Holiday "cooking"

Alternative titles:

• cooking on an electric food warmer
• cooking on the Shabbat/Holiday "platta"
• surprisingly simple rice
• Holiday-cooked rice for Shabbat

According to strict Jewish Law, one can cook on Holidays but not on Shabbat. In years like this one, we have three solid days of restrictions. We just had a very long weekend, the two day Rosh Hashannah crowned with Shabbat.

Even though we can cook on Holidays, as long as we neither light a match nor put out a flame, (electric stoves are even more difficult,) I like to do all the cooking in advance, so I can pray in the synagogue and not have to worry about the logistics of the meals.

The meat and poultry were cooked in advance and some were frozen to be taken out a few hours before needed. The same for the potato-vegetable kugel. Other side dishes are more complicated. I separated the vegetables into meal portions, so they would stay fresh in the fridge. Carbohydrates were the biggest problem, since they don't freeze that well nor keep well. Personally, I don't need any, but I'm a minority.

Our electric "platta," food warmer, isn't all that hot. I've never really cooked on it, but I decided to try something new.

Since the easy way of making rice is to pour boiling water over the rice, after heating it in the pan with some oil, I figured that white rice should cook well-enough on the platta. Here's how I made rice for Shabbat on Rosh Hashannah.

I used a pot with a large diameter, to guarantee maximum heat.

We have a large electric "kettle" with lots of boiling water all the time.

I poured the clean/checked/rice into the pot, added some oil and put it on the platta to heat up a bit. Then I added double the amount of boiling water and covered it well. That means that there was a heavy towel over the pot's cover.

I did not check it while it was cooking, since that would cool it.

A few hours later, when it was time to eat, the rice was absolutely perfect!