I like to think I am a pretty good amateur chef. I can confit fowl; I can make the best, thinnest short pastry you’ve ever had; my chilli con carne is the best anyone I know has ever tasted; I make Thai curries that taste as good as any I’ve had in Bangkok or Phuket; I bake my own bread by hand; my cakes and pies have won competitions.
But I cannot. Fucking. Cook. Rice.
I’ve tried every method I’ve ever been told - all have ended in disaster. I even got a rice steamer, that did nothing whatsoever.
Last night I decided on rice to accompany a chicken balti I’d made. I gave myself a pep talk, I digested all the methods I’ve ever been given, and I put rice on. I used five times the volume of water than rice, brought it to the boil, reduced to a simmer, stirred it, checked it, stirred it, all going well. Left the kitchen for two minutes, I come back to a smell like charred popcorn. Where’s the water gone? No idea. What’s happened to the rice? It’s burned into a solid lump and stuck to the bottom of the pan.
We had nan bread instead.
What is wrong with me? Why can I do all the complex stuff, but haven’t once been able to achieve the simplest of cooking techniques.
One trick my father now uses is to place the rice in a mixing bowl and boil the water separate. When the water is ready, just pour it into the bowl. Wait a a while and voilà, rice.
If you are using Basmati rice for your curries, try this:
1: wash the rice a few times, drain
heat a bit of oil, add a few black cardamom pods or a cinnamon stick if you like
add rice and let it fry for a little while, say half a minute while stirring continuously so it doesn’t burn
add 1.5 times as much water as rice (volume) and some salt. Put the lid on
as soon as the rice boils vigorously turn the heat down to 1. Keep the lid on.
check occasionally. When the water is almost gone, turn the heat off. Keep the lid on. Wait 5-10 minutes while adding the final touches to the undoubtably wonderful balti.
Voila: Perfectly cooked rice - every time.
This method has never, ever failed me, and the rice turns out just right every single time. You can modify this basic recipe in many ways. Like adding curry leaves, mustard seeds, whole cumin seeds, finely chopped onion or garlic to the oil. Or perhaps add a bit of milk + saffron 15 seconds before adding water.
Jormungandr, your dad’s method doesn’t inspire me with confidence. I’d do something very absorbent, such as couscous, like that maybe, but I can’t imagine that the rice would go tender without a length of simmering.
Panurge, that’s a pretty similar method to many of those my Asian friends have recommended (none of which have worked) - apart from the frying. And the turning the heat off. I’ll give this a go. Should I leave it on the cooling stove after I’ve turned the heat off or remove from the heat?
Put the rice in a pot and rinse it until the water runs pretty much clear. Add enough water that it stands about an inch and a half above the rice. Heat it up until it is boiling. Then put a lid on tightly and reduce the heat to the lowest heat possible. Let it simmer for ten minutes. After ten minutes, without lifting the lid, turn off the heat and let it sit for another ten minutes.
It is a method I picked up somewhere in India. As I said, it hasn’t failed me yet - and I cook rice several times a week.
From my experience I don’t think it really matters much whether you remove the pot from the stove or not. If I need to cook something else while the rice finishes, I’ll remove it. If I don’t, I’ll leave it. Not much of a difference, but YMMV depending on the stove, I guess.
I have never known a rice cooker to fail. Nearly all Asian restaurants use them nowadays. However since they perfected thesethings I just use them as I mostly am cooking for one or two. They are all excellent.
Whuh? TWO MINUTES and the water’s gone? Even if you’re exaggerating here, ten minutes, or even 20 if you put that much water in, can’t possibly have disappeared that quickly, unless your definition of “simmer” is way, way too high for cooking rice.
Here’s a simple procedure for non-rice-cooker made Chinese rice that has never failed me, using jasmine rice.
#1 - measure the raw rice into a large bowl with plenty of room left in it #2 - add 1.5x to 2x that volume of water into a pot (try 2x the first time) #3a - bring that water to a low boil (without the rice in it). It won’t take long. #3b - while the water boils, rinse the rice 3-5 times. The white cloudy water should become clear enough on the last rinse to clearly see the rice grains on top. #4 - Dump the rice into the boiling water. Use a rice spoon to make sure all the wet grains leave the bowl. Stir to make the rice even. #5 - Turn the fire low, low, low. Nearly as low as it will go without sputtering out. #6 - 20 minutes later, turn off the fire, lift the lid and “fluff” the rice. #7 - Let sit for another several minutes covered to absorb the moisture more evenly.
Rice is ready. If it came out too squishy wet for your taste, next time use closer to 1.5x until you figure out how you like it.
Do NOT attempt to accelerate the cooking of rice by using less water or higher heat.
This is done on a gas range, if you’re using an electric one I don’t know how to advise you to adjust the heat, other than to try a heat setting that’s a 2 or 2.5 on a scale of 1 to 10, where 1 would be “barely catching the pilot light” on a gas stove.
I have one ofthese, and it’s pretty darned fool-proof, if you know how to set your microwave. For basmati or jasmine rice, use the 1:1.5 ratio of rice to water. Five minutes on high. Fifteen minutes on medium or 50%.
I’ve never been able to get the amount of water right, and whenever I used to cook rice I ended up with a sticky, stodgy mess until I hit upon my current method for cooking long grain:
Boil a pot full of water, much more than the rice will absorb
Add the rice - I’m too lazy to wash it, but depending on the rice you use you might want to
Stir it once then leave well alone to cook
Once the rice is almost-but-but-quite done, strain off the excess water, turn the heat off, stick a lid on the pot and wait for 5 minutes
In the 5 mins, the excess water on the grains will be absorbed and it will and finish cooking, leaving you with perfectly cooked, fluffy rice.
I am Indian and I cannot make rice. I have just put this off as a failing of mine and use my rice cooker. You can season the rice in there too, I have learned how to do it. I just don’t cook it anymore.
This. Really it’s that simple. Keep the lid on, don’t stir (it’s not risotto), don’t check it. I find my jet burner brings up the boil quick but is too hot for the simmer so after it comes to a boil I move the pan to a smaller burner.
Oh and use a heavy bottom pot, calpholon (heavy)rather than reverware (SS lightweight).
This. If you can somehow mess up “put three cups of rice in the rice cooker, fill to the line with water, and push ‘go’” then there is something deeper at work than a mere inability to cook.
Until I got my rice cooker, I had the best luck with putting 1.5 parts of water in a heavy-bottomed pan, and bringing to a boil. Put 1 part rice into the boiling water. Stir once. Cover immediately with a tight-fitting lid. Turn the heat to low, simmer 20 (or was it 15? it’s been a while) minutes. DO NOT LIFT THE LID. Now turn the heat off (or take the pan off heat), wait a few minutes more, then remove the lid and stir. I could never get this to work with brown rice, but it was fine for white rice… Now that I have the rice cooker, it’s so easy I may never try to make rice on the stove again.
