely with hands for a min, drain the water and repeat the process again for 3 - 4 times.
Drain all excess water and let it rest for 30 mins.
Fill the cooking pot with 12 cups of water. Heat up the stove and place the pot in it, in medium flame let the water start to boil, use a ladle and add the cleaned rice to boiling water.
Let the rice boil in water for about 10 min roughly, stir it now and then using the ladle.
Take few grains of rice and press it with 2 fingers, if its soft and gets smashed away finely its well cooked if it a bit hard in the center let it boil for few more mins. We can also taste it and see if its cooked or not.
Once the rice is cooked switch off the flame cover it with a lid or tie the mouth of the pot with a thin jute cloth and tilt it in another wide mouthed pot in such a way the mouth of the rice pot is in 45 degree angle. The excess water will drain through the lid to the other pot, let it rest in that position for about 10 min.
Open the lid and Serve hot.
Using Pressure cooker:
Rice - 1 cup
Water - 2 cups
We need a pressure cooker to cook this way. Rice and water ratio is usually 1: 2 it might slightly vary depends on the type of rice, give it a try first time if its too dry increase the water quantity a bit, if its too mushy use a bit less amount of water for the next time.
Take rice in the cooker, clean it by adding water to it and rubbing it nicely with hands for a min, drain the water and repeat the process again for 3 - 4 times.
Drain all excess water and add 2 cups of water, cover the cooker with lid, let it rest for 30 mins.
Heat up the stove and place the cooker in it and cook in medium flame for 5 min when we hear a mild steady steam sound from the cooker reduce the flame to low and cook for 2 whistle.
Switch off the flame and let it rest till the steam wears off, will take about 7-10 min. Once the steam is fully released we can open the lid and serve rice hot.
Eating steamed rice:
Steamed rice or rice as we can shortly call it as, can be had with main dish like Sambar, Kuzhambu etc... Or it can be used to make Variety rice or Kanji
Other names/spelling variations of Sadham/Sooru:
Sadam, Saadham, Soru, Souru, Arisi, Vadicha arisi
Leftover tips:
When rice made for lunch or dinner is leftover you can pour water in the rice and keep it over night. Have this in the morning. This is called Pazhaya sooru or Pazhayathu. Though bland it is very good for health.