Holding cooked rice

 Cook the rice pilaf style . let cool slightly, mix a dash of butter to rice. Put rice in spray coated cone timbales or ramekins  prior to service  so you don't have to do it when plating.. Keep warm in 200-250 oven , pop out onto plate when plating up for service...

Ed, I don't think a home cook is going to have 40 ramekins. I bake my rice in the oven, fluff when done, cover and hold in a low oven. If you have some one helping you serve, they could reload the rice in the cone, and plate............. replace the water with chicken stock in you rice recipe, and make either Pilaf, Florentine, or Venetian rice...........Chef Bill

how long do you want to hold?  are you transporting? 

40 ramekins no--40 coffee cups maybe, and 40 pcs of 1 1/2" high 2 or 3" PVC pipe is pretty easy to get too.

 

Pilaf is a great way to go.  Then again the Orientals do thier rice in a rice cooker, and they hold it in a rice cooker too.

 

O.K. you don't have the luxury of a Cambro, but a Cambro is basically just a giant thermos--or, by a stretch, a larger picnic cooler.

 

Hot rice (your style) in a food safe container, and that container in a picnic cooler--should keep hot for a couple of hours......

yea good call on the cambro for sure.  Wait till you have to hold risotto :-/