[Photograph: Derek Lucci]
Rising up in Thailand, I ate rice daily of my life; it is a vital part to any multi-dish Thai meal. Cooking rice was as pure as respiration, and a part of our each day routine—rinse the rice, add water till it reaches the suitable line, click on the “cook dinner” button, and achieved! Sure, like most Asians, I grew up utilizing a rice cooker, which seems completely steamed rice each time. So the primary time I left Thailand and needed to cook dinner rice on the stovetop, I used to be utterly misplaced. However this compelled me to consider what the rice cooker is definitely doing, and easy methods to get the identical end result with out one.
First, let me let you know {that a} rice cooker is not performing any culinary magic, it simply is aware of when to show itself off as soon as rice is completed cooking. However how does it know? It’s easy, but sensible: Even probably the most primary fashions of rice cookers are outfitted with a thermostat that switches off or lowers the depth of the unit’s heating factor as soon as the interior temperature of the cooking chamber rises above 212 levels Fahrenheit (100 levels Celsius). As we all know, that temperature is the boiling level of water at sea stage. The heating factor kicks on if you begin the rice cooker, ultimately bringing the liquid within the pot to a boil. This temperature is maintained till the entire liquid within the rice cooker has been absorbed by the rice or evaporated within the type of steam. With no extra water to boil, the interior temperature of the rice cooker spikes, triggering the thermostat’s shutoff function. Fairly easy! (Except you reside at excessive altitude, during which case you want to do some extra tinkering to compensate for the decrease boiling level of water.)
Cooking jasmine rice on a stovetop can be quite simple; it simply requires a bit of extra consideration in your half. When you perceive the keys to creating good rice, with a bit of apply, you, too, can prove completely cooked batches of rice that may rival the outcomes of a rice cooker.
When buying jasmine rice, search for jasmine rice from Thailand, which must be labeled “hom mali” rice; you also needs to look out for “new crop” rice, which is more energizing, fluffier, and extra aromatic than rice that has been aged for an extended time frame. This recipe can simply be scaled up by following the identical ratio of rice to measured water.
Listed below are the three keys to creating good stovetop jasmine rice:
Use the Proper Quantity of Water
The ratio of water to rice is the one most essential issue for producing well-cooked rice. For jasmine rice, the ratio of 1 half rice to 1.25 elements water (by quantity) is an efficient place to start out, and you’ll alter from there. If making fried rice utilizing a batch of freshly cooked rice, alter the ratio to 1:1 for barely drier grains. And use a ratio of 1:1.5 for brown jasmine rice, which requires an extended cooking time.
Rinse the Rice to Take away Extra Starch
Rinsing rice in cool water earlier than cooking helps to take away extra starch that’s left on the floor of the grains by the milling course of. The starch makes the cooked rice gummy and sticky, not the specified texture for cooked jasmine rice. For greatest outcomes, rinse raw rice in a big container of cool water, swishing the grains round by hand to launch extra starch, and repeat the method at the least as soon as extra. For plain cooked jasmine rice, two rinse cycles must be ample, however for fried rice we suggest washing the rice till the water runs clear, which is able to guarantee they cook dinner into individually distinct grains.
Cook dinner Low and Sluggish
Cook dinner rice on low warmth for even doneness, and to offer your self a much bigger margin of error. With excessive warmth, the outside of the grains can overcook by the point the within is cooked via. It will possibly additionally trigger an excessive amount of water evaporation, in case your pot would not have a tight-fitting lid. Lastly, low warmth cooking gives an enormous window of time between “achieved” and “burnt.” We’ve all been there: You flip away from the range for a minute to work on one other element of a meal and the following factor you realize you’re smelling one thing toasty!
