sawaddee ka welcome to hot Thai kitchen today I am going to go back to the basics and talk about how
to cook rice without a rice cooker so that it comes out perfect every time I've gotten lots
of messages from people who are saying I don't know what's going on I can't get the rice right
it's either too wet or too dry or it's burnt to the bottom what's the secret is there a
secret so we're going to talk about all of that I'll show you how I do it and also go through
everything I can think of that would affect the quality of your rice so let's get started
if you don't buy good rice there's nothing you can do in the cooking process that's
going to make it any good okay so no rice in a box no instant rice of any kind if you're
cooking Thai food always always use jasmine rice from Thailand you can call me a little
biased but I think it's the best rice in the world so how do you know the jasmine rice is
good quality when you open the bag you should smell like jasmine aroma right out of the bag
it should smell really good and actually like the jasmine flower if you open the bag you smell it
and it doesn't smell like anything that could be just low-quality rice you want to choose a
pot with a thick bottom because if the bottom is thin you're going to get hot spots it won't
distribute the heat evenly and that's how you're going to burn the bottom of the rice okay and
don't choose a pot that's too big choose a pot the rice is going to grow three times so put
in your rice try to visualize okay if it grows three times the current size will it still fit
you gotta rinse the rice and the reason why we rinse rice is I'll show you so cold water by the
way and then just swish it around with your hands and then you'll notice that the water gets really
cloudy and that's what we're trying to get rid of that's basically loose starch that's hanging
out and if you don't get rid of it it's going to gum up your rice the grains won't separate
very nicely you get like a sticky gooey stuff at the bottom it's just it's just bad news and your
rice will feel like it's mushy even though it's not because there's all sorts of flour floating
around so pour off the first one as much as you can without pouring the rice down the drain and
then you do to get for jasmine rice that you're gonna have just sort of as plain rice with other
dishes I only rinse it twice but if you're making fried rice I wash it four or five times basically
until the water runs clear because with fried rice you really don't want there to be any stickiness
because that's how you get clumpy fried rice it'll make it hard for you to sort of get the
sauce to spread evenly okay so now this time you want to drain out the water as much as you
can because you don't want it to mess up with your water ratio so what I do here's a little
trick is I take a sieve and then I just pour it out then I can really pour out as much as I can
all right here's the big question how much water do you add this will actually depend
on your particular rice but most of the time if you're cooking jasmine rice one part rice to one
and 1/4 part water does the trick at least close to it if at the end you find that it is a little
dry you can always add more but if you start out with too much there's no going back it's just
gonna get wet right so oh here's another thing old crop rice versus new crop rice if your bag says
new crop you will need less water ok because new crop I write about this in my cookbook but long
story short new crop rice is softer and takes less water so that's something to think about
as well if you're making fried rice one part rice one part water because you're going to rehydrate
that rice with all the sauces so you want your rice to start out a little drier than it should
be in the beginning if you're in a hurry you can crank the heat all the way to high to get it to
a simmer quickly but then you want to turn it down as low as you can if you're not in a rush
just start off medium heat and let it come to a simmer slowly because the danger with cranking it
is if you're not paying attention it will boil over especially if you've got you know the pot
is relatively full once it comes to a simmer turn the heat down to as low as you can go while still
maintaining just gentle gentle bubbles and then leave it for 15 to 20 minutes and really that is
it so here's the trick why do you want to turn it as low as you can yes it will take a little
longer but once the water is dry the heat is so low that it'll take a long time before it starts
to burn the bottom if you are in a hurry and you crank the heat your rise will still cook fine but
now if you don't get to it in time you're going to burn the bottom of that rice really quickly
how is this different from a rice cooker and it's really not I used to think when I was
little that rice cookers did something special and different you put in rice and you add water
to the little line and that rice comes out rice cookers is just like a pot that happens
to know when to turn itself off so the way rice cooker works is as soon as the water dries up
the bottom of the pot gets really hot and it senses that temperature change and it shuts
it off okay so the but other than that it's just a pot so you're trying to do the same
thing now the only thing you have to do is be careful and keep an eye on when it's done
all right so the first clue that your rice is done is when you look in and there's nothing
happening no bubbling it just looks still that's when you want to check on it mmm that
smells good use a rubber spatula and go along the sides and then just push and then you'll
be able to see the bottom of the pot and if the bottom of the pot is dry it's done mine's not
dry yet I can still see that it's wet then you just Pat it down and like like nothing
happened and then keep it going until it's done in my experience 15 to 20 minutes okay
so now let's check the rice sue and it should be fluffy like this I know it's dry and now I
can taste it I'm a fan of tasting your food how do you know things are done you taste it
mmm mmm perfect so now you want to fluff it so that it's not so compact because if you
serve it straight from a compact bowl you just get like a really solid puck
of rice on the on the plate so like this then you get nice fluffy rice
the other option is to cook it like pasta basically you put a whole bunch of water and
you boil the rice in a lot of water until it's done and then you drain it and then you let it
dry off a little bit and then you know off it goes but I just find the best method is too complicated
because as you can see you just need to know a few tricks and tips here and there then it's a
one-pot situation with that one you got it you got a colander and you got it do more dishes uh this
is just so much easier and that is it I hope that was helpful for you if you still have questions
or I missed anything please feel free to write me on Twitter or Facebook or you can write me
through my website hot Thai kitchen calm all the details of what we just went through I'll write
all that out on my website as well and I will see you next time for your next delicious Thai meal