Anyone a pro at cooking rice?

[Bumbun]

I’m not bad at cooking rice, it’s perfectly acceptable - never mushy, never hard. However… we had rice yesterday at a Persian restaurant and it was just divine! It was so super soft, light and not one grain was stuck together, it was cooked to perfection. It was relatively plain (saffron rice) and I’d love to be able to recreate it at home.

Any ideas on how to get that perfect texture?!

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Mine's this one, but for some reason it's about half the price over here in Canada than it is in the UK:

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1. Good quality basmati rice - Tilda or M&S organic basmati are my faves
2. measure out exactly one mug - I do 1:1 rice to water ratio (taught by an Indian friend who owns a restaurant)
3. wash and soak the rice for 1-3 hrs (I skip this step when in a rush)
4. drain
5. take a heavy bottomed pan that has a well fitting lid and heat it up on a low heat - big enough for your rice to expand and still only take up half the pain
6. put well drained rice in, sprinkle over tsp of sea salt, stir with a wooden spoon ensuring grains are dry, pour over one mug’s worth (use same mug) of warm water, give one stir then shut lid and reduce hear to smallest flame
7. leave for 10mins then turn heat off (don’t open!!!)
8. leave for a further 5, open lid and fluff through with a fork

This is perfect every time. No rice cooker needed

We've been using a plastic microwave rice cooker that cost about £5 from a Singaporean supermarket, for 20 years now! The Chinese people I knew at uni all used rice cookers.

The joy of tariffs I guess!

Same here, fed up with old things portrayed as new things

Pan, mug of rice, 1.7 mug of water, once its boiling turn down the heat and put a tight lid on, have it on the lowest heat until rice is done. Dont touch that rice!

Plenty of salt and oil.

My mum used to fry up onion in the pan before adding the rice and I do that also with peppers. Lovely.

I make good rice. I too do 1 rice to 1 water. Measure out and rinse till water runs clear - i just pop in a pot in the bottom of sink with water running. If I remember earlier I soak for a few hours which speeds up rinsing.
Draun add 1:1 cold water, bring to boil turn down low until all fluffy( about 15 mins).

I am superb at rice and this is the method I use. I do rinse it through after with half a kettle of boiling water and once that has drained out, get wonderfully fluffy rice. I have no idea why there is so much angst about the method used, all the measuring and turning heat on or off and leaving lids on or off.

Dh is from ME and was absolutely fascinated (read horrified) when my family back home cooked him rice 😂 That how we rock🤘
(image not mine)

Rice cooker! Perfect every time

Easy method that works every time with zero faff:
Pour rice into saucepan.
Add water measuring from tip of your thumb up to the first thumb joint.
Gently simmer until most water has disappeared.
Pop lid on pan, turn off heat, and leave for around 10/15 mins.
Nice fluffy rice!

Yes, I have never worked out why it's essential that you put in the exact amount of water that will result in no excess water and also no burning or gloop!

If you don’t wash your rice it will be coated in starchy powder that happens naturally from all the grains rubbing together in the sack. When you put the water in that will make a thin starchy mixture that effects the “sogginess” of the end product. When we say “wash” what we are doing is rinsing that away so the rice cooks in clear clean water.
I expect to some extent you could rinse it away with boiling water at the end but you would be left with quite wet rice which isn’t desirable.
If you are cooking a short grain rice then proportions and timing changes and for me (and much of the heavy rice eating world) if you are cooking American long grain you might as well not bother😆

Tilda packets. Two minutes in the microwave. Save yourself the heartache.

I am in Africa. I don't wash my rice beforehand.

But I also do not understand why some people find cooking rice problematic.

We have long grain rice mostly, so it is just doubling up the water amount to the rice amount, add salt and boil until the water has been absorbed. It does take slightly longer to cook than for eg, basmati which cooks really fast. Using the same ratio and method.

My dad’s method has never ever failed. Wash rice thoroughly, cover in cold water. Bring to rolling boil with lid, turn off heat and leave for 20 mins.
perfect rice. I don’t know how, it’s magic to me.

I’ve done this plenty of times, and it’s ok. Especially if you’re careful not to overcook it when boiling. The kettles of boiling water poured over do rinse out a lot of starch and the rice is decent, especially if you can let it steam a bit so it’s not too wet.

Disadvantages with this method, and the reason I don’t do this any more:

You can’t add any flavours into the rice. No spices, onion, absorbing tasty stock or lemon or coconut milk that it was cooked in. This is the main for me as usually we do something extra.

It’s easy to over cook it. When you only add the amount of water needed to perfectly cook the grains and no more, it can’t overcook.

It’s tricky to drain and wash lots of rice for more than 4 hungry people doing it this way, as I find it needs at least one full kettle of boiling water and ideally two, to rinse off a full sieve of drained rice. Whereas if it’s in a large flat pan you’re not constrained by size of kettle or sieve. Obv not insurmountable but it makes this a bit more annoying.

Plus it’s really really easy to cook rice with the absorption method. It is more gentle, and keeps each grain whole and firm. It sounds like a faff if you’re not used to it, but it’s incredibly easy.

The descriptions given here of the absorption method with long grain will give you light and separate rice, and is the method used in most rice eating countries.

HOWEVER, if you want to cook rice in a Persian style, the recipe is different. It involves washing long-grain rice, then soaking, then par-cooking it in a large amount of salted water, which is then drained off in a sieve or colander. Then the rice is VERY slowly steamed over the lowest heat you can manage with no additional water added and a tea towel stretched across the top of the pot (between the pot and the lid) to keep as much moisture as possible inside. Various additions can be put at the bottom of the pot before starting this steaming stage to get a crisp crust at the bottom of the pot. This is called tahdig, and it's considered the mark of a good cook to get a good tahdig.

Iranians often do use rice cookers. My closest Asian grocery is run by an Iranian person, and they sell Iranian rice cookers there. While I've never used one, I do wonder if they heat the rice to a lower temperature then your standard Chinese rice cooker so as to get the desired result.

Rice in Persian is chelow. If you look up cooking methods using the word, you'll get step by step descriptions, often with photos of how it should look at each stage.

Alternatively, if you look up Persian rice on the Serious Eats website, they also give a step by step description, with photos.

I grew up with parents running a Chinese restaurant.

Rice is washed multiple times, I tend to wash it 8 times as it’s a lucky number but really it just needs this much rinsing to run clear.

Rice is cooked in a rice cooker.

If not available then it’s put in a heavy based pan and then cold water is added, I’m so used to it I just add water by sight. Then brought to the boil, left to boil for about 30 seconds and then the lid put on and left for 30 minutes.

I stayed with Friends in the summer and cooked a dinner for them so used method as no rice cooker. I even dished it up just like we did in the restaurant so they got a nice dome each. Home made soup and three dishes. My friend just looked at her DH and said don’t ever expect this from me.

My family originated from Gujarat india. My mum always made rice like italians make pasta. Boil basmati/long grain/or brown rice until its cooked, keep checking, white rice only takes a few minutes, brown rice can take 20 minutes. Then drain the water. You will never end up with sticky rice

We use the Joseph Joseph microwave rice cooker and much prefer it to our old rice cooker. Makes perfect rice everytime.

it really isn't the rice cooker.

1. the type of rice, much supermarket rice is rubbish. Long grain is much more sticky than basmati.
2. you must rinse rice if you don't want it to stick
3. don't overcook it.

This is exactly how I cook mine. It also gets a 5-10 minute soak before cooking which makes a big difference to the final texture.