WATCH: Stop! We’ve been cooking rice the wrong way all this time




Manisha mentioned three things to prevent your rice from coming out starchy. Picture: Flickr.com
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Cooking rice may seem as one of the easiest things to do in the world, right? It’s just a matter of filling a saucepan with some rice and water and leaving it to boil.

But according to one chef, this is the wrong way to cook rice. On an episode of BBC’s ‘Inside the Factory’, presenter Cherry Healey asked Chef Manisha Bhardwaj how to make the dinner table staple that’s been around for decades.

Manisha mentioned three things to prevent your rice from coming out starchy.

Step 1:

Rinse your rice before cooking it. This stops the rice grains from clogging together when you boil them.

Step 2:

Select the right saucepan. “You want to choose a pan that has a heavy bottom and has a tight fitting lid,” she advised.

Step 3:

Don’t boil it like you do with pasta. Chef Manisha made sure to cook her grains using the absorption technique.

What is the absorption technique?

Measuring out just the right amount of water, she said this allows the rice to soak it up without going to soggy or dry.

“One measure of rice and double the amount of water by volume. That’s crucial.”

If you still haven’t perfected the art of cooking rice, British chef Gordon Ramsay explains in the video below how to cook basmati rice – the king of all rices.

Like Manisha, Ramsay also starts off by rinsing off the dust and starch with cold water which he says “stops the rice from becoming clumpy in the pan”.