I was really excited about making this dish. My boyfriend absolutely loves it. Whenever we visit one of those Hong Kong themed restaurants, he never fails to order this. One layer of cooked rice, followed by a layer of meat sauce then topped off with cheese and baked till top is bubbly. Easy right?
So easy I didn’t even bother to look at a recipe. That was how cocky I was. Well, as it panned out, my version of cheese baked rice turned out quite bad :(
It was edible…okay let me rephrase, the crust was edible and now and then some bits of rice. The rest? Atrocious.
How could something that looked so good out of the oven and smelled so heavenly turned out to be a complete disappointment?
# – Perfectly good cheesy crust…what could go wrong? Right?
And every cooking failure is a lesson I have to learn from. From my disastrous cheese baked rice, I’ve learnt:
- Not to add beans I’ve never cooked before into perfectly fluffy rice just because I need to use some of them up.
- Never to buy too many cans of beans I’ve never cooked before because they were discounted. Refer to point above.
- Not to leave too much liquid in the meat sauce. Okay, to be more specific….drain the damn tuna. It won’t take too long.
- Not to cook too much of something you’ve never made before.
- Stick to the cheaper cheeses for first time dishes!!!!!
- Don’t EVER, EVER, forget the salt
# – Cannellini beans….not such a smart idea now is it?
I suppose that’s the nature of cooking, you can have some good days but you will bound to experience some bad days too.
If you’re attempting some form of cheese baked rice, and for some unknown odd reason you feel like dumping a can of cannellini beans into your rice, please, I implore you, DON’T!
# – This is an illustration of “BAD MOVE”.
So I screwed dinner up. It’s not too bad, all I had to do was take over the dishes duty and the BF’s successfully pacified. So there, if you’ve encountered any cooking disaster, don’t be discouraged and keep on cooking folks!
it’s ok. i just fucked up boulangere potatoes today.
i had to google boulangere! eh how about try my layered potato recipe!
I’ve never heard of cheese baked rice, sounds a bit like rice lasagna. I suppose similar cooking principles apply.
yeah it is like lasagna but with rice. though i didn’t use white sauce in this. i’ve never made it at home so hopefully i could post about it later after a successful attempt haha
A self made cheese bake rice recipe that never fail:
3-4 cups cooked rice.
1 canned mushroom soup with a little evaporated (or fresh) milk added (MAKE SURE IT’S JUST A LITTLE!!)
drained tuna / chicken bites / seafood / drained canned corn / mushrooms/ anything you fancy.
cheese, LOTSA CHEESE (usually I use parmesan)
black pepper, garlic salt
1. Preheat oven to round 350F .
2. Mix mushroom soup with the little milk, make sure it’s still gooey after you mix the two up. You wouldn’t want your rice to be too watery.
3. Prep your ingredients accordingly and pour in the soup mix.Ensure ingredients is more than the soup.
4. layer your rice in the bowl, then a layer of cheese (optional), the soup mix with all the good stuff, sprinkle garlic salt and black pepper over it.
5. Last but not least, cover everything with LOTSA CHEESE!!!
6. Put in oven and bake for 25 mins.
woohooo thanks for the recipe!!! appreciate it much!
screw ups are normal, that’s why we don’t ask each other to dinner yet! lol.
ahahahaha yeah that’s true for me!
Recipes are good! LOL the top part tasted good anyway just the rice part was too watery.
yeah it’s weird lol
awwww I’m sorry to hear that your cheese baked rice didn’t turn out. :(
There are many types of Cheese baked rice as there are lasagne recipes. Which type does your BF like? The Tomato kind or the white sauce kind?
Generally when I make my cheese bake rice, I keep a number of tips to make it lovely:
1. Always use old rice. Old rice makes it less soggy and since it’s a little bit on the dry side it absorbs the white/tomato sauce wonderfully.
2. I like to use mozzarella cheese as it crusts out wonderfully. Though mozzarella alone leads to a rather 1 dimension flavour so I blend it with a mix of Mozzarella, Parmesan and some sharp tasting cheese like Asiago or even Sharp Cheddar. I wouldn’t recommend any blue or crumbly cheeses like feta cause when u bake it, it turns out slightly weird. :(
3. To make an even more delicious white sauce, I found using campbell’s mushroom soup (can’t go wrong! LOL ) mixed with homemade bechamel sauce is divine! I once made this with just bechamel sauce and it didn’t really taste like HK style baked rice (it was nice but it tasted more like a lasagne with rice) and when I used just campbell mushroom soup it just tasted…. for lack of a word um ‘ghetto’. But mixing the two really makes the white sauce amazing.
thank you for all the tips! will definitely bear these in mind in my next attempt! mwahs