Monday, June 24, 2013

How to Cook Rice on the Stove


A rice cooker is a great tool to have around if you have the space and like using one, but in my experience it's not at all necessary. We cook rice almost every day, and have on occasion gone years without one. I picked one up back at Christmas, but it's broken now so I'm back to cooking rice on the stove. It's really easy, though, so here's how to cook rice on the stove:

In general a 2:1 ratio of water to rice works well for almost every kind of rice. (If you're unsure, check your package.) In this case I'm making a short-grain white rice, so 2:1 is just great.

To write this up as a recipe, here's what I'll be using:

1 cup short-grain white rice
2 cups water

Here is 1 cup of rice:


You can rinse the rice if you want to. Rinsing will make the rice less sticky and starchy; it will also remove some of the nutrients. Honestly, it's your choice as to how you want it to turn out when you're done. Today I want mine kind of sticky and starchy, so I'm not going to rinse it.  I'm just going to put a cup of rice in the pot and then two cups of water over it.

With 2 cups of water:

Some people like to add salt or butter to the water to add a bit of flavor, and that's fine if you want to do that. I'm not going to, though.

Now turn the stove to high and bring it to a boil:


Mine is really boiling, because I forgot I was doing this. Just watch for it to start a rolling boil, and as soon as you see the boil cover the pot with a pan and turn the heat on the burner down as low as it will go on your stove.


It might boil over a little bit when you put the lid on, but just try to ignore that. It helps to make the rice in a large enough pot so that doesn't happen.

Leave the pot covered on the lowest temperature for 15 minutes. Do not lift the lid. After 15 minutes, move the pot over to a cool burner or onto a trivet on the counter and let it stand for another 15 minutes. Still do not lift the lid from the pot.


After 15 minutes have passed, you can finally lift up the lid and fluff up your rice with a fork or spatula.


The rice should take just about 30 minutes from start to finish exactly, which in my experience is exactly as long as it takes for dinner to be ready. I put the rice on to boil and cover it. In the 15 minutes before I move it off the burner, I do my chopping and seasoning for whatever the main dish will be. Then it takes about 15 minutes to actually cook the dish, at which point the rice has sat in its own steam for plenty of time, and the whole thing is ready to serve:

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