Rice is the staple food of south India. With out rice the meal is incomplete for us. So every south Indian household cooks rice on daily basis. Granny used to cook rice in mud pots and that rice is very good for health. Even now a doctor in Chennai asks her patients to eat rice which has been cooked in mud pot. Nowadays we use either pressure cooker or rice cooker which needs very less time to cook. But the texture of the cooked rice varies. I usually buy mud pots in various sizes ranging from smallest (to cook for 1 person) to bigger pots (to cook for 4-5persons). Though the cooking is time consuming and needs your attention it is the best way to cook rice.
The rice is boiled with water and salt. There is no proportion to the water used because the excess water is filtered out. The filtered water makes a great drink. It has all the goodness of rice in liquid form. The clear water while boiling with rice at the starting of cooking also makes a drink for pregnant ladies. During the last week of pregnancy, add 1 tsp of ghee to a cup of this water and drink daily. This is supposed to help at the time of delivery (this is called as patti vaidhyam – granny’s medicine)
