Whether you're having Asian, Indian, or Mexican food - a very common side dish is rice. I feel like rice should be one of the easiest things in the world to cook, I mean there are literally billions of people in this world who eat rice with every meal. But for whatever reason, rice has long been one of the hardest things for me to cook. Every time I cooked rice it ended up as this sticky gooey substance that looked more like paste and less like food. About a year ago I decided to do something about it and so I researched how to properly cook rice. Ever since then I've been making rice worthy of serving in the finest of restaurants. And I wanted to share the secrets with everyone.
Really it comes down to two tricks to yield perfect rice.
Step 1
Before you cook the rice, you need to rinse or wash the rice. You can do this in a colander, sieve, or strainer. The other method (what I do) is to wash the rice in the pot you're going to cook it in. Place your rice in the pot and fill with lots of water. Use your hands (or a spoon) to stir the rice. Let the rice settle and pour out as much of the water as you can. Then add the measured amount of water for cooking.
What you're doing in step 1 is removing the excess starch on the rice. If you cook the rice without doing this the excess starch actually thickens the water as the rice cooks preventing all the water from evaporating cleanly.
Step 2
The second step, when the rice is cooking do NOT stir the rice. Put the rice and water in a pot and bring to a boil. Once it boils, turn the heat down to low and let it simmer. But do NOT stir the rice during cooking. If you stir the rice you release starch which again will result in a thick gooey mess.
If you follow these two simple steps you two will make wonderful rice you can be proud of.
