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Plain Boiled Rice
Wash 1/2 a pound of rice through several waters to remove all the flour. Throw it a little at a time into 2 quarts of slightly salted rapidly boiling water; let it boil steadily, uncovered, for twenty minutes. Drain, toss it gently with a fork, and dry it for five or ten minutes in a hot oven. Serve uncovered. If to be eaten with vegetables, add 1 tablespoonful of butter before tossing.
This is the open-pot method: rice boiled loose in abundant water, drained, then dried out in the oven so the grains stay separate. It suits long-grain rice and any dish where you want distinct grains rather than a creamy mass.
- The hingeDrying in the oven is what makes the method work, not an optional flourish. Draining alone leaves surface water that turns the grains sticky as they sit; five to ten minutes uncovered in the oven drives it off.
- QuantitiesHalf a pound of rice is about 1 1/4 cups, and 2 quarts of water is 8 cups. That ratio is deliberately generous, so the starch has somewhere to go.
- Oven heatThe recipe says a "hot oven", which in nineteenth-century usage meant a brisk one, roughly 400F and above. Since nothing is being cooked further, a moderate oven of 300F to 350F will dry the grains in the stated time just as well; leaving the door ajar helps.
- Twenty minutesOn the long side for modern packaged long-grain white rice, which is usually done in 12 to 15 minutes by this method (converted or parboiled rice takes longer, closer to the full twenty). Start tasting at 10 minutes and drain the moment the grain is tender with no chalky core.
- WashingThe "flour" is loose surface starch, and rinsing until the water runs nearly clear is still the right call for separate grains. Skip it only if the rice is enriched and you want to keep the added nutrients.
- Adding it graduallyThrowing the rice in a little at a time keeps the water at a rolling boil so grains do not clump at the outset. Stir once as it goes in, then leave it alone.
- Not for short-grainArborio, sushi rice and pudding rice give up too much starch for this treatment and should be cooked by absorption instead.
- YieldHalf a pound of dry rice gives roughly 4 cups cooked, enough for four to six as a side dish.