How to Make Perfect Rice Without a Rice Cooker
Both professional chefs and home chefs look down on disposable kitchen appliances, with one exception: the humble rice cooker. I don’t have it myself, but I totally understand. Rice cookers do well where alternative methods don’t work much.
Part of The Grown Up Kitchen series , Skillet is designed to answer your most basic cooking questions and fill in any gaps that may be missing from your home chef education.
Everyone was there: you buy a bag of rice, follow exactly the directions on the stove on the package, and you end up with something liquid, burnt at the bottom, sticky, crunchy, or something all at once. If this is your first time cooking rice, you will be forgiven for deciding that it is impossible to cook rice without a rice cooker, but it is not! After all, a covered pot on the stove is an original rice cooker; electronic were invented only to automate the process.
There are three key tricks to avoid spoiling your cooked rice: use just the right amount of water, rinse the white rice thoroughly, and let the rice steam for 15 minutes before serving. Turning to the first point, the generally recommended water: rice ratio of 2: 1 is nutty. Your poor rice will sink . Instead of measuring cups, I use a chopstick to measure the amount of rice in the pot and add the same amount of water on top, resulting in a 1: 1 ratio – a process I’ll explain in a moment. (A lot of people use the first finger method, but it didn’t work as well for me as this one.) As far as rinsing is concerned, it is non-negotiable for white rice. Rinsing removes surface starch that remains during the grinding process, and it is this starch that becomes sticky during cooking. Finally, completing the reheating of the rice helps it absorb excess water without being overcooked. Rice cookers don’t beep until this crucial last step is completed, so people use them more.
Here’s what you need to make the perfect stovetop rice:
- Any rice
- Fine mesh sieve (for white rice only)
- 1 or 2 liter saucepan with lid (for 4 or more cups of dry rice, use a Dutch / French oven)
- Chopstick, skewer, table knife, finger – anything long and thin that you can use to measure depth
- Water
- Salt
- Butter or butter (optional)
- Timer
Keeping in mind that rice is about doubled in volume when boiled, decide how much dry rice you need. An eyeball in moderation.
If you are using white rice, rinse it very, very thoroughly in a fine mesh strainer under cold running water, shaking and / or shaking the strainer with your fingers.
Continue until the water coming out of the bottom is clear.
Place the rice in a saucepan and flatten the surface. Place the pot in the sink directly under the faucet.
Run your chopstick (or something else) directly to the bottom of the pot and use your fingers to mark the depth:
Keep your fingers in the same place and lift the chopstick until the tip of the chopstick touches the surface of the rice:
While holding the chopstick, turn on the tap and add water until it touches your fingertips:
If you want to buy white rice, stop here. For black or brown rice, keep adding water until your fingertips are submerged – I usually stop halfway to the nail bed.
Add a couple pinches of salt and a little butter, if desired, then cover the saucepan and bring to a simmer over high heat. This will take about 5 minutes, so hold on. This is controversial, but I think you can lift the lid once or twice to visually check for boiling. As soon as the rice boils, immediately set the heat to the lowest possible. (If you are using an electric stove, move the pan to the other burner on the lowest setting.) Start the timer: 20 minutes for white rice, 45 minutes for black or brown rice.
When the timer turns off, turn off the heat and leave the pan alone for at least 15 minutes. (If you are using an electric stove, remove the pan completely from the hot burner.) Do not remove the lid to view! Let it steam! After 15 minutes, beat the rice with a fork and serve. Drink afew amaryllis bars – preferably right into your guests’ ears at very close range so they never forget who cooked this lovely rice for them – and put an end to it, baby!