Rice may be cooked in the double boiler by the same method as other cereals, by allowing 1 part of rice to 3 of water. The rice should be well washed in cold water.

It will cook in from three quarters of an hour to an hour. Use milk sometimes in place of half of the water.

The Chinese cook their rice in this way. A very large amount of water is used, - several quarts for one cup of rice, - and when the water is boiling violently the rice is scattered in very slowly. The boiling continues from twenty minutes to half an hour, or until the grains are tender. Then the water is drained off through a colander. The rice in the colander should then be placed where the remaining moisture will steam off. By this method some food value is lost, but the grains of the rice stand out distinctly and are light and dry. The grains should be tested after boiling twenty minutes to see if they are tender.

Fruit and rice or other cereal. When the rice is cooked in the double boiler, add a handful of stoned raisins and cook with the rice, or add a few soaked prunes cut in pieces.

One morning Barbara Oakes tried putting raisins with the oatmeal. Once after she had been blue-berrying she put some berries into the breakfast food to surprise the family. Suppose you try some other berry. Look back at the lesson on fruit and see what else might go into the hot cereal.

Eating cereal. We should eat our cereal slowly, instead of bolting it. An easy way to make oneself do this is to eat it with toast or a cracker.

When shall we cook the cereal? On account of the fact that cereal should be cooked a long time, it is best not to wait until morning to cook it. In winter, when the fire is kept in overnight, the first cooking can be done at supper time, and the boiler left standing on the range or stove, at the back. In summer, the cereal can be thoroughly cooked the day before, and reheated at breakfast time. There are still other ways. Have you ever heard of the fireless cooker and the Atkinson cooker? We shall study these in another lesson.

Fig. 74. - The breakfast cereal may be cooked overnight in a fireless cooker. This cooker is fitted with valves which permit the escape of steam, and prevent water from condensing in the cooker.

Exercises And Problems

1. Weigh a cup of flaked cereal and a cup of granular.

2. Make a list of the flaked and granular cereals, that you know about, with the amount of water for each one.

3. Does anything in your study of physiology explain why you should eat the cooked cereal slowly?

4. How much corn meal shall you need to make mush for a family of six? Of eight?

5. Weigh the contents of a box of ready-to-eat cereal. Weigh the same measure of oatmeal; of corn meal; of rice.

6. Which is the least expensive? Can you tell why?

7. Mollie Stark used one of the recipes in this lesson with a foamy sauce for dessert at dinner (Lesson 13). Which one did she select?