When it’s time to cook your basmati, scoop some out of your storage
container directly into a dry cooking pot with a lid. Keep in mind that basmati
is more filling than many other varieties of white rice, so you may have to
cook a little bit less per person. Add water and rinse off the rice. Some
basmati comes to you very clean, but often you will find that when you rinse
it, a greasy white film appears in the water. Pour out most of the rinse water
(it’s OK to leave a little), add more water, and rinse repeatedly until the
rinse water is fairly clear as you pour it off. Then refill the pot until the
water is about an inch above the level of the rice. If you have time, you can
let it soak this way for five to ten minutes, but if you don’t want to wait,
you can start cooking it immediately at this point.
Put the pot on high heat and add a teaspoon to a tablespoon of ghee. Ghee, a
staple of Indian cooking, is basically liquid butter. It’s extremely rich and
fattening, so your best bet is not to use too much. If you don’t have ghee, use
butter or margarine. (To my Western palate, butter and margarine taste better
when added to give flavor to cooked food, but ghee is better for cooking.) You
don’t have to stir in the ghee, as it will get absorbed into the rice on its
own. Then squeeze in the juice of about one-quarter of a lemon or lime, more if
you are cooking a lot of rice. (Lemons and limes, or nimbu, are pretty
much interchangeable in Indian cooking.)
When the water begins to boil, stir once, then lower the heat and cover it.
You don’t need to stir basmati too often – just let it cook. You only have to
be careful that it doesn’t burn. After a few minutes, check the rice. If it is
almost done, you will see no water, and steam vents will have formed in the
rice. Stir once. If there is still liquid, lower the heat again and let it cook
a little more. If you don’t see any liquid, turn the heat off and replace the
lid. Any residual water will get absorbed while the rice sits.