Rice, Plain and Simple

Published June 28, 2022

by Janet Blaser

Perfectly cooked rice is a joy to eat, a joy to serve and a joy to be able to consistently make yourself. And therein lies the rub: rice is tricky to cook.

Without going too deeply into the science of what rice is, most of us know a grain of rice has multiple layers. Brown rice contains the three most nutritional: the bran, germ and endosperm, which contain fiber, fats, nutrients and starch. (That’s why brown rice is best kept refrigerated — the fats make it less shelf-stable.)

“Regular” white rice is pure starch (only the endosperm) and the three sizes (long-, medium- and short-grain) have different amounts of the two starches that rice naturally contains.

Long-grain rice, like Carolina, Jasmine and Basmati, have just the right ratio of starches to both fluff up and separate the grains — when cooked properly. Shorter-grain rice will be stickier and more glutinous (an example would be sushi rice) — unless it’s precocido, i.e., precooked/parboiled. In that case, the grains are already cooked whole with the endosperm separated afterward, and you’ll get separate, fluffy grains. “Converted” or parboiled rice also cooks more quickly than regular rice.

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