Most common question asked, how much water does black rice need to cook? You may have a ratio that has been
working out well for you, but here what we feel gives that ideal 'chewiness', not too hard, not moist
either.
Key
is to take into consideration that not only water is absorbed into the grains, but that along the process a
bit of water evaporates.
Let's break both parts up here.
Simple.
If you double your batch of rice, double the volume of water.
If you triple the
rice, then triple the volume of water.
This amount of water depends on your cooking equipment and will always be the same volume, regardless how many batches you decide to cook.
Cook first 1 cup of rice with 1 cup of water.
Taste and most likely you will find the
texture a bit hard. Add ¼ cup of water. Simmer until all water is gone (keep lid covered). Taste
again and repeat until you got the texture that works for you.
Probably you end up
somewhere between ¼ (harder texture) to ¾ (softer, more moist) of a cup.
For example at home, when we want to boil 3 batches of rice - out of experience we know that with our equipment ¼ cup of water is vaporized - we got to go with 3 + ¼ cup of water.
then, two more thingsdon't keep rice at room temperatureEither hold the rice warm or
refrigerate. |
Bring rice to a boil for 5 minutes. Cover and simmer (medium-low heat) for 25 minutes.
Use
the same cup to measure the amount of water.
Fluff the rice and simmer for another 5 minutes.
(get a heavy-bottom pot - we can't stress
enough - to avoid the rice to burn or stick)
Turn off the heat and let the rice be for 15 minutes so the grains can firm up.
keep the pot
covered all the time, also at the end when the rice sits.
Often we are asked, what's better: pot or rice cooker?
We feel rice is tastier when using a pot, but a simple rice cooker works just fine, and that's what we - and most people in Thailand - use most of the
time.
It's so easy, just follow your rice cooker's rice-to-water ratio recommendation and once ready,
the device will shut itself off while the rice is kept warm!
Nevertheless, you can determine the
amount of evaporation water the same way as described above.
We are not familiar with pressure
cookers, but the same goes here. Define the water volume for evaporation as you would do with a pan. One of our customers told us that an absolute fool-proof method is to go with a rice-to-water ratio of 1:1 and seal. Cook 40 minutes on high pressure and then let it naturally release for another 20 minutes.