Science explains why it's so hard to cook the perfect cup of rice
Tests debunk the 'myth' of two-to-one ratio of water to rice
Cooking a cup of rice can often be a daunting task.
From worrying about whether it will stick to the bottom of the pan to making sure you get the right water-to-rice ratio, it's easy to opt out and go for instant rice or just give up and steer clear of the grain overall.
A dieter's dream: new way to cook rice slashes calories
We chatted with Dan Souza, the executive editor of Cook's Science at America's Test Kitchen and one of the authors of "The Science of Good Cooking." He told us that one of the biggest myths he's debunked in the kitchen is about the correct ratio of water to rice.
Anyone who's tried to cook rice on a stove top knows that you typically put in two cups of water for every single cup of rice. A few minutes later, you ideally have a pot of perfectly cooked rice. But that's not always the case. So why is it that even when you put in the same ingredients, your rice seems to come out either perfectly or completely ruined?
The experiment
To see if he and his team could find a better way, Souza said they put sealed bags filled with a cup of water and a cup of rice into boiling water. He found that regardless of what kind of rice was being tested — long grain, brown, white, etc. — it always took just a single cup of water to perfectly cook a cup of rice.
