Cooking rice in the oven is a surprising and simple technique for perfect rice

In an enormous number of households where rice is eaten almost every day, it has pride of place on the kitchen counter: the rice cooker. It really is an incredibly handy appliance; rice in, the right amount of water added, press the button and walk away. But what if you don’t have or want a rice cooker (because you really don’t have any space left in the kitchen next to the contact grill and the pizza oven, for example) and you just can’t seem to cook perfectly fluffy rice in a saucepan on the stove? Then you have to try this!

Because if cooking rice isn’t really second nature to you, you may end up all too often with wet, lumpy sticky rice or, conversely, stale, dried-out grains heading in the direction of Rice Krispies. Not what you want, at least not if the idea was to make a delicious bowl of steaming soft rice with crispy roasted pork belly and chili oil. And if you all too often have to work on the bottom of your saucepan with spatulas and scouring sponges after cooking rice, this just might become your favorite technique…

Cooking in the oven

Let’s not call it ‘baking’, because water is definitely involved and we’ll make nasi goreng (‘fried rice’) with the leftover rice tomorrow. So what we’re actually doing is steaming the rice until tender, and because the oven maintains a constant temperature, this comes even closer to the idea behind a rice cooker than a saucepan on the stove. And when you cook rice in a layer of water in a pan on the stove, you may be tempted to lift the lid and check how things are going. That actually ruins the steaming process. With a heavy pan in the oven, that’s simply too much hassle, so you’ll leave it alone, allowing the rice to cook properly, covered and undisturbed.

How to cook rice in the oven

• Preheat the oven to 200° C.
• Take an ovenproof Dutch oven with a thick bottom and a well-fitting lid.
• Rinse the rice in a sieve until the water is no longer cloudy. Jasmine rice is great, and so is basmati; as long as it’s long-grain rice, this works well, but this method isn’t suitable for short, round grains (such as sushi rice).
• If you use brown rice, you may need a little more water.
• Use one and a quarter parts water for one part rice. 1 cup rice to 1¼ cups water.
• Bring the water (with the rice and a pinch of salt) to a boil on the stove over medium-high heat.
• Then carefully place the lidded pan in the center of the oven, close the door and leave it for 18 minutes.
• Remove from the oven, keep the lid on and let rest for 5–10 minutes.
• Remove the lid, gently fluff with a fork, and serve immediately. You barely had to lift a finger!

Of course, every oven has a mind of its own, and yours may run a few degrees off. The exact steaming time also depends on which type of rice you use. But once you’ve figured that out by testing it once, this method is definitely worth trying!

Also read:

• Man tests all the weird rice suggestions and gives them a rating
• Which rice goes with which dish?
• Recipe: how to make authentic Surinamese BBR (brown beans with rice)

Source: Bon Appétit