How to Make Perfect Basmati Rice

Alright by your request, chef John, how do you make perfect white rice every time. I’m going to show you my method. It is extremely simple and if you follow these directions, it will work. First of all though, you need a nice pot to cook it in. One of the secrets is something with a nice tight fitting lid and also it needs to have a nice thick bottom so you can't really use those little thin aluminum cheap dollar store pans, it’s just not going to work. It’s just too thin so get yourself a nice pot, that’s the – I use and also I suggest you get basmati rice. Basmati rice, you can find that in the supermarket so you might be in the health food section, but it is a beautiful fragrant just really flavorful rice that just is very user friendly. So I used a two three method. Two cups of rice to three cups of water. I want you to put two and measure this very carefully. I want you to put two cups of the basmati rice in the pot. That’s one teaspoon of butter. You can use olive oil if you want, a pinch of salt and maybe half a teaspoon of salt and then carefully measure exactly three cups of cold water. Now some of you might think, I’m going to use hot water from the tap and get a little head start. Hot water stays in the pipes, it just sits and gets stale so never cook with hot water. So always nice fresh cold water so you’re going to see me put three cups in there. There’s the third one. So it’s two cups of rice to three cups of water. Most people put too much water in the rice so if you use that proportion, it’s going to be great. Take a fork and give it just a quick stir and that’s going to go on high heat. I want you to put it on high heat and when you just see it start to simmer, you see the bubbles in the middle start to come up, it’s not a rolling boil but it came to a simmer, I give it one quick stir with a fork and I want you to cover it and I want you to turn the heat down to low. Here’s what I mean by low. So that was high, then a little lower, a little less, right there. So there’s a visual for you. That’s low. And I want you to set the timer for 20 minutes exactly and then do not open the cover, do no touch it, don’t do anything for 20 minutes. When the timer goes off, take off the lid, one basmati two basmati, put it back on. That just released the steam. The heat is off. Set it for five more minutes and just let it sit with the heat off and that’s going to finish the cooking. You’re going to take the lid off and you’re going to find beautiful, beautiful rice. Now with a fork, at this point, you want to fluff it. You can see all these grains are just separate, but they are still a little bit sticky. It’s just perfect texture so just fluff it up with your fork and that really will stop the cooking if it’s still hot near the bottom and just give it- using the tips of the fork to kind of break things up and when you put it in your bowl, you’re going to find the most delicious, the most- You see that, it’s all there. The grains are pretty much separate but they do kind of stick together which is the perfect combination. So you want the rice to have a little bit of tackiness so they’re going to hold the sauce or the stew or the braised chicken, whatever you’re putting on top of there, this is not that converted Uncle Ben style rice where all the grains are perfectly separate. You see that’s not in my opinion not really good rice to use for the food. I want something more like I get at the Chinese restaurant or the Indian restaurant, this nice fluffy style rice. So be brave, follow the directions exactly and it will come out. Enjoy.