Kitchen Lab Notebook: Rice Report

As an excuse to perfect my rice skills, I made lemon-oregano rice to go along with the chicken and vegetables last night. Rinsing the rice until the water ran clear was very helpful, and the rice turned out to be very acceptable, but not great. When I brought my rice and water to a boil, there was not the starchy bubbling over that generally occurs, so it seems pretty clear to me that there was a significant amount of loose starch nestled amongst the rice grains I was previously using.

As it was, I used 1 cup chicken stock and juiced 1/2 of a lemon into a measuring cup and filled it to 3/4 cup. I brought this mixture to a boil and then added my rinsed rice. Once the rice and water had come back to a boil, I reduced the heat and let the rice cook with minimal disturbance. After the rice looked acceptable, I fluffed it with a fork and added in 1/4 cup chopped fresh oregano.

(It was a great pair with the rest of the dinner.)

My hypothesis is that the rinsed rice had a small amount of liquid adsorbed to it, so my liquid measurements were off. I will next reduce my liquid by a few tablespoons to see if this will completely alleviate the gluey rice problem. Other possible sticking points may be whether I add the rice to boiling water or bring the water and rice to a boil at the same time. I will continue to isolate these variables until I am satisfied with the results of my experiments.