Never Mess Up White Rice Again _ Epicurious 101

Hi , my name is Taka Saka .

I'm a professional chef and today I'm gonna show you the best way to make white rice at home .

We're gonna be going over techniques the pros use so you can make perfect white fluffy rice .

This is white rice .

101 .

The steps to cooking white rice is very simple and straightforward .

By understanding a few concepts .

We're gonna learn how to make the perfect rice today .

The method I'm showing you is for short grain , Japanese rice .

I'll be going over how to cook this type of rice without a rice cooker .

First thing that we're gonna do is we're gonna measure out the rice .

I'm gonna be making two cups of rice .

I have a one cup measure here .

Nice to the top and we're gonna get one more cup .

I'm going to go ahead and start the rinsing process here .

The first rinse is where it's going to have the most starch content .

What we're trying to do here is to remove some of the starch so that when we're cooking it , we don't end up with a gummy mess .

They're using cold water .

We're just going to use a kind of a claw hand here and agitate the rice as this is in the water .

The agitation here is to help kind of remove this starch from the surface of the rice .

We can see here the initial rinse , a lot of starches being released into the water .

And this is really important that we try to discard this water as quickly as possible .

If we let it sit in this water , this starch water will go back into the rice .

So after the first rinse , we're going to go ahead and rinse it several more times until the water runs clear .

This 2nd and 3rd , rinsing is not really about the rice anymore .

It's just making sure that the starch is suspended in the water .

So that when we discard the water , that there's no starch left on the bottom , this is essentially our third rinse .

The water is clear , we can see the rice all the way straight through .

So we're gonna go ahead and let the water drain out at this point .

I'm going to set a timer for five minutes .

Uh This is really about consistency uh making the rice over and over .

If I let this rest for a random number of minutes , then the amount of water that's left into the rice is going to be different every time .

Something that I'd like to touch on and talk about is the fact that this has this emblem here that says new crop And so this is indicating that this was recently harvested .

So that means that generally speaking , there's going to be more water content in those grains of rice .

All the rice is harvested one time of the year .

And so throughout the year that rice is sitting and is drying over time , different brands will have slightly different water content and moisture .

And also even the difference between a short grain and medium grain will change dry in terms of how much water you will need .

This is why cooking rice is a science and you're gonna have to experiment in order to get it perfect for you .

So if you're gonna start experimenting , making rice in a pot at home , please try to stick with one company , one rice varietal , making sure that all the variables are the same .

So all we're concerned about is how much water we're putting into the pot .

Generally , if you've never cooked rice before , a good place to start is one part of dry rice to 1.2 parts of water .

Also , depending on the volume of rice that you're cooking , the ratio will actually change and fluctuate as well .

And so if we're cooking a small batch of rice , you actually need more water .

Today , we're doing two cups , let's say now taking that and if you're doing 10 cups of rice , the ratio is actually getting closer and closer to 1 to 1 as you increase your volume of rice I have a three quart sauce pan here , which is a decent size for cooking this amount of rice .

So here I have the two cups of dry rice uh going into the pot .

And so once this goes into the pot , I want to make sure that this is nice and level because once I put the water in here , I no longer want to agitate this rice .

This is really important .

We're trying to make sure that the starch stays on the rice and doesn't come into the water .

I have here , two and a quarter cups of water , which I'll be gently pouring over the rice here where I did pour , I just want to refill that gap so that the rice is sitting nice and evenly .

If you don't even it out , we will have different spots where there will be no rice cooking .

And so it will be very uneven in those sections .

So we have it on high heat here .

So we're trying to bring it to a boil as fast as we can .

And then we're going to fill the lid on there , bring it down to a simmer so we can trap the steam .

We have the rice now simmering , our timer is set at 18 minutes .

And the most important thing during this process is not to take off the lid .

If you do lift the lid , all the steam is going to be released .

And that is the moisture we need to cook the rice throughout .

Having a glass lid does help so we can see what's going on inside and making sure that we do see some bubbling and that there is steam that is moving around .

Do not open the lid , don't do it .

So our 18 minute timer just went off and we're gonna go and turn off the fire .

But guess what still do not take off the lid .

I'm sorry , but we have to still wait 10 more minutes .

And so we're gonna let this rest and the residual heat and residual steam that's left in there is really gonna help make sure that the rice is evenly cooked throughout .

So taking these extra steps will ensure that you have evenly cooked beautiful fluffy rice and now the rice has been resting for 10 minutes .

We can finally take the lid off to see what we've made .

Oh , and so looking at the surface here looking pretty good , we can see individual grains of rice and as I'm mixing this and pulling this apart , you're seeing that the rice is sticking together nicely but not overly sticky .

And we're just gonna mix this so that the bottom here where the heat uh element is , it tends to be a little bit drier .

And so we're just gonna try to incorporate and make sure that the moisture content in the rice is all even throughout .

And we're gonna go ahead and put the lid back on to really evenly distribute the rest of this and they'll be ready to serve .

Now that the rice has been resting for the additional five minutes , we're ready to serve and we're just gonna be serving this as a side uh accompaniment .

Have a nice cute little bowl here and there .

You have it perfect way to cook Japanese short grain rice .

I'm gonna go ahead and give this a taste and make sure that uh everything came out nicely .

Uh So just looking at this again , looking at the individual grains looks great , has a nice firmness , but center is still cooked through nice and fluffy came out great .

This is an experiment and this is a work in progress until you figure out exactly what works best in your home kitchen in the pot that you're using and the rice varietal that you're using .

So don't get discouraged .

Even for professionals .

This is a process that sometimes takes 10 to 20 times to get it perfect for the restaurant .

Stay the course .

Keep experimenting and learning to improve .