How to cook rice perfectly?

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Rice. The staple food of the Philippines. For us filipinos, we can't survive a day without rice. Have you eaten rice with TUYO or BUWAD in bisaya? Yumyum. Rice has many health properties and studies show that eating rice reduce the risk of certain disease. It also is a great way to boost immune system and good source of energy. Rice is food for the brain so having a "no rice diet" is definitely not recommended for people who are studying for the bar like me.

As important as eating rice is, the same thing as the value of knowing how to cook it to perfection. I may not be a chef but I can definitely teach you how to cook rice. You may say you can use a rice cooker but that's just cheating. :P I will teach you in this blog how to cook rice that makes people think that you ARE using a rice cooker. Especially in some situations where you don't have a rice cooker you going out camping, a rice cooker is not available. Cook rice with too much water, you get porridge, cook it with too little water and you get something so hard it hurts to swallow. Cook it with you fire too high, you get black, bitter or brownish rice and you don't want that. Of course, you should make sure it's cooked so if you cook it with too little fire you get something wrong and bad for your stomach. So my point is, I will now teach you simple methods to cook rice.

What you need:

Rice

Water

Cup

Deep pot with cover (preferably something especially used to cook rice)   

Stove (electric or gas)

1) Get your cup and use it to get some cup-full of rice and transfer it to your deep pot. Make sure you remember the number of cups of rice you used. Make sure your pot is AT MOST 1/4 filled with rice if you plan to cook a lot of rice.

2) Wash your rice. You usually do this by filling your pot with water and using your hand to wash the rice then draining the water and doing it again for at least three times.

3) Then after you are finished draining, get your cup, fill it with water corresponding to the number of rice you put it. Then after you are done, add an extra 1 1/2 cup of water. So the ratio would be one cup of rice to one cup of water. Don't forget to add the extra one and a half cup of water.

4) Cover the pot and place the deep pot or rice pot on the stove and turn it on the the highest flame and wait for the water inside your deep pot to start boiling. (around 5-8 mins from the moment you turned on the stove)

5) The moment it starts boiling, you have to turn the heat back down to the lowest heat and allow the rice to rise up and simmer. check your rice periodically to see if it is growing. it should grow the same as your water level.

6) If your rice has grown because it absorbed all the water already. Turn off the stove. You turn off the stove only when the rice has grown to the level of the water and it still is a bit moist. Let the rice settle and continue to cook without the fire. After about 5 mins. You may take out the rice and put it in a plate. The rice should like like moist but not wet. It will eventually dry up in about 3 mins and there you have it. The perfect rice. The point is you use rice's special properties of absorbing water and heat to cook it. Not so dry and will still taste great even after an hour or so!