Persian Rice - How to Make Perfect Steamed Rice

Hello this is Chef John from foodwishes.com with Persian rice. That's right, forget about those incredible looking potatoes. We'll get to those in a few minutes. This video is about rice and not just any rice, Persian rice. And I know one thing for sure, or should I say for sure, this is the best technique ever invented for cooking long grain rice. So let's go ahead and get started. And for that we're going to bring some salted water to a boil over high heat because this is basically a two-step method where we're going to parboil the rice first, then we're going to steam it. Okay so we're going to salt that water, we're going to wait for it to come to a boil on high heat, and while we're waiting we can go ahead and prep our rice. And for this I want you to get a very specific kind of rice called basmati, which by the way is incredibly easy to find in stores these days. And what we're going to do is we're going to toss a couple cups into a strainer, and before this goes into the boiling water we want to go ahead and rinse it very thoroughly to remove any excess starch from the outside of the grains. And once that rice has been rinsed and our water's come to a boil, let's go ahead and carefully transfer that rice into the pot. And we're going to set our timer for seven minutes. Okay and we will give it a stir a couple times during that seven minutes. All right we don't want it sticking to the bottom. And by the way it's going to take a minute or two to come back to a simmer. So this may actually only boil for about five minutes, but that's totally fine. That's all we need. And then once our timer goes off we're going to go ahead and drain this. Don't rinse it, just carefully drain it. And if everything's gone according to plan, you should have something that looks pretty close to this, which actually kind of looks cooked, but it's not. This rice is still pretty raw inside. It's probably not even halfway cooked, which is exactly how we want it for the next step. So we're just going to let that sit there draining for another minute while we prep our pot. And what I like to do is just rinse out whatever I use to boil the rice, which I'm going to place on medium-high heat with a little bit of oil in the bottom. And this is where things get a little weird, but in a good way. As soon as that oil heats up a little bit, I'm going to cover the bottom with sliced potatoes. Just peeled and sliced russet potatoes. Those are about a quarter inch thick. And we're just going to cover the bottom the best we can. I'm also going to season the tops of those potatoes with some salt. And just for fun, a little pinch of ground cumin. I believe it's much more authentic to use cumin seeds, but I don't have any. And what's going to happen here, these potatoes are going to form a base upon which we're going to steam the rice. So cool. So once we've seasoned our potatoes, and they're sizzling very enthusiastically on medium-high heat, we're carefully going to transfer in our parboiled rice. And I want you to be very, very gentle with this. Do not pack the rice. In fact, there's an old Persian saying, if you pack the rice, it don't come nice. So we're just spooning it in using the tip of the spoon to kind of move stuff around. And once all that's been transferred in there, I'm just going to even it out as best I can. At this point, we're going to do two very critical things. First, turn your heat down to low. And second, we're going to add some slices of butter to the top. And at that point, this is ready to cover and steam. But we're not just going to put the lid on. Before we put the lid on, we're going to put two pieces of paper towel down first. You can also use a clean towel. I believe that would be the traditional choice. And then all we need to do is let that rice steam covered, don't peek, for 45 minutes. All right, so that's going to steam like that for 45 minutes. And while we're waiting, we're going to go ahead and prep the saffron. So I'm going to go ahead and place one pinch of saffron in the bottom of my mortar. And we're going to use this to color a portion of the rice. And sure, this stuff's crazy expensive, but you only need a few strands here. And what we want to do is kind of grind this down to a powder. And then we're going to add just a little splash of hot water. And what we'll do is we'll use that to color a portion of the rice. It's going to look so cool. So all we need to do is mix that up. We'll transfer that into a small mixing bowl and simply wait for our rice to be done, which it is. So let's head back over to the stove. And when you take off that lid and that towel, you should be looking at the most gorgeous, most perfect rice you've ever seen in your life. And not only did those potatoes form a perfect base on which to steam the rice, but underneath they've now caramelized and browned in that butter. And as you'll see, make an incredible garnish for this. But before we can garnish, we've got to serve this up. So to do that, we're going to take a little bit of the rice, a couple spoons, and add it to our saffron mixture. And give that a mix. And you'll see it turn from white to the prettiest of yellows. I love this step. So we'll mix that up and we'll set that aside. That's actually going to be used for the top. And then we'll go ahead and spoon the rest of the rice into a serving platter. And sure, you could just dig everything up, mix the rice with the potatoes, up to you. But what I suggest is just to spoon out the rice at this point, pile that up nice and high, and then we'll go ahead and we'll top that with our saffron rice, which makes everything look so festive and fun and happy. I mean, how are you going to be sad around this rice? So we'll scatter that over the top. And then we'll go back into the pot. And we will pull out those beautifully crusty, crispy potatoes. And you'll notice, even though we didn't use a non-stick pot, these come up very easily. The steam from the rice prevents them from sticking. And we'll simply place those around our pile of rice for some extremely hot starch on starch action. I mean, I would be happy with the rice or the potato in this dish. You get both. What a deal. And by the way, any of that rice that also caramelized on the bottom with the potatoes, you totally want to serve that too. I was actually going to put it under the potatoes before I put them on, but I forgot. It's incredibly addictive and considered one of the best parts of this dish. But anyway, that's it. We're going to go around and garnish with those potatoes. And then maybe possibly we can finish up with a little bit of chopped parsley. And that Persian rice is done. What an unbelievably fantastic looking side dish. And as I go in with the fork for the official taste test, you can really see how amazing that texture is. I mean, be careful eating this stuff next to a window. This stuff is so light, it wouldn't take much of a breeze to blow it right off your fork. And I'm just barely exaggerating that. And if you notice, there was no measuring. So really, this is not a recipe at all. It's a straight technique. If you follow this very simple procedure, you will get the exact same results. And as I touched on earlier, I would be happy just eating the rice here. But then you get those bonus potatoes, crispy and crusty on one side, soft and butter scented on the other, just beyond delicious. And of course, the best thing about Persian rice, eating it underneath other Persian foods. As I tried to do here with a chicken Is that pronunciation even close? Probably not. But anyways, chicken stewed with walnuts and pomegranate. And while I didn't film it, I am going to film a version featuring duck in the near future. So stay tuned for that. But in the meantime, if you're a fan of perfectly cooked rice, or just delicious, gorgeous side dishes in general, I really hope you give this a try soon. So head over to foodwishes.com for all the ingredient amounts and more info as usual. And as always, enjoy!