Staub Petite Oven Rice Cooker
I just used my new Staub to cook rice. While I kept it on low, I still got an alarming amount of starchy liquid dripping down the sides of the pot. Luckily, the rice came out fine, but how do I avoid this mess the next time I cook rice? The lid doesn't seal completely, so that it won't explode, but it shouldn't be doing this.
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experience with my Staub rice cooker.
The same thing will happen with boiling pasta water if you leave it covered; I suppose the small amount of starch thickens the water enough for large bubbles to form, but I'm not a scientist.
- boil (gently) the rice and water, uncovered, until the water is level with the top of the rice. You should be able to see the water bubbling right at the top of the rice.
-cover the pot and lower the heat to the lowest setting possible. Gently cook until all the water is absorbed by the rice and the rice is soft without a hard center. If the rice is still raw (white hard center), add 1-2 TB of water and stir into the pot; cover and continue to cook until water is absorbed by the rice. Repeat as needed. With a good quality rice, it should not take more than 2-4 TB of additional water to get cooked rice.
-Take the pot off heat and fluff rice with a pair of chopsticks or a fork. Serve.
This works with any pot that has a lid. The lid does not need to be tight fitting. This is my mother's way of making rice even before we got the one touch electric cooker.
Forgot to mention earlier: once you cover the pot with the lid, you might want to rotate the pot around the heating element so get even heating. This might not be necessary if you are using a heat diffuser or your stovetop has pretty even heating (i.e. no hotspots). My mother only ever cooked with gas, so she would rotate the pot around the burner to keep the bottom of the rice from burning. So every 1 minute or so, she would move the pot around the heat source until you did a full revolution. Usually by the end of the revolution, the rice was done.