Cooking Rice Well
Never serve gummy, burnt, or crunchy rice again. Learn the stovetop fundamentals, choose the right grain for every meal, and troubleshoot any pot.
Like Duolingo, but for Cooking Rice Well. Tomo turns the whole topic into a game you play five minutes a day, until it actually sticks.
24 levels across 4 sections, about 48 minutes end to end, roughly 10 days at five minutes a day. It moves through The Everyday Stovetop Pot, Troubleshooting and Tools, Choosing the Right Grain, and Flavoring and Building Dishes. It starts from scratch.
Free forever · No credit card · iPhone & Android
Key ideas in Cooking Rice Well
- Rice grains can only drink up a fixed volume of liquid during cooking
- The absorption ratio accounts for both what the grains absorb and what naturally evaporates
- Excess leftover water leaves stovetop rice soggy and mushy rather than distinct
- Trapped steam is what actually cooks the upper layer of rice in the pot
- A loose lid allows moisture to escape into the room before the core of the grain softens
- Start uncovered or loosely covered over high heat until water reaches a rolling boil
- Drop heat immediately to the lowest simmer and seal with a tight lid
- Turn off the burner completely to finish cooking in residual steam
- Lifting the lid vents the trapped heat and steam needed to finish cooking the grains
- Poking or opening the pot mid-simmer causes unevenly cooked, hard grains
- The bottom layer holds excess wet moisture right when the heat turns off
- Resting off the heat lets trapped steam settle back down and equalize moisture from top to bottom
- Digging straight into un-rested rice leaves the bottom gummy and the top dry
- The correct sequence of heat adjustments when cooking rice on the stovetop
- Milling grinds starch into a fine powder on the outside of rice grains
- Loose surface starch turns into a thick, gummy paste in hot water
You've tried the other tabs
Thirty open tabs. Four facts you actually kept.
You watched. You nodded. By Sunday it was gone.
One answer, then back to scrolling.
Eight weeks. You meant to finish. You didn't.
Tomo gives Cooking Rice Well the Duolingo treatment: levels, streaks, and quick quizzes that test what you just learned. That game loop is what the tabs above never had, so it's the one you actually finish.
Here's what playing it feels like
A real question from this course. Take your best guess.
When you measure water using the absorption method, what two things is that water meant for?
Get it right to open this lesson and 23 more in the app.
Where Cooking Rice Well takes you
- 1
The Everyday Stovetop Pot
- The Stovetop Absorption Method
- Washing, Soaking, and Resting
- 2
Troubleshooting and Tools
- Diagnosing and Fixing Cooking Failures
- Pots, Cookers, and Heat Control
- 3
Choosing the Right Grain
- Long-Grain Rices: Fluffy and Distinct
- Short- and Medium-Grain Varieties
- Brown Rice and Intact Grains
- 4
Flavoring and Building Dishes
- Infusing Flavor and Building Pilafs
4 sections · 8 units · 24 levels. Built to play, not to enroll.
You pick the voice
Cooking Rice Well is taught in the Explain Like I'm 5 style: no big words. promise.. Want a different feel? In the app you can spin up the same topic in any of Tomo's teaching styles. Same facts, totally different vibe.
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Start Cooking Rice Well today.
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