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Based on white long grain or basmati by the absorption method: rinse, add double the volume of water, boil, then cover on the lowest heat for 10-12 minutes and rest 5. Brown rice needs about half as much again of water and 25-30 minutes.
What The Rice Calculator Works Out
- Dry rice: people x grams per person. The standard portion is 75g dry as a side, 100g when rice is the main event and 60g for a light portion, so 300g feeds four alongside a curry. A "cup" is about 200g, nearly three portions, which is how one casual scoop feeds a family.
- Water (absorption method): double the weight of the rice in millilitres for white long grain or basmati. Rinse until the water runs clearish (surface starch makes it claggy), add the cold water and a pinch of salt, bring to the boil, clamp the lid on at the lowest heat for 10 to 12 minutes and rest 5 off the heat before forking through.
- Cooked weight: rice roughly trebles in weight as it cooks (x2.8 for white), so 300g dry lands around 850g cooked.
- Rice type (advanced): changes the water, the cooked weight and the timing. Brown rice wants about 2.5 times its weight in water and 25 to 30 minutes; jasmine a little less water than basmati; risotto rice takes 3.5 times its weight in hot stock over 18 to 20 minutes; sushi rice is rinsed, soaked and cooked with 1.5 times its weight.
- Cooking method (advanced): boiling in plenty of water (about a litre per 100g, then drain) is forgiving for long grain; a rice cooker uses the absorption quantities or its own fill line.
- Appetite adjustment and extra portions (advanced): scale everyone up or down from the standard portion, and add portions for tomorrow. Cooked rice can host Bacillus cereus spores whose toxin survives reheating, so cool leftovers within an hour, refrigerate, keep no more than a day and reheat once until piping hot, which makes next-day fried rice the correct use of the surplus.
- Pan size (advanced): rice swells to about three times its volume, so the pan should hold at least twice the rice-plus-water volume with the lid on.
- Cost and energy (advanced): grams x your price per kg (supermarket long grain is about GBP 1 per kg, basmati about GBP 2), and roughly 350 kcal per 100g of dry rice, so a 75g side is about 260 kcal before the curry.
Source and further reading: Food Standards Agency: cooking safely.