Food and Cooking

My method is similar to a few other people in this thread, but thought I’d write a really verbose essay about it all. I love rice, man.

My parents are from Hong Kong. For me, rice is simple — cooked with just water. No salt, no stock, no veggies. There is a time and place for that, but I’ll go to Texas for good mexican rice.

DISCLAIMER: Yes, a rice cooker is the easiest way to get perfect rice. Still, just like knowing how to do dishes by hand or how to mince garlic with a knife not a press, making rice in a pot is something I take a silly amount of pride in. (And I find it marginally faster — 20 min vs 30-40min)

Add rice and water to a non-stick pot. I have made rice in a stainless steel pot, but would not recommend it. If you cook your rice perfectly, cleanup is mildly annoying. A minute over, and it’s a bitch. If you burn the rice? God help you. (My tip? A one hour soak to loosen things up.) Non-stick is way more forgiving.

The proportion of rice to water here is KEY. If I were less lazy, I would measure out how much I use. But frankly, I never touch my measuring cups in the kitchen anyway, unless I’m baking. The best tip I can give you is something my mom taught me. Stick your index finger so it’s hovering right above the rice, then fill the pot with water up to your first knuckle-joint. I wish I had more precise numbers to give you, but I think they’d be useless rather than instructive. The amount of water you add varies depending on the type of rice, the diameter of your pot, and the amount of rice you put in. I promise you though, as you keep making rice, you’ll nail down the ratio.

Too much water and the rice will be gummy. It will have the consistency of a soft cheese. This is pretty much one of the worst sins you can commit in the kitchen. At this point, salvage the batch by making congee with it.

Too little water and the resulting rice will be puck-like in the pot. The grains will stick to itself and generally feel tacky in the mouth. This is hard to do as long as you add water above the level of rice. As a general rule: err on the side of less water rather than more.

Turn on the stove. The goal here is just to get the water boiling. If you’re impatient and hungry like I am, and the rice is the last thing standing between you and digging into a delicious curry/stir-fry/chicken and broccoli leftovers, then blast that shit with as much heat as you can, and put the lid on your pot. Don’t worry about anything burning. The water should insulate the temperature of everything in the pot until it starts to boil. Do not, under any circumstances, leave the pot unattended at this step if you are an impatient pot blaster. You will ruin your rice.

Immediately, once the water boils, turn the stove to the lowest setting possible. In the previous step, we put a lid on the pot to help the water boil faster, but in this step, it keeps the pot insulated and the water boiling. The water will continue to simmer and cook the rice. You let this sit until…

You don’t see water in the pot. When you look at the rice it should look slightly moist, not wet or soggy. When this happens, kill the stove. Next, just let it sit for 10 minutes. LEAVE THE LID ON. Under the lid, something magical is happening. The moisture from the rice is evaporating into steam, cooking the rice even further. Excess moisture is condensing on top, dripping back down, and then evaporating again. This step will ensure that the any extra moisture disappears, leaving the rice clump-free. Remember: just like a good steak, a perfect pot of rice requires a little rest.

This entire process should take around 20 minutes. Take off the lid and stir the rice with a fork. Ideally, nothing sticks to the bottom, and the rice is beautiful and fluffy and separates grain by grain. (This is made easier if you wash the rice beforehand, which lowers starch content overall, but who has the time?!)

Clean the pot immediately to minimize starchy stickiness. Enjoy your rice. Leftovers can go in the fridge and make great fried rice after a day. Alternatively, the microwave is a perfect method for reheating old rice, as it resteams the rice from the inside out