Tips for Cooking Rice: Rice is cooked in millions of households every day, yet cooking it properly still bedevils many aspiring cooks. Cooking tasty rice can be a simple process, provided you follow a few simple steps.
Use a ratio of 2 cups of water or broth to 1 cup of rice:
Too little liquid results in partially cooked rice burnt to the bottom of the pot. Too much liquid, results in gloppy mushy rice.
Always rinse your rice:
Before cooking rice, always rinse it. This will make it less sticky and prevent it from clumping together.
Add salt/seasonings to water before adding rice:
Don’t wait until the rice is cooked to add seasoning. This ensures an even flavoring throughout the rice. You can also add other spices like cardamom or cinnamon with the salt. And if you want to be adventurous, substitute coconut milk for water.
Add a splash of oil to your rice to prevent the individual grains from sticking together: For rice that you don’t want to stick together, add a dash of oil or a pat of butter into the cooking liquid. As the rice cooks, it’ll prevent it from sticking together and give you beautiful defined grains.
Rice cooking temperature:
Once you add rice to boiling water, reduce heat to low or medium/low heat, stir once or twice, and then cover pot. Check periodically for doneness.
Towel underneath the lid:
During the final stages of cooking, place a kitchen towel underneath the lid to absorb any condensation and prevent it from getting mushy. The idea here is that the towel traps the condensation that would otherwise rain back down onto the rice and cause it to get soggy. Just place the towel underneath the lid during the last few minutes of cooking.
Fluff rice with a fork: Just before serving the rice, gently fluff the rice with a fork to separate the grains.
