What I don't get it how you can spread the rice on top of the meat, pour the water over

Question

over it but not get the water on the meat? shouldn't the rice be in a separate bowl on a rack above the meat? then add the water to the rice?

702551 · Answer

I always look for process photos or a video.

Sadly Food52 has long eschewed process photography, they only post beauty shots these days. Some food sites do a much better job at process photography and will inline the images so you can save to a PDF; Food52's photo slideshows fail miserably at this.

If a photo can tell a thousand words then a video can tell 50,000 words or more.

Example: puff pastry dough recipe. Read a written description of how to make this. These are always awkward at best, only marginally better when line art diagrams are presented.

Then watch a video by someone like Jacques Pepin or Paul Hollywood. It's like night and day. Often you can *see* the proper texture or consistency, something that's really hard to describe in text or even a still photo like something springing back after you touch it or a ribbon of caramel dripping back into the pan.

I can watch a video of a French, Japanese, or Chinese chef make something and get the gist of it. Google Translate will butcher the text translation of the instructions to English especially when there are culinary-specific expressions.

Always keep an eye out for videos.

LULULAND · Answer

Oh, ok I didn't notice that there was a video, my bad. Thanks

702551 · Answer

This is shown at the 1:08 mark in the video.

LULULAND · Answer

Thank you! I have never made this before and don't have an instant pot yet. Doing my homework on them trying to pick one that has a shorter time coming up to heat and then cooling. Any suggestions?

Lori T. · Answer

I understand your confusion, because the directions say not to mix the rice and meat.  To answer your question, the liquid will cover the meat and rice- but you are trying to keep it all in two layers.  The idea is to allow the rice to steam, while the meat cooks in the heat concentrated at the bottom of the instant pot.  This is similar to the way you would layer a traditionally prepared biryani in the baking dish.  You don't want to mix the rice into the meat   and create a homogenous mixture like a regular casserole, which is what the directions are trying to say.

What I don't get it how you can spread the rice on top of the meat, pour the water over

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