Crooked Kitchen

Chile Popcorn, Inspired by Rick Bayless

Matt — Thu, 01 Oct 2009 05:24:27 +0000

When I made my chili, I ate some of the leftovers with toasted de arbol chiles. The great flavor of those chiles made me want more. I wanted to find a way to use the de arbol chiles as a snack, with a lot of the grassy, aromatic chile flavor. As they’re dried chiles, eating them on their own without cooking isn’t very pleasant - not to mention they’re pretty hot.

I’d been following Rick Bayless on Twitter (@Rick_Bayless) ever since his Top Chef Masters win, and though he claims to spend only 20 minutes a day Twittering, he’s very good at responding to questions. So I posed a question: what can I do with chiles de arbol to enjoy the flavor, aside from salsa? He responded with the recommendation to saute peanuts with garlic and chile pieces.

I’m not especially big on peanuts (though I did eventually try his idea), but I thought the idea of frying the chiles was a good one. The first thing I did was to stem and seed some de arbol chiles, and fry them in olive oil until they were darkened, then sprinkle with salt. They turned out crunchy and salty, and the heat was tamed a bit. The high notes of the chile flavor were mostly gone, however. It was more toasty than grassy. (If you want to understand what I mean by grassy, open up a packet of red pepper flakes from your nearest pizzeria and take a big whiff. That’s the flavor I’m going for.)

But whole chiles aren’t much of a snack. They’re so hot you can’t eat a lot, and they don’t have much substance. So I had an idea of my own: throw some de arbol pieces in with the popcorn in a stove-top batch. The de arbols will toast in the hot oil before the popcorn pops, and quickly spread their heat to the popcorn via the oil.

These days, people seem to think that the old-fashioned method is difficult and messy. It really isn’t. It’s just as fast as microwave popcorn, and not difficult at all. Rather than launch into a comparison of modern society to Aldous Huxley’s Brave New World, I’ll just show you the process.

Stovetop Popcorn

Start heating a heavy pan on medium heat. There’s a difference of opinion in whether to start all the ingredients cold, or add them to a preheated pan. I preheat my pan.
Add oil to the pan. Use an oil with a high smoke point, like peanut, sunflower, or canola. Add enough to cover the bottom of the pan.
Add the popcorn kernels to the pan. 1/4 cup of popcorn kernels wil make about 5 cups of popped popcorn. Adjust the number of kernels for you pan size. Don’t worry about how much you want to eat - no matter how much I’ve made, I always end up mowing through it all.
Add large flavor additions. At this point, if you prefer, add any large additions - dried chile pieces, garlic chips, nuts, whole spices. Do not add any ground spices or powders - they’ll burn way before the popcorn starts popping.
Shake the pan, and partially cover. Shake the pan to coat the kernels with warm oil. Partially cover the pan - you want to prevent the popcorn from popping out all over the kitchen, but you don’t want to hold in the steam.
Continue heating until the first pop. Keep the flame on medium, shaking every once in a while, until you hear the first pop. Then the real work begins.
Shake well every 10 seconds. The idea is that the smaller, denser kernels will easily fall down between the popped kernels to rest on the hot pan bottom.
When half the kernels have popped, drop the heat to just above low. You don’t want to continue to heat the oil, or it could start to smoke and break down, leading to acrid- or oily-tasting popcorn. Continue shaking every ten seconds.
When the popping slows, remove from heat. With a space of two or three seconds between pops, remove the pan from the heat. Keep it partially covered, as kernels will continue to pop from the heat of the pan. Wait until the popping has completely stopped.
Pour the popcorn out and season it. Pour the popcorn into a large bowl. While it’s hot, sprinkle on salt and any powdered seasonings you want to use. Toss the popcorn in the bowl and repeat sprinkling until it looks (and tastes!) the way you want it.

Hot Coffee: Feeding Your Own Bad Habits

Matt — Sat, 19 Sep 2009 03:31:10 +0000

I have a bad habit.

It’s a habit a lot of people have. A habit that drains money faster than cable TV. Faster than broadband internet.

My name is Matt, and I’m addicted to Starbucks. (Hiiii Maaaatt.) That’s right. I pay $2.65 every weekday morning for a large (fine, venti) iced coffee.

But now I’m trying to get off that habit. I’m going back to making my own coffee (which, I have to admit, tastes much better than Starbucks’). Today I’ll cover my method for making hot coffee. Later I’ll write about cold-brewing, which is good for both hot coffee and iced coffee.

The Beans

If you’ve never tasted coffee made from freshly roasted beans, you’ve never had really good coffee. By freshly roasted, I mean roasted within the last 10 days. That excludes anything on the supermarket shelves. Even Starbucks’ beans are older than that. If you want to try freshly roasted coffee without making it yourself, find a coffee shop that roasts on premises, or can at least assure you that they receive daily shipments of beans roasted at a nearby facility.

I’ve been ordering my coffee beans from CoffeeAM.com. They’re roasted fresh when I order them, and shipped the same day. I want to find a local place to buy beans, though, because the shipping costs are a bit high. Still, it’s cheaper to buy the beans and have them shipped than to buy coffee at Starbucks every day.

And please don’t buy preground coffee. Ground coffee loses its flavor very quickly.

The Grind

The most important thing to consider in grinding your coffee is consistency in size. The actual grind size will depend on your preferred brewing method, but each brewing method works best if the grounds don’t contain dust or giant chunks of beans.

A burr grinder will get you this consistency with a wide range of available grind sizes. A blade grinder will chop up the beans into pieces of all different sizes - “dust and boulders”.

I use a Solis Maestro Plus for grinding. It has 31 grind settings, from very coarse to drip to Turkish. I use the third setting (coarse) for brewing in my French press.

The Brew

I use a French press because it makes a fuller-flavored cup of coffee. With the metal mesh filter, it allows the fragrant coffee oils to make it to the cup, rather than getting trapped in a paper filter. The brewing method of steeping all the coffee in all the water, rather than continuously running water through the grounds, seems to make better coffee as well.

Steeping time can be anywhere from 1 minute to 4 minutes, depending on how coarsely you’ve ground the coffee, how strong you like it, and how fine the French press’s filter is. Once the coffee’s brewed, it’s important to push slowly and evenly down on the plunger. This not only avoids the possibility of jamming and explosion out of the top of the press, but keeps the grounds from trying to sneak around the edges of the filter.

My Method

Start heating the water. Wait until the water has boiled and you’ve killed the heat before proceeding. An electric kettle is faster than a kettle on the stove. I use only filtered water in my kettle.
Grind the beans. I grind two scoops (about four tablespoons) of whole beans on the third-coarsest setting on my grinder. For me, that makes about one and a half mugfuls (regular mugs, not the giant Starbucksian latte/cappuccino mugs).
Mix the grounds and water. Add the coffee grounds to the French press, then pour the now-slightly-cooled water over the top. Waiting until the water has boiled before grinding the beans will let the water cool to a temperature that’s more conducive to extracting the coffee flavor without the bitterness.
Stir the grounds. You can use a spoon or a chopstick. Just stir to mix it up and get all the grounds wet. If your beans are fresh, you’ll see a good bit of foam.
Let steep for 1 to 4 minutes. Put the top on the French press to keep in the heat, but don’t push the plunger down. I steep for 3 minutes.
Slowly press the plunger down. Once you get to the bottom, let it sit for another minute to allow any fine sediment that made it through the filter to settle to the bottom.
Enjoy your coffee. Gently pour the coffee out into your mug of choice. If you like your coffee very hot, you might want to preheat your mug with boiling water. Coffee comes out of a French press cooler than drip coffee.

In my opinion, the French press is a fairly easy and very effective way of making coffee. French presses come in several sizes to accommodate small groups of people. However, if you’re making coffee for a large group, say 8 or more people, it might be easier to make drip coffee. Doing it manually with a paper filter and a carafe meant for the job will work well if you’re a control freak, but some coffeemakers do a good job also. The French press is still best for everyday morning coffee.

Eating from the Pantry

Matt — Sun, 23 Aug 2009 22:31:55 +0000

Over on The Simple Dollar, Trent writes about Eating What You Have On Hand. He knows that eating at home saves a lot of money over eating out, but what do you do when you’re too tired/sick/lazy to really cook dinner?

Along the same lines, I’ve come to realize that I tend to snack on and eat whatever’s convenient. For lunch, I’ll usually eat leftovers because it’s easy - it’s sitting in the fridge and usually only requires a bit of pepper and a trip to the microwave. At snack time, I’ll look at the fruit bowl and flip open the refrigerator door and grab whatever’s quick and at hand.

So why not combine the two and really crunch your food budget?

…

By a lucky coincidence, many of the healthiest foods are also quite cheap in their raw form.

So what I decided to do is start cooking some healthy and very inexpensive staple foods once a week in bulk, store them in containers in the fridge, and utilize them all throughout the week in various dishes.

He suggests cooking a big batch of a staple - something like beans, rice, or whole grains - then using that bit by bit through the week. You can combine it with any quick-to-cook vegetables you have on hand.

I like to do this too. I tend not to eat most leftovers, but if I have precooked base ingredients I’m happy to transmute them into something new.

Trent doesn’t mention meat. While cooking vegetarian meals is a really good way to save money, it’s not an option for me - not only because I’m a zealous omnivore, but I also need lots of protein from meat sources. In addition, his staple recommendations aren’t the best for me (I should be leaning more toward refined grains than whole grains), but for the average healthy person, his advice is very good.

One of the things I love is fragrant rice, either basmati or jasmine. When I cook rice, I’ll cook a big batch and save the extra rice. Reheated in the microwave with a bit of water, it comes back to life well enough to eat again plain. But my favorite thing to do with leftover rice is make fried rice. That uses up a good amount of rice, and little bits of leftover meat, vegetable, or practically anything else. Fried rice will be fully covered in another post soon.

Eating What You Have On Hand has made me think about what I currently have on hand. Tomorrow I’ll take a full inventory of my pantry, fridge, freezer, and spice cupboard, and see what I can make of that.

Fundraiser Drive

Matt — Sat, 22 Aug 2009 20:03:33 +0000

Recently the time between my posts has increased. In part, that’s due to lack of time and motivation, but the ultimate cause is lack of funds. I have lots of post ideas, but I don’t have the cash to go out and obtain the materials to make them work. Recipes I’d like to try, produce I’d like to do research on, and products I’d like to review - they’re all on the backburner until I can scrounge up enough change to fund the posts.

Starting today, and running for a week, I’ll be calling for donations. I’ve set up a permanent donations page that outlines what I’ll use the money for, and what perks you’ll receive if you help me fund my work. All donated money will go directly towards this site, and I will stay accountable by explicitly recording what the money has funded.

I ask only for a small donation - $1 can contribute to a recipe, $5 will pay for an entire single-serving recipe plus leftover ingredients, $10 will fund an entire multiple-serving recipe or a research post. If you donate, you’ll get acknowledgement and a link to your website or blog on the post that your donation made possible, and the top 5 fundraisers will have a link permanently posted on the donation page.

Please help me keep posts going. I don’t want to sound desperate. For now, my hosting costs are covered, but without more help than I’m getting, I’m afraid that my content will suffer.

Flashback: Homemade Burgers

Matt — Fri, 21 Aug 2009 21:24:24 +0000

This is part of a series of posts I’m bringing back from my previous food blog. The topics might not be as focused, but I think they still deserve to be republished in a current forum. Enjoy this post from February 2007 about my experiment with grinding my own burgers.

Inspired by some talk of homemade burgers, and that I hadn’t had a good burger in a while, I decided to make my own burgers - including grinding my own meat. I reviewed the Good Eats episode on ground beef, and tried to recreate that burger. Instead of Alton Brown’s recommended mixture of half-chuck and half-sirloin, I went with all chuck, a two-pound package of it.

I trimmed the fat and connective tissue off the meat, and cubed it into roughly 1/2″ to 1″ pieces (in the episode, Alton Brown says “inch and a half” but the on-screen text says “1/2-inch” - the chunks look like the former, though), and started to load up my food processor. The first thing I noticed is that my food processor must be a lot smaller than Alton’s. It got filled up with beef to the right level for chopping with much less meat, but that just meant I had to do the chopping in more batches. Anyway, I got the beef chopped up and into a bowl, and added some salt and Worcestershire sauce.

I formed the patties, trying not to get them too squished, but rather just shaped. Alton claimed each of his patties were 5 ounces, and 3/4″ thick by 4″ diameter (a quick check based on the density of water, of which beef is mostly composed, shows this is probably pretty accurate). That gives him 3 patties per pound of beef (minus trimmings). I got eight patties out of my two pounds of chuck (less trimmings), so each of my patties was less than 4 ounces. The largest was just about 3 inches in diameter.

I wrapped seven of the patties in parchment paper and ziplock bags, and put four in the freezer and three in the fridge. I chose a slightly smaller patty to test. I fried it in my cast iron skillet, medium-high heat, 4 minutes on each side. This turned out to be too much for my goal of medium-rare. The patty was fully cooked, but still juicy.

I deliberated whether I should have grilled onions or raw onions. I decided some thin slices of raw onion would be best now, and I’d do grilled onions later, along with some bacon. I built the burger with the bottom toasted bun first, smeared with mayonnaise, with a bit of freshly ground black pepper, then the meat, then onion slices on top, and some yellow American mustard. It was a really great burger - and I have seven more patties to experiment with.

The Chili con Carne Project

Matt — Fri, 14 Aug 2009 06:51:21 +0000

Earlier this week I picked up some chorizo, and I’ve made chorizo and eggs for breakfast every day since then. The exposure to the Mexican spices and chiles woke up my long-dormant desire to make a big batch of chili, one of my specialties.

I made this chili milder than usual for the benefit of my mother, who can’t handle lots of heat; but I still packed as much chile flavor and deep body into it as I could. I used a method similar to that used for Ragu alla Bolognese, cooking down and caramelizing the vegetables, meat, and tomato paste before adding the liquid.

Here’s the recipe:

10 oz pork chorizo
2 white onions
3 mild Hatch chiles
1 small can tomato paste
4 ancho chiles
4 California chiles
6 cloves of garlic
1 bottle of beer
2 cups of water
2 Tbsp cider vinegar
2 Tbsp ground cumin
1 Tbsp Mexican oregano
2 Tbsp dark chili powder
2 Tbsp smoked paprika
1 Tbsp black pepper
3 chiles de arbol
3 lbs. beef chuck, cubed
3 Tbsp masa harina
2 Tbsp vegetable oil
lemon juice, to taste
sugar, to taste
salt, to taste
cayenne pepper, to taste

Use a big chili pot. This recipe will make 4 to 5 quarts of chili. I use a 6 quart dutch oven.

Start by rendering the 10 ounces of pork chorizo over medium-low heat.

When it’s cooked and enough orange grease has rendered out, remove the chorizo. Finely chop 3 Hatch chiles. Turn the heat up to medium, and add the chopped chiles and a large pinch of salt.

Finely chop two large white onions, and add them to the chiles. Cook the peppers and onions down for 30 to 45 minutes, until they’re browned and noticeably reduced in volume.

Meanwhile, stem and seed 4 dried ancho chiles and 4 dried California chiles. Dried pasilla, mulato, or negro chiles are good substitutes for the anchos, and New Mexico or guajillo are good substitutes for the Californias.

To stem and seed the chiles, cut off the top of the chile just below the stem, then split the chile open. Shake the seeds out, and pull out any white veins or tough pieces.

Preheat the broiler (I use the toaster oven) and put the chiles under it for 30 to 60 seconds - just long enough to start smelling toasty chiles, or to see wisps of smoke.

Rehydrate the chiles in hot water. Put 6 garlic cloves in a blender, along with the rehydrated chiles and enough of the soaking water to allow the blender to make a puree. Blend the chiles and garlic until smooth.

When the onions and peppers are browned and reduced in volume, return the chorizo to the pot, along with a small can of tomato paste and the chile puree.

Fry this mixture on medium-high heat for 4 to 5 minutes, until it’s really caramelized. You’ll have to stir almost continuously to keep it from sticking and burning. A good heavy pan makes this much easier and more reliable.

Deglaze with most of a bottle of beer, then add 2 cups of water. Season with spices: this can vary to a degree, but I used dark chili powder, oregano, cumin, smoked paprika, and black pepper. I also added a big glug of cider vinegar to balance the acidity.

Let this simmer for at least 15 minutes before adding the beef…

… which was a beef chuck roast that I put in the freezer for a bit to make it easier to cube.

Trim the beef and cube it into 1-inch pieces.

Add the beef to the chili mixture.

Cover the pot and put it in a 275 degree oven. Let it braise for 2 hours.

Ten minutes before the beef is done, make a masa roux. Heat 2 Tbsp of vegetable oil in a small pan over medium-low heat, then add 3 Tbsp masa harina. Stir continuously until the roux darkens slightly and smells nutty. Set it aside.

Take the chili out of the oven and put it on a low burner. Remove the lid, and stir in the masa roux.

Taste the chili, and decide if it needs adjustment. Evaluate the salty, sweet, bitter, sour, and spicy components of its flavor. I adjusted them with lemon juice, sugar, salt, and cayenne pepper. Lime juice and honey might work better.

Once your adjustments are made, let the chili simmer for at least 10 minutes. Since it’s much thicker now, I recommend using a splatter screen to keep your kitchen from looking like something out of CSI.

I ate my chili with sourdough bread. It was very hearty and tasted great. The long braising makes the beef very tender, even if it’s a tough cut (like chuck) to start with. After I ate all the beef in my bowl, I used up half a sourdough baguette just dipping in the sauce. The balancing of flavors at the end is important for making the sauce bowl-licking good.

My Favorite Scrambled Eggs: Chorizo con Huevos

Matt — Wed, 12 Aug 2009 06:43:17 +0000

Salivary glands, lips, and lymph nodes: the ultimate breakfast meat.

The last couple days, I’ve been eating chorizo con huevos (chorizo sausage with eggs) for breakfast. Mexican chorizo is sausage made from finely ground pork, vinegar, lots of ground chile, and spices. It’s typically packaged in plastic casings, which are removed to cook the paste-like sausage inside.

Chorizo con huevos is one of my favorite scrambled egg dishes. The chorizo has more than its fair share of spice and flavor, and it’s happy to share with the eggs.

Cooking it is about as simple as it gets. I use 3 ounces of chorizo (1/4 of a 12 oz package), 2 eggs, chili powder, and lemon juice. Squeeze the chorizo out of its casing into a pan on medium heat. Mash the chorizo down and break it up while it cooks, until it resembles ground beef.

Once the fat has rendered out and the chorizo is browned, add a tablespoon of your favorite chili powder and mix it into the oil in the pan, then add half a cup of water and mix well. Turn the heat up to medium-high and let the water boil off until there’s a thick paste around the chorizo. Taste a little bit, and if the chorizo isn’t slightly sour, add lemon juice to taste.

Move it all to one side and add the two scrambled eggs. I let them cook a bit before mixing in the chorizo, so that there’s some variation in the eggs when they’re done. Scramble the eggs with the chorizo mixture. When they set, they’re done. Serve over corn tortillas, toast, or English muffins. Top with sour cream and cilantro, or Mexican oregano and Cholula hot sauce.

Don’t confuse Mexican chorizo with Spanish chorizo, which is made with Spanish pimenton and cured or smoked. You can tell the difference by comparing textures: Mexican chorizo is very soft, while Spanish chorizo is hard, like salami. While Spanish chorizo is made from coarsely chopped pork, Mexican chorizo is made from some of the cheaper pork parts, finely ground.

I’m on a bit of a chile kick right now, looking for deep, powerful flavors, whether it’s from toasted chiles and cumin, or full-on curry paste. Expect to see more posts along these lines in the coming weeks.

Flashback: Tom Kah Goong, Thai Coconut Soup with Shrimp

Matt — Sat, 08 Aug 2009 04:11:22 +0000

Tonight I made Tom Kah Goong, Thai coconut soup with shrimp. This was the first Thai food I ever ate, in a Thai restaurant back home that took over the space of the Chinese restaurant that I used to go to. It’s basically a broth made with coconut milk, chicken broth, galangal, lemongrass, Kaffir lime leaves, chiles, lime juice, fish sauce, and sugar. I didn’t have any galangal or lime leaves, so I used ginger, extra lemongrass, and lemon juice. After the broth had simmered for a while, I added straw mushrooms and shrimp, and the soup was ready to eat.

This was not only the first Thai dish I attempted to cook (Thai Kitchen instant noodles don’t count), but also the first time I successfully used fish sauce. The last time was in an omelette meant to go on top of ramen, but that whole operation was botched. The first time, I made egg drop soup, but botched the addition of the egg so that the soup became creamy instead of giving me strands of scrambled egg. I added fish sauce to that, and it ended up smelling and tasting like cat food.

Anyway, I gritted my teeth and started pouring fish sauce into the soup, eyeballing 2 tablespoons. Very quickly, there was a strong pungent odor that wasn’t all too pleasant, but wasn’t like the cat food odor I encountered before. I wonder if I upset the people downstairs with the strong smell, who were watching TV and eating pizza. I tasted the broth at that point, and didn’t notice any unpleasant pungent or fishy taste. It did exactly what it was supposed to: fill out the flavor with some body, and add salt.

The combination of hot, sour, salty, and sweet flavors was very nicely matched. The shrimp were a little big; slightly smaller shrimp would have been easier to eat. I garnished the soup with cilantro and sliced chiles before I ate it. It was the kind of meal that’s so tasty that even though I was dying from the chiles, I keep eating them because it was all so good.

Why You Won’t See Me Making Nachos Anytime Soon

Matt — Thu, 06 Aug 2009 19:41:55 +0000

In writing some of my recent posts, I felt like I haven’t offered quite the best advice, especially in the way of useful ingredients. None of my recipes feature beans or cheese, and some other ingredients are limited. I’m writing this post to explain why that is.

I have end-stage renal disease (kidney failure), and I’m on dialysis. My kidneys can’t effectively remove the toxins in my blood, and dialysis isn’t nearly as effective at removing some of them as a healthy kidney. That means that I have to take in amounts of potassium, phosphorus, protein, and water that are different than a healthy person.

Potassium, which is found in large quantities in foods like bananas, potatoes, tomatoes, milk, chocolate, and beans, is an electrolyte that’s crucial for the functioning of muscles and nerves. Dialysis removes potassium pretty effectively, but I’m only on dialysis at night. During the day, if I get too much potassium, I’m at risk for muscle weakness and heart problems. Potassium levels that are too imbalanced can even cause a heart attack.

Phosphorus is more of a problem for me. Dialysis is not very effective at removing it, so it’s important to limit it in my diet. Phosphorus is often a component of proteins - meats, dairy, beans, nuts, seeds, whole grains, and most dark sodas are high in phosphorus. I try to limit those as much as possible, and I take phosphorus binder pills to prevent some of it from being absorbed.

Too much phosphorus can cause itching and bone problems. There are exceptions: for instance, butter and heavy cream are much lower in phosphorus than milk, and meats are allowed because they’re the best source of high-quality protein.

Oddly enough, that’s one thing that makes cheap cooking hard on this diet. Dialysis leeches a lot of protein from my body, so I need to eat more protein than the average person. Good, lean meat has the best quality protein, and in general, the lower phosphorus-to-protein ratio.

I should be getting about 60 grams of protein a day, which is the equivalent of about 9.25 ounces of chicken breast. I can get some of my protein from vegetable sources, but it’s not recommended. The best vegetable protein sources are beans, soy products, nuts, and seeds, which are all high in phosphorus.

The most obvious effect of kidney failure is loss of the ability to eliminate extra water. I’m going to try to walk lightly on this one - it’s hard to talk about urination on a food blog without grossing everyone out. Up until this year, it hasn’t been a problem for me. The way my kidneys failed, I kept losing plenty of water even as my overall kidney function passed 6% (I was losing water, but not waste products). After I started dialysis, my daily volume started going down, and eventually I started retaining water. These days, I’m doing much better, with the dialysis taking off enough fluid each night.

For all these reasons, almost all of my recipes will include a good bit of meat, and I won’t likely be using beans, milk, or cheese. Potatoes might show up, but not in large quantities (don’t expect a post on baked potato toppings anytime soon!). I hope I’ve made clear my situation with respect to diet.

How to Cook Perfect Rice

Matt — Tue, 04 Aug 2009 01:11:28 +0000

It seems to be a very basic thing, but many people find it hard to cook rice without it being hard or getting gummy or mushy. Using a rice cooker is the easy way to make rice - in most cases, just set it and forget it - but rice cookers take up counter space and their function can be duplicated with a single pan with just a little bit of skill and practice.

I cook rice in a saucepan with a tight-fitting lid. My method is very simple, but results in perfect rice every time. The method varies slightly depending on the type of rice used. This is different than the pilaf method, which is often used to produce rice with things added - vegetables, spices, and herbs.

Guidelines for perfect rice

Use a sturdy pot. Anything thin and flimsy will burn the bottom of the rice.
Rinse the rice before cooking.
Use 1 1/4 cups of water for each cup of long-grain rice.
If you want more fluffy, separate grains of rice, add a teaspoon of oil to the water.
The more rice you use, the less water you’ll need. When you’re using 3 cups or more of uncooked rice, use a 1:1 ratio of rice and water.

Some people tout the traditional method of measuring the water in the pot with your finger: place the tip of your finger on top of the rice, pointing downward, then fill the pot with water until it reaches your first knuckle. I measure the rice and water separately in measuring cups. The knuckle method is too inexact - the actual amount of water will vary based on the size of the pot.

Step-by-step method for cooking perfect long-grain rice

The absorption method

Add the rice - Put a cup of rice in a heavy pot.
Rinse the rice - Add cold water to the pot, and swirl the rice around to rinse it. Pour off the water, being careful not to lose any rice.
Rinse the rice again - Repeat the rinsing process once or twice more. Drain off the water.
Add the water - Add 1 1/4 cups of water and a pinch of salt if desired. With Asian dishes, rice isn’t usually salted.
Bring to a boil - Place on high heat, put the lid on, and bring to a boil.
Leave the lid alone - From this point, do not remove the lid. Don’t be tempted to peek. Don’t mess with it. Keeping the steam inside is what makes this process foolproof. If you really want to keep an eye on the rice, use a glass lid.
Steam for 10 minutes - Turn the heat down to very low and leave for ten minutes.
Rest for 10 minutes - Turn the heat off and leave for another ten minutes.
Fluff the rice - Now you can remove the lid. Fluff the rice with a fork.
Serve the rice.

Modifications for Japanese rice

If you’re cooking a short- or medium-grain rice and you’re going for sticky rice like you’d get in a Japanese or Korean restaurant, there are a couple modifications to the method.

Use 1 1/3 cups of water per cup of rice.
Standard Japanese and Korean rices are typically not salted or oiled.
Rather than fluffing the rice with a fork, fold it gently with a rice paddle.
Check out Just Hungry for a complete tutorial specifically on Japanese rice.

My usual rice is jasmine rice, but I occasionally cook basmati and Japanese rice. I never use less than a cup of uncooked rice, even if I’m only cooking for myself, because leftover rice is just begging to be made into fried rice.