Rice-cooking methods compared: absorption, boiled, pilaf and fried. What each technique gives you, where it sits in the world's kitchens, and which to reach for when.
Absorption cooking is the opposite of boiling. There is no draining. The rice goes in with the precise amount of water it needs, the pan is sealed, and the rice cooks until every drop is gone. What you take off the heat is what you serve.
Boiled rice (also called pasta-method, or excess-water method) treats rice the way you treat dried pasta. A big pan of water comes to a rolling boil, the rice goes in, you cook to taste, you drain the water away. No measured ratio, no lid, no rest period.
Fried rice is the most-cooked rice dish on earth. Every country east and south-east of the Himalayas has its version: Chinese egg fried rice, Thai khao phad, Indonesian nasi goreng, Filipino sinangag, Korean bokkeumbap. The technique is the same everywhere: cold, dry, day-old cooked rice goes into a screaming-hot wok with flavoured oil, aromatics and small pieces of protein or vegetable, gets tossed for two minutes, lands on the plate.
Pilaf (also spelled pilau, pulao, polow, plov, depending on the cuisine) is the most versatile of the rice methods. It is the standard for everyday eating across an enormous swathe of the world: from Iranian polo through Indian pilau, Lebanese rice-and-vermicelli, Afghan kabuli pulao, Uzbek plov, East African pilau and Turkish pilav. Every cuisine has its own version, but they share the same two-step technique:
A bag of rice can be cooked four very different ways. Each method gives a different finished texture, fits a different cuisine and pairs with a different style of food. The mistake most home cooks make is using one method (usually the rice-cooker absorption) for everything. The reason your fried rice is wet, your risotto is gluey or your basmati clumps into a starchy mass is not the rice. It is the technique.