by Sheree Zielke

Created on: April 01, 2007   Last Updated: May 15, 2007

Cooking great fluffy rice every time is as easy as 1-2-3-4. But only if you know these tricks. Especially trick #4.

Trick #1

Rice is cooked 2-1. That's 2 parts (cups) water to 1 part (cup) of WHITE rice (brown rice and wild rices are cooked a little differently). And you MUST measure accurately or your rice will end up being either too dry or too wet.

Trick #2

Use a solid heavy pot with a fitted lid. This is a must. Measure your water into the pot, add 1 teaspoon of salt per 2 cups of water, and heat to boiling. Be ready to add your rice as soon as the water is boiling, because you don't want any of your liquid to boil away.

Trick #3

When the water is boiling, add the rice. Stir gently but quickly. Now put the lid on the pot. Turn the burner down to a low to medium setting. Set your timer for 20 minutes.

Trick #4 (the best trick of all):

Your pot lid will pop up and down due to the steam coming off the rice as it cooks. But it's that steam that is needed to cook your rice to perfection.
Here's what you do:

Fold a tea towel in quarters or smaller. Be SURE the folded towel is no bigger than the pot lid; you don't want the towel touching the burner and catching fire.

Put the folded towel on top of the pot lid. The weight of the towel is just enough to keep most of the steam inside the pot, while allowing the pot to let off a little steam during the cooking process.

When the timer goes off, remove your pot from the burner, but keep the lid on for another couple of minutes. This allows the captive steam to be absorbed back into the rice.

After that, take off the lid and serve as you wish.

Perfect rice every time!

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