Don't Try This At Home...

So I tried making fried rice. I make a pretty mean fried rice normally, but I wanted try something new. I know many fried rice recipes call for "day-old" rice because it is dryer, and I do often find that my rice ends up kinda glue-y when it's fresh. So I wanted to try drying it and seeing if that helps (because I'm never organised enough to prepare rice the day before, and I don't often eat plain rice).

So off I go to cook my rice. I acquired a pressure cooker when I moved out of home a year ago. I had never used one and I'm still not entirely convinced that it made cooking faster--either it didn't or our stove is terrible at heating it... Probably our stove. Anyway. I tried cooking my rice to "al dente" BUT I didn't have enough water. So I had to put the cooker back on. This is where it gets scary. About 20 mins into the cooking we hear a loud bang and pshhhhh of air and water escaping the pressure release valve. It must've been blocked by starch until it actually got enough pressure to actually unblock and release. Unfortunately it also released a stream of boiling water into my kitchen and all over my extractor fan...

Well, I removed it from the heat of course, waited for it to depressurise and then found this mess:

Well, that was a clean stainless steel lid before cooking rice. Not fun to clean.

Needless to say, this experience scared the goodness out off me (what little there was left) and I decided that it was time for this cooker to go. At least my rice was coocked! ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

But it was overcooked. So I thought, why not dry it out in my air fryer? I have this basket that rotates and cooks chips really well. Yeah, great idea Beth! It stuck. Badly. All around the cage on the inside and on the little bits that help turn the chips over... It was gross. I spent ages trying to scrape it out using a spatula. The rice was dry though so I guess that's a small win.

I ended up making fried rice and it was pretty good. I just wanted to share this ridiculous journey. Do not air fry rice in a basket and always clean your pressure cooker between each use!!!!

Cook on,

Beth :)