The kitchen wouldn’t be the same without it . For many people, it is a fundamental ingredient on which many popular dishes are based (, paella, sushi, cabbage rolls, pilaf, fried rice, or casseroles).
If you also love it and can’t imagine not having it in your kitchen, but… If you struggle with a dense and too sticky consistency, try this Asian trick. Check out how to cook rice “” so that it is perfectly loose, fluffy and tastylike from the best restaurants.
Instead of remaining loose, your rice turns into sticky, thick gruel? Starch, specifically its sticky fraction (amylopectin, which causes the grains to stick together), is responsible for this state of affairs.
During cooking, the starch swells and flows into the water. As the mixture cools or evaporates, the released amylopectin forms a sticky coating on the surface of the grains, causing the entire rice to start sticking together. This happens especially in the case of short and round grains. This is not harmful to your health, but it may negatively affect the texture and taste of the rice.
Fortunately, there is an Asian trick to keep each grain separate after cooking. Just use the Japanese method of cooking rice, which is very simple and you don’t need a special pot (rice cooker) to use it.
The point is to rinse the rice thoroughly before putting it into the pot. It only takes 5 minutes and changes the consistency of the finished ricethanks to which it does not become so sticky later (this should not be done when preparing risotto, because a sticky consistency is recommended).
Prepare a bowl and pour it into it rice (preferably Japanese, basmanti, jasmine, paraboiled) and pour cold water over it so that it covers the grains. Rub it between your fingers until the water becomes cloudy. This is a sign of starch leaching.
Drain the cloudy water using a strainer. Repeat 3-4 times so that the last time the water after rinsing the rice is almost transparent. That’s all. As you can see, there is nothing difficult about it.
