how to cook rice.md

How to Cook Rice

I asked my dad how to cook rice without a rice cooker. He said this works for any variety of rice.

Materials

• semi-thick iron pot with cover (we use 0.2-0.25 inch thick)
• several cups of rice (2-5 cups)
• tap water

Iron Pot is preferable because it heats up more slowly but traps heat better than aluminum. Aluminum heats faster, which may lead to more overcooked rice at the bottom of the pot.

For reference our iron pot is about 0.2-0.25 inch thick. I don't know if thickness will affect the quality of the cooked rice.

Steps

1. Place 2-5 cups of rice inside your cooking pot.
2. You may or may not want to wash your rice with water. Just make sure you don't wash it too much because that might remove vitamin B, etc.
3. Add water inside the cooking pot, so that the rice is submerged by 0.75-1 inch of water.
4. Cover the pot and cook in a gas range, high heat.
5. Avoid removing the cover. Once the water almost dried-up (i.e. the rice isn't submerged anymore), lower the heat and cook for 5-10 minutes more, depending on the number of cups of rice. Do not remove the cover at this point at all.
6. Turn off the gas range. Let the rice cook itself with its own stored heat for another 5-10 minutes. Do not remove the cover at all.
7. Your rice is now cooked. Remove the cover.

We use one of our fingers for measuring the height of the water.

Also, I suggest keeping the max combined height of your rice and water be 2/3 or 3/4 the total height of your cooking pot. Not only will it prevent you from making a mess while cooking, it might improve heat circulation, leading to better cooked rice.

Cooking rice this way may still lead to overcooked/hard rice at the bottom of the pot. You can reduce the amount of overcooked rice by increasing/decreasing the amount of time spent cooking in low heat. You just have to get the hang of it.

When we say "low heat", we don't crank our gas ranges' knob all the way down, we crank it all the way up until the fire is so weak, it is barely surviving.

I hate washing dishes that have dried traces of rice because it sticks very well. Submerge your pots/dishes to prevent it from drying.