Brown Basmati Rice -- Basic Preparation
"A lot of people seem to have trouble with brown rice, getting the texture right and so on. This is the way I have figured out, with a little help from a Madhur Jaffrey cookbook, and I can honestly say I feel like an expert now! The place where many cooks mess up is using too much water -- it can make the rice gloppy. This basic preparation is perfect to use anywhere you need unflavored cooked rice -- fried rice, soup, or just to serve with a spicy curry. I try to keep some cooked up in the fridge at all times."
- Ready In:
- 45mins
- Ingredients:
- 2
- Yields:
-
6 cups
- Serves:
- 6
ingredients
- 2 cups brown basmati rice
- 2 3⁄4 cups water
directions
- First, put the rice in a strainer inside a bowl and wash it well. I usually change the water in the bowl at least 3 times. The water doesn't need to run completely clear, but it should not be very cloudy or brownish when the rice is washed. Leave the rice in the strainer to drip out for at least a few minutes.
- Put the rice and water in a saucepan with a tight-fitting lid and bring just to a boil over high heat. You don't want it to really boil, as soon as you start to see the bubbles, put on the lid and turn the heat down to very, very low (on my electric stove, I put it between "lo" and 1).
- Resist the temptation to take off the lid and check the rice too much. After about 25 minutes you can check it once and see how much water is left. I do this by sticking a wooden spatula down into the rice and pushing it to the side a little. If there is still water, push the rice back together, put the lid back on, and let it cook a few more minutes. Do not stir or disrupt the rice any more than you have to. It will take about 30 to 35 minutes for it to finish cooking.
- When all the water is absorbed, there will still be sort of a mushy layer at the bottom of the pot. Take the pot off the heat and leave undisturbed for at least 10 minutes. You can really leave it there as long as you like -- the moisture at the bottom will even out and the finished rice should be slightly al dente with all the grains separate.If there are a few clumps, just break them up with a fork or your fingers before serving or storing.
- If you plan to use the rice for fried rice, I would recommend refrigerating it for at least 6 hours, but overnight is better, so plan ahead!
Questions & Replies
-
Doesnt' rinsing it so many times remove the nutritional value?
Reviews
-
Thanks so much for posting this! I bought a big bag of brown basmati rice at an Indian grocery store and it had no directions on it so I was completely lost as to how to cook it. This turned out great! -
I halved the recipe and did have to cook it just a little longer, but it came out nice and not undercooked at all. Used with a stir fry. Thanks! Made for PAC 2011. -
I was hoping this would be the recipe to keep me from getting sticky, mushy, brown rice...but it wasn't. I had to cook it much longer than 25 minutes for the water to dissapear. I think I will stick with Alton Brown's baked brown rice recipe....always comes out perfect & not mushy.
RECIPE SUBMITTED BY
<p>Updated June 2011:</p>
<p>I'm 32 and married to the absolute love of my life. We just bought our first real home together and we're settling in, trying to get things just the way we want them. Hopefully before too long we will be starting a family! After DH finishes college, that is...</p>
<p>I'm a vegetarian, but DH loves meat, although he likes a lot of vegetarian food, too. I like to find meat recipes that I can modify to be veg so we can cook it together side by side -- in two separate pots. Now that we have a real house, DH is obsessed with grilling everything possible, so I'm expecting that to rub off on me as well. I'm excited about grilling fruit this summer. I also grow my own herbs and will be planting a vegatable garden next summer when we are settled in better.</p>
<p>Besides that, I am an artist (but have to have a crappy day job to pay the bills, not even worth mentioning, LOL<img title=Tongue src=/tiny_mce/plugins/emotions/img/smiley-tongue-out.gif border=0 alt=Tongue />) I really hope to have my art represented in galleries within a couple years or so, and maybe make most of my living that way. In the meantime, ya gotta do what ya gotta do!</p>
<p> </p>
<p>A bit on how I rate recipes:</p>
<p>5 stars: I made this more or less as written and loved it, will definitely make it again. I may have made some very minor changes like lowering the fat and/or sodium, subbing veg stock for chicken stock to make it vegetarian, increasing the amount of cayenne, etc. but nothing that would change the basic character of the recipe.</p>
<p>4 stars: I enjoyed this a lot but had to make some big changes to accomodate our personal tastes. This would include completely changing the cooking method but using the same ingredients (like roasting veggies instead of boiling, etc.) or seriously modifying the amount of something (like if there is way too much or way too little liquid for my tastes, etc.)</p>
<p>3 stars: This would be something that just didn't turn out and I don' t think it was my fault -- like if I suspect there is a typo in the ingredients or instructions, and I had to totally improvise in order to save it.</p>
<p>I have never yet and will try not to rate anything less than 3 stars -- if I have serious trouble with a recipe, I would leave a comment without stars to explain why I had trouble. I can usually tell whether I will like a recipe before I make it, so I wouldn't want to ruin someone's ratings just because I didn't care for it.</p>
