I’m sick of eating rice that’s clumped together and not light a fluffy, but rather heavy and sometimes a little on the hard side.
Anyone have any recommendations on how to cook it best?
(Plain white rice BTW)
thanks…
Do you use a rice cooker? Most of those are idiotproof, although I don’t wish to cast aspersions on you personally. 
Yes! For rice that isn’t all stuck together, cook it exactly like pasta, in a huge pot full of rapidly boiling water. Dump it in, stir it around for a minute like you would pasta, so it doesn’t stick together, and boil it for 15 minutes. Then drain it in a colander, like pasta, and if you really, really want totally separate grains of rice, rinse it off. Use hot water if you’re going to eat it right away.
Use cold water if you want fast cold cooked rice for Fried Rice, which is supposed to be made with cold rice. Rinse it off with cold water and let it sit for a few minutes to drain totally. That way you don’t have to wait for it to turn into “cold cooked rice” overnight in the fridge.
(I’m talking about regular rice here, not Minute Rice or Uncle Ben’s, okay?)
Making fluffy rice is no secret, it is neither complicated or difficult.
A few tips on cooking rice;[list=A]
[li]ALWAYS wash your rice. Put the desired amount in a sieve and hang the sieve in a large bowl. Fill the bowl with fresh, cold water until the rice is submerged. Agitate the strainer and shake the rice to move it around. Lift the strainer out of the bowl and you will see that cloudy water drains from the rice. Do this a few times and then replace the water in the bowl. Shake the strainer a few more times and then let the rice soak for five minutes. Repeat this one or two more times until the water drains clear off of the rice.[/li]
(The milling process opens up the surface of the rice kernels, it also creates a quantity of rice powder. All of this needs to be removed prior to cooking.)
[li]Start with fresh, cold water in the cook pot. Use a little less than twice the amount of water as rice to be cooked.[/li]
[li]Add a small amount of salt and cover the cook pot while heating it over a high flame.[/li]
[li]Rinse and drain the rice a final time before cooking it. The water should run completely clear when rinsing it.[/li]
[li]When the water comes to a boil add the rice and stir to prevent sticking.[/li]
[li]Cover and bring to a boil again (~2-3 minutes).[/li]
[li]Once the rice comes to a boil again, stir once more and cover tightly. Reduce the heat to low.[/li]
[li]Avoid uncovering the pot more than a few times when you stir it.[/li]
[li]The standard formula for unwashed rice is; twice as much water as rice, cook for twenty minutes in salted water. [/list][/li]
Because the rice has absorbed some water in the washing process, reduce the ratio of water to rice to 1.75 to 1 instead of 2 to 1. I use the method recommended by Alice Waters. Cook the rice for twelve minutes and then turn off the heat and let it continue to cook for another eight. Check for when the water has been totally absorbed and test for doneness. It will take a few times to get the balance of factors right, but you will eventually have no problem in cooking fluffy perfect rice every time.
What type of rice? There are a lot of them.
Hey, here is a hint, read the package directions!
Hey, here is a hint, read the original posting!
Sorry, couldn’t resist
Plain white rice is what I meant… and sacks of rice don’t come with instructions unfortunately…
Thanks for everyones help… I’ll give it a go in the next couple of days…
This may sound like heresy, but I like to microwave rice
Put 1 cup of rice and 2 cups of water into a glass pot with a glass lid. Microwave on high for 5 minutes, then at 50% power for 13-15 minutes. It comes out perfect every time for me, and is extremely easy.
It tends to boil over during the 5 minute high period, so I either put the entire pot on a plate in the microwave, or just let it boil over and clean off the round glass tray in the floor of the microwave later.
Arjuna34
I follow the advice of the first poster as to the rice. (It rhymes. Does it have the right meter?) I use a rice cooker which I put in my microwave. 1:2 ratio rice to water. Keep in the microwave about 15 minutes. Let it sit for a few minutes. Presto. Perfect rice every time. And, best of all, it was easy.
I was using some white vinegar the other day to clean some lime stains out of a water reservoir. I read on the label that another great use for the stuff was to add a bit to rice while boiling to make it fluffy and not sticky.
If you try it, let me know how it works.
Enright3
Nobody’s mentioned this yet, but another thing you can do is soak the rice beforehand. If you first soak it in cold water for an hour or so, it’ll be tender enough before cooking that you can bite through it easily. Mmm, raw rice. Then cook it. This will give you soft rice without having to overcook it.
I have a rice steamer, which makes perfect rice every time, with zero effort required after initial setup. It takes about 30-35 minutes to steam half a cup of precooked rice.
I want to add another vote for getting a rice steamer. Takes a while, but always makes perfect rice. $14.99 at Wal-Mart.
Maybe try different rice. I didn’t know what rice could be until I was introduced to Basmati rice. It has beautiful long grains and a kind of a nutty flavor if prepared properly. It’s hard to find in supermarkets around here, but available at ethnic (mid-East, Indian) food marts as well as the warehouse chains.
To cook it, rinse well as recommended by other posters. Then drop rice into excess boiling water (a la Duck Duck Goose) and allow to cook approx 10 min (firm but tender). Now here’s a real innovation, a Persian cooking tradition. Add a mixture of olive oil and butter (you can use either alone, I find the mixture best meets my taste/health standards) to the empty rice cooking pot and place it back on the stove. Allow it to heat up (med high heat) and add the drained, rinsed rice back. Turn the heat to med and cook and additional 45-60 min. You may have to play with the heat a bit to avoid burning. But when executed properly the result is white fluffy rice on top and a golden brown, incredibly delicious layer of rice on the bottom of your pot. The Persians call this golden brown stuff tadeeg which literally translates into “bottom of the pot.” Enjoy!
Don’t rinse rice!
You’ll lose all the Iron, Thiamine and Folic Acid that the processor sprayed on the rice after milling. This doesn’t apply to brown rice, but that’s a different animal.
Ever tried cooking your rice Pilaf style?
http://www.goodeatsfanpage.com/EpisodeInfo.htm#Rice
Basmati rice: no vitamins or minerals sprayed on
Rinse at will
Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha!
Sorry. Couldn’t resist.
You will never, NEVER find cooks in agreement over a perfect method for cooking your rice.
Some experts advocate using less water, some say to cook a cup of rice in a huge pot of boiling water.
Some say ALWAYS wash the rice (you kinda have to if you’re using Basmati, unless you enjoy starch and bug parts), some say NEVER.
Some say stir, some say NEVER open the pot. There’s an ancient Japanese nursery rhyme about not opening the pot until the allotted time is up, even if the baby is crying for his food.
The French feel that properly cooked rice is “exploded,” or simmered so long that the seams are burst. The Indians want non-exploded grains that are nonetheless separate and distinct. The Chinese prefer rice that is not mushy per se, but still clumpy enough to be eaten with chopsticks.
This is the cool thing about rice, BTW. Pasta, everyone agrees about how to cook it…it’s an idiot-proof starch. But ahhhhh…the Mysteries of Rice…
(Try converted rice if you want dry, separate grains. Most Creole and Cajun cookbooks specify converted rice. It takes no longer to cook than regular long-grain white rice, and is actually better for you…the pre-milling parboiling forces nutrients from the husk into the kernel.)
I eat Jasmine rice of the kind that you get at any Asian supermarket in the 25 or 50 pound sacks. This rice must be washed, as it is a natural product of the earth & therefore might contain the occasional pebble or dead insect (although in 15-20 years of washing my rice I’ve never found any prizes myself).
I’m not sure what people are asking for when they say they don’t want their rice to clumped together. No-stick rice was an abomination brought to us by the Kraft Foods Company, makers of Minute® Rice. Cooked rice should be fluffy, not hard and have just a little clump factor, otherwise how the heck can you pick it up with your chopsticks?
Maybe you’re not washing your rice & it’s getting all stuck together by the powdered starch & other impurities? I know that if I ever served rice that didn’t clump (at least a little) to any of my Asian friends they probably would never come back to eat at my place again.
I wash two cups of rice until the water runs clear. Then cover it with twice as much water (4 cups) and a dash of salt (more salt if you want to be able to taste it after cooking). Add some turmeric if you want a yellow tint. Set it on high heat & cover, watch it carefully until it starts to boil over. Then turn off the heat & stir to dislodge any grains that have begun to stick to the bottom of the pot. Then cover & allow to sit another 15-20 minutes until all remaining water has been absorbed. Stir again & rice should be tender, not sticky & it should climp a little bit.
Note: Rice is sticky by nature (it’s a starch, go figure). Just as pasta “sticks to a wall” when done, rice grains naturally have some stickiness factor after cooking. In some Asian contries where the quality of glue on postage stamps is inferior, a single grain of cooked rice is pressed between the stamp & the envelope. If you ever have to re-use a stamp, it works like a charm.
“Hey, here is a hint, read the original posting!
Sorry, couldn’t resist”
I bet. However, there is more than one kind of plain white rice…duh.
My wife is Chinese. She only uses a rice cooker to make rice.
handy, I wish I had a dime for every time I’ve followed the package directions exactly and still had the rice come out awful. I’ve begun to think it’s a vast conspiracy. I’ve tried different types, too.
I finally broke down and got a rice steamer but I got a cheap one which died after two uses. I recommend going a little nicer than the cheapest model. I need to replace mine. Grrrrrrrrrr.