The 1-Minute Step That Ensures Fluffy, By no means-Gummy Rice

For one thing so seemingly easy, cooking actually good rice on the stovetop may be irritatingly arduous. It requires simply two substances—rice and water—however getting ready it completely may be awfully elusive, with many inquiries to reply and issues to resolve—whether or not or to not soak the grains or rinse them earlier than cooking, whether or not to softly steam the rice or vigorously boil it, and lots of rice to water ratios to contemplate.

I really like sticky rice when it is meant to be sticky, however once I’m cooking long-grain rice I would like it to be fluffy and completely tender, with every particular person cooked grain distinct, not clumped collectively. Whereas I really like my rice cooker, my go-to weeknight rice routine is cooking rice on the stovetop, and I all the time use this one easy trick that I discovered nearly twenty years in the past once I was working in restaurant kitchens. 

To make sure gentle, separated grains of long-grain rice, I am going by all the right steps: I all the time take away floor starch by soaking the uncooked grains in water after which rinsing and repeating the method till the water runs clear: I exploit the right ratio by quantity of water to rice, relying on the kind of rice (a one-to-one ratio by quantity of water to rice for white rice and two-to-one for brown rice); and I cook dinner the rice gently over low warmth to make sure evenly cooked grains and to forestall extreme water evaporation. However all of this effort to cook dinner rice completely is for naught if water pours from the lid onto the rice once I elevate the lid off the pot after cooking—if that occurs all these grains that I labored so arduous to make fluffy are actually moist, clumped, and gummy.

However there’s a resolution and it’s most likely hanging in your kitchen proper now: A clear kitchen towel. I first discovered this kitchen towel trick for cooking rice once I was a line cook dinner in restaurant kitchens nearly 20 years in the past, and I’ve been utilizing this method at dwelling ever since at any time when I cook dinner rice on the stovetop. It ensures fluffy, completely cooked rice each time. 

The trick is to easily place a clear kitchen towel beneath the lid of a pot of cooked rice as quickly because it’s faraway from warmth. I then place the lid again on the pot proper over the towel and let the rice sit untouched for at the very least 10 minutes earlier than fluffing it with a fork. Because the rice finishes absorbing moisture and cooking off the warmth, the kitchen towel traps condensation from the steam, as a substitute of letting it pool contained in the lid and drip again onto the rice, thus stopping the rice from changing into sticky.

I actually like the additional insurance coverage coverage this kitchen towel trick offers me when cooking stovetop rice. And the strategy works nicely with extra than simply plain white rice. Use it with stovetop rice pilafs, arroz con pollo, brown rice, or another rice dish during which you need to get rid of extra moisture. It’s a small further step, however an essential one to make sure completely cooked, nicely separated grains of rice which are able to be fluffed and served.

February 2025