how to cook rice on the stove.
Here’s your guide on how to cook perfect fluffy rice with step-by-step pictures. This is how I cook rice every day for my family, I have not used a rice cooker for a very long time, it’s a skill that I like to maintain despite having various cooking rice options.
- Prep time
- 5 min
- Cook time
- 20 min
- Yield
- 1 serving
- Difficulty
- MEDIUM
Ingredients
- The ingredients mentioned below use standard measuring cups and spoons.
- 1 cup rice
- 2 cup water
- 1/2 tsp salt
- 2 ″ strips of Pandan leaf(adds a subtle fragrance to rice, optional ingredient)
Instructions
- 1
Add rice to the pan you are cooking it in, make sure the pan has a wide mouth.
- 2
Place the pan under running water, fill the water until the rice is submerged.
- 3
Swirl the water with your fingers, and rub the rice between your fingers gently while they are submerged.
- 4
Then drain the water completely, and repeat another 3 times
- 5
Measure and add the correct amount of water(tips and rice quantity to cook notes written above).
- 6
The formula to remember is 1:2:3, which means 1 cup of rice will need two cups of water and will yield 3 cups of cooked rice.
- 7
In this demonstration, I’m adding two cups of water. Season with salt, 1/2 a teaspoon to start with, taste and add a pinch more.
- 8
Add 2 strips of pandan leaf to the rice, you can skip this part if you don’t have them.
- 9
Pandan leaves add a pleasing fragrance to the cooked rice.
- 10
Place the pan with the washed rice over a stovetop and cook over medium-high heat.
- 11
Gently bring the rice to a boil and cook for 5 minutes. You will notice a layer of large bubbles appearing on the surface.
- 12
Once the 5 minutes are over, bring down the heat to medium and cook until the rice is visible.
- 13
At this stage, you will notice the small holes appearing on the surface of the rice. This is your visual sign to bring down the heat to low.
- 14
At the above stage, the rice is almost cooked but is still hard in the middle, which will give you a grainy texture when you bite into it.
- 15
Cover the pan with a lid and make sure you maintain low heat.
- 16
Cook for 3 minutes, letting the trapped heat completely evaporate any moisture left in the bottom.
- 17
Once your 3 minutes are done, remove the rice from the stove and leave the rice pan as it is for another 5 minutes.
- 18
If you are bad at keeping minutes, then listen until you hear a constant ticking noise. this is the first sign that your rice is sticking to the pan, remove it immediately from the stove.This is a small tip I came up with for my eldest daughter when I taught her to cook rice on the stove.
- 19
Remove the lid and let the rice cool for 10 minutes with the lid off.
- 20
Gently fluff the rice with a fork, making sure to bring the rice from the bottom to the top.
- 21
Avoid using a spoon as you want the delicate grains not to break.
- 22
Transfer to a bowl and serve with the above-mentioned curry options