How to cook rice

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Methode

1. 1

   Rinse, and know what rinsing is for

   Rinsing removes loose surface starch, which is the stuff that turns into paste and glues grains together. Put the rice in a bowl, cover with cold water, swish with your hand, pour off the cloudy water, and repeat until it runs nearly clear, usually three or four changes. Rinse long-grain, basmati and jasmine every time. Do not rinse risotto rice or paella rice, where that surface starch is the sauce, and do not rinse enriched US white rice if you specifically want the added vitamins, which rinse off.

2. 2

   The ratios, by variety, for the absorption method

   Measured by volume, rice to water: long-grain white 1 to 1.5. Basmati 1 to 1.5, or 1 to 1.25 if you soaked it thirty minutes. Jasmine 1 to 1.25, because it is a softer grain and drinks less. Short-grain white 1 to 1.25. Brown rice 1 to 2 and it needs closer to forty minutes. Wild rice 1 to 3. Those are for a lidded pot on a stove, not for a rice cooker, which usually wants slightly less. Write your pot's number on a card once and stop guessing.

3. 3

   The method, in five moves

   Rinsed rice and measured water into a heavy pot with a tight lid, plus half a teaspoon of salt per cup of dry rice. Bring it to a hard boil uncovered. Turn the heat to its lowest setting, put the lid on, and set a timer: twelve minutes for jasmine, fifteen for long-grain white, eighteen for basmati, forty for brown. Do not lift the lid, because every peek releases the steam that is doing the cooking. Then off the heat entirely, lid still on, for ten minutes.

4. 4

   The ten-minute rest is where the texture happens

   When the timer goes off, the grains at the bottom are wetter than the grains at the top and the starch has not set. Ten minutes off the heat with the lid on redistributes that moisture and firms the structure, which is the difference between distinct grains and a slightly gluey mass. Fluff with a fork, not a spoon, lifting from the edge inward. If you want insurance against condensation dripping back in, lay a clean tea towel between the pot and the lid during the rest.

5. 5

   Salt the water, and consider salting it properly

   Rice cooked in plain water tastes like nothing and cannot be fixed afterwards, because salt added to finished grains sits on the outside. Half a teaspoon of kosher salt per cup of dry rice is the baseline. Replacing a third of the water with stock is the single biggest flavour upgrade available, and a knob of butter or a tablespoon of olive oil in the pot at the start keeps grains separate. A bay leaf, a bruised cardamom pod or a strip of lemon peel costs nothing and reads as effort.

6. 6

   Brown rice needs more water, more time and more rest

   The bran layer is the point of brown rice and it is also a water barrier, which is why the ratio goes to 1 to 2 and the time to forty minutes. It benefits more than white rice does from a soak, thirty to sixty minutes, which cuts five to ten minutes off the cook and softens the bran. Rest it fifteen minutes rather than ten. If it consistently comes out chalky in the middle, your lid is not tight and you are losing steam, so use foil under the lid.

7. 7

   The pilaf variation, which is a different dish in the same pot

   Toast the rinsed and dried rice in butter or oil over medium heat for two or three minutes until it smells nutty and turns slightly opaque, usually with a chopped shallot going in first. Then add hot liquid, and reduce the ratio by about a quarter cup per cup of rice because you have lost none to a boil and toasting hardens the exterior. Cook and rest as normal. The result is nuttier and far more distinctly separate, which is why every rice side in a restaurant is made this way.

8. 8

   What went wrong, in three symptoms

   Gummy and stuck together: too much water, or you skipped the rinse, or you stirred it during cooking. Crunchy in the middle with dry surface: not enough water, heat too high, or steam escaped through a loose lid. Scorched on the bottom: your lowest burner setting is not low enough, so use a heat diffuser or a heavier pot. A scorched bottom layer is salvageable, tip the good rice out of the top without scraping and do not stir the burnt part in.

9. 9

   Leftover rice, and the food-safety rule nobody mentions

   Uncooked rice carries Bacillus cereus spores that survive cooking. They are harmless until cooked rice sits at room temperature, at which point they germinate and produce a heat-stable toxin that reheating does not destroy. So cool cooked rice fast, spread it out rather than leaving it in a deep pot, refrigerate within an hour, keep it no more than three or four days, and reheat once until steaming. Day-old refrigerated rice is also the correct rice for fried rice, because it has dried out.