How To Cook Basmati Rice - A Recipe With A Photo Step By Step. How To Cook Loose Basmati Rice?

2023 Author: Catherine Crossman | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-05-24 11:19

Basmati rice - important cooking secrets to make it look like a real Indian restaurant.

Ingredients

Basmati rice - 250 g

Water - on demand

• 116 kcal
• 30 min.
• 1 hour
• 1 h. 30 min.

Photo of the finished dish

Step by step recipe with photo

How to cook basmati rice crumbly and long, I was told by the owner of an Indian restaurant, into which we wandered completely by accident, but I had been hunting for this recipe for a long time!

While on vacation in Asia, a couple of times I came across some absolutely amazing rice - long, almost like small noodles! Due to the fact that my knowledge of the language was not enough every time to ask the natives in more detail, I thought it was some kind of unknown to me variety. I searched hard for it, tried several variants of long grain rice - and every time I got it wrong and wrong! And suddenly I saw him, that same rice !!! It was in a restaurant that was highly praised for its authentic cuisine. It was brought to us as a side dish. Well, you know, this is the custom in many Asian restaurants: main dishes are prepared to order, and a bowl of empty rice is brought in a common one, by default. Well, we ordered a tandoori, and we brought this luxurious long-grain rice, and the tandoori are no longer relevant to me! I asked the waiter to ask in the kitchenwhat sort they use and where can they be purchased. The waiter returned, accompanied by the hostess (Hindu), who assured me that this is the most common basmati you can buy at any store.

Well, I didn't cook basmati, or what ?! Yes, when he was born, he did not turn out like that, even nothing like that! After asking me exactly how I cook rice, this lovely woman didn't even laugh out loud - she just told me how to cook basmati rice properly. Because what we write on the packaging is not that complete garbage, but this is by no means a way that allows you to cook crumbly basmati with the maximum possible grain length and demonstrate this rice in all its glory.

As I understood from the explanations of our kind hostess, there are two recipes for basmati with a similar result: either boiling in a very small amount of water, or steaming. She said that she cooks in water at home, but in the restaurant they cook with steam.

I don't have a professional steamer, but I have a bamboo nozzle for a saucepan, brought just from a vacation in Asia. Since you, most likely, on the contrary, do not have a bamboo sieve, I can advise you to use a regular steamer or mantover. If they do not have a nozzle with a small hole diameter, then take a foil or thick confectionery paper, stick a lot of small holes in it and put it on top of a pallet with large holes.

The first stage is the most important, without it, nothing will work. And you can't cut it. Basmati rice is soaked in a lot of WARM water for 1 hour. Necessarily warm, the hostess emphasized this.

At the end of the rice soak, a large amount of water should be boiled in a saucepan.

The bamboo steamer should be about the same diameter as the saucepan, but never smaller so as not to fall through.

After soaking, the water is completely drained from the rice.

Rice is placed in a double boiler, leveled and boiled under a closed lid for steam (over high heat) for 25-35 minutes. In a professional steamer it will turn out faster, its lid is denser and there is less steam loss.

And when the rice becomes such a hedgehog and becomes soft to the bite - then, in principle, it is ready.

Now let's see what exactly we got. On the left - dry rice, on the right - they are steamed. You see, they are only slightly thicker than when dry, but very long (the length increases by 2-3 times). When boiled normally in water, as we are accustomed to, the proportions of this rice are different - it is shorter, but thicker.

Well then, congratulations, now you know how to cook basmati rice crumbly and long. Try it!

By the way, steamed basmati rice, based on my experience, does not need to be eaten right away: it does not stick together after many hours, remains the same crumbly, and the softness of the rice even increases.