Confession time. I never soak the rice. I'm making this when I get home from work, and I don't have that kind of time. It do it in the 1:2 rice:water ratio on top of the stove, and it never fails me. Do heat the spices with the butter/ghee before cooking. Don't skip the cardamom or bay leaf. Maybe only use 2 cloves and use the smallest sliver of mace in the jar because they're powerful. You want all the spices in there, but you don't want it to taste like aftershave. The nice thing about cooking jeera rice this way is that the spices usually collect on the top, so you can pick them out if you're serving it to people who can't face the concept of whole spices in their food.
