I’ve read this idea plenty of times and finally set out to try it. Rather than carefully measuring the water for rice, bringing it to boil then turning it way down low and cooking the rice, I brought a large pot of water to boil and added the rice. I let it boil, stirring occasionally until it was soft (about 20 minutes). Then I drained it and rinsed it. It came out great!
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Hi Ellen! First time I’ve heard of this method but it does make sense. It’s like cooking pasta. I’ll try this one of these days.
Another rice tip: it turns out fluffier if you soak it for around 30 minutes before cooking. Hmmm… so much for cooking it like pasta.
Speaking as a native rice eater, I would think boiling and draining the water would surely remove the last traces of any nutritional value in the rice?
I’m sure that some of the nutrtion is washed away, if you throw away the water. I tend to save stuff like this, as well as water I’ve cooked vegetables in, and reuse in some dish or another. In fact, in the past I would have used leftover water from cooking vegetables to cook the rice in! I did find this link about the nutritional aspects. I’ve never actually considered white rice to have much nutrional value but I’m not a nutritionist by any means. I guess I tend to treat it as a neutral in terms of nutrition.
My husband taught me this when we got married. He learned it from a South American friend, who learned it from his mother.
Put however much white rice you want to cook in your pan (no need to measure) and then fill it with cold water until the water is covering the rice up to the first joint of your index finger (this doesn’t have to be exact, either – you just need to cover the rice with about an inch of water.) Bring the water to a boil and keep it there until the water is mostly gone and you just have a kind of bubbling going on at the top of the rice. Turn off the heat, cover the rice with a lid, and let it sit on the hot burner until you are ready to eat.
Perfect rice every time and it stays hot for quite a while. The only drawback is you have to keep an eye on it while it’s boiling to prevent boiling away your water. Although I’ve done that a couple of times and was able to save the rice by just adding some more water, bringing it back to a boil and then turning off the heat, etc.
I like this method because I don’t have to measure anything. 
This doesn’t work so well with brown rice, though.
Dont worry, Indians have been cooking rice this way for centuries.
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April 14, 2005 
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