On 2/29/2012 2:46 PM, marco wrote:
> the directions for brown rice:
>
> Bring water to a rolling boil
> in "uncovered" container.
> I think I've seen these directions before
> for frozen vegetables.
>
> uncovered? why?
> it takes Longer to boil if uncovered
>
> marc

My guess is that it's left uncovered so you can see when to turn the
heat down. Personally, I'd just use a glass lid.

Boiling water without a lid is wasteful energy-wise. Putting a lid on
the pot cause the water to condense back into your food. This releases
the latent heat of evaporation. My guess is that the heat returned to
the system is significant. Why is that? Because it takes a lot of heat
to change water to steam. You can either choose to use the steam to
humidify and heat up your house or you can recycle that energy.