For some reason, cooking good rice has always been very challenging for me. It took me years to learn how to make decent white rice– rice that is cooked completely/not too watery or sticky/not burned. It seems like it should be easy enough to follow the directions, but directions aren’t consistent with rice/water ratios and there are many different types of rice. Also, I usually buy bulk rice and do not have the packaging to refer to for directions.
Brown rice is even trickier. I had not succeeded in cooking perfectly fluffy brown rice until I discovered this recipe, which is ripped off from another blog who ripped it off from the Saveur website. The main idea is to boil and drain the rice like pasta, then steam it in the pot with the remaining moisture. This achieves a nice fluffy texture and maintains the integrity of the rice grains.
The Recipe
- Brown rice
- Water – use at least six cups of water for every one cup of rice*
- Salt – to taste
1. Rinse rice in a strainer under cold running water for 30 seconds. Bring 6 cups water to a boil in a large pot with a tight-fitting lid over high heat. Add the rice, stir it once, and boil, uncovered, for 30 minutes. Pour the rice into a strainer over the sink.
2. Let the rice drain for 10 seconds, then return it to the pot, off the heat. Cover the pot and set it aside to allow the rice to steam for 10 minutes. Uncover the rice, fluff with a fork, and season with salt.
*The Saveur recipe recipe calls for 12 cups water per cup of rice, but I’ve found that 6 cups water is sufficient (4 cups is not enough).
This is what is great about this approach:
- You can use any amount of rice. My problem with following rice recipes is that they’re all for 1 cup of rice and the water/rice proportions don’t scale in a logical way. Asian friends have told me “you just put in water up to the first knuckle of your pinky finger when placed over the rice.” Yeah, right. Do you mean an Asian girl pinky finger or a Cody Nancy Ramsey pinky finger? This here recipe allows you to cook 1/2 cup rice or 5 cups rice.
- The pot is WAY easier to clean because you’re not boiling the rice until the water is gone. Big perk.
- No boiling over because you cook the rice with lid off. One of the things I hate more than ironing is wiping down the stove top. Stab stab.
Piggy Goes To Market 