Cooking Rice.
"One and a half cups of water per cup of rice" works for two cups and fails for six. The steam escaping from the lid does not care how much rice is in the pot.
Plate VII.4 measured what happens inside a grain: white rice must absorb a little more than its own weight of water and gelatinise right through. In the absorption method the cook must also supply the water the pot loses as steam while it simmers and rests — and that depends on the lid, the heat and the time, not on the amount of rice. So the right ratio of water to rice is not fixed: it falls as the batch grows. That is why so many cooks measure by the finger instead — water to the first knuckle above the rice, whatever the quantity — which adds roughly a fixed depth for steam on top of what the rice absorbs.
Other methods manage water differently. A rice cooker seals the pot, so it loses little, and stops when the free water is gone and the pot's temperature rises past 100 °C. Pilaf (XXIX.6) toasts the grains in fat first, coating them so they stay separate, then cooks them in a measured amount of stock. Risotto adds hot stock a ladle at a time while stirring, rubbing surface starch into a creamy sauce. Boiling in plenty of water and draining, like pasta, needs no measuring at all and gives the most separate grains. The workshop measures the water.
Below: the water needed for the amount of rice you choose: what the grains absorb (by variety) plus what the pot loses as steam (by the lid you choose, over the cooking and resting time), and the resulting water-to-rice ratio by weight.
- Explain why the water ratio falls as the batch grows.
- Use the finger method.
- Compare absorption, pilaf, risotto and the rice cooker.
- Rest rice before serving.
Absorbed plus evaporated
For jasmine rice in a pot with a tight lid, 200 g of rice needs a ratio of about 1.45 and a kilogram only 1.33, because the same 30 g or so leaves as steam either way; with a loose lid 200 g needs about 1.60. Recipes written for one quantity drift when scaled (XXIII.3). Measure rice and water by weight for repeatability, or use the knuckle, which builds the evaporation allowance in.
Method by absorption: rinse the rice until the water is nearly clear; soak japonica and basmati 20–30 minutes (drain and account for the water they took up); bring rice and water to the boil, stir once, cover, turn the heat to the lowest; cook 12–15 minutes for white rice, 35–40 for brown; then rest, covered, off the heat, for 10 minutes, so moisture evens out and the bottom releases. Fluff and serve. A rice cooker does the same by itself. Keep cooked rice hot above 60 °C or cool it within an hour and refrigerate (XII.9).
Cook 200 g of rice by weight with the ratio this plate gives for your pot. Next time cook 600 g using the same ratio and compare the results.
Terms
- Absorption method
- Cooking rice in just the water it absorbs plus what evaporates.
- Pilaf
- Rice toasted in fat and cooked in a measured amount of stock.
- Risotto
- Rice cooked with stock added gradually while stirring, giving a creamy sauce.
- Finger method
- Water to the first knuckle above the rice.
Sources
- A teaching value chosen for the course: the right order of magnitude and shape, not a measurement of a particular food.
- H. McGee, On Food and Cooking: The Science and Lore of the Kitchen, 2nd ed., Scribner, 2004.