Qdoba Cilantro Lime Rice

Home reconstruction

There are two reasons the lime juice belongs at the end rather than in the cooking water, and they are unrelated to each other.

Acid firms up starch. Rice cooked in acidulated water stays noticeably harder, and people compensate by cooking it longer, which makes the outside mushy while the centre is still firm.

Lime aroma is volatile. The compounds that make lime smell like lime boil off in minutes. Twenty minutes in a covered pot and what remains is sourness with none of the brightness.

Cook the rice in plain salted water. Everything else happens off the heat.

Rinse the rice

Long-grain rice carries loose surface starch. Left on, it gelatinises into a paste that glues the grains together — the opposite of the light, separate rice this dish needs.

Rinse in cold water until it runs mostly clear, three or four changes. It takes a minute.

The oil in the cooking water

A tablespoon of neutral oil in the pot coats each grain and keeps them from sticking to each other. It is a standard restaurant trick for rice that has to sit in a warming tray and stay separate.

It also makes the rice easier to fluff without breaking the grains.

Rest, then fluff, then dress

Ten minutes off the heat with the lid on. The steam redistributes and the grains firm up.

Then fluff with a fork — not a spoon, which compresses and breaks. Then add the lime, coriander and oil.

Adding the dressing to rice straight off the boil makes it gluey, because the grains are still soft and shed starch when moved.

What you need

• 400 g long-grain white rice
• 700 ml water
• 1 tbsp neutral oil
• 1.5 tsp fine salt
• juice of 2 limes and the zest of 1
• 1 large bunch coriander (about 40 g), finely chopped
• 2 tbsp olive oil
• 1/4 tsp ground cumin (optional)

Method

1. 1. Rinse the rice until the water runs mostly clear.
2. 2. Rice, water, neutral oil and salt into a saucepan. Bring to a boil.
3. 3. Cover, heat to the lowest setting, 15 minutes. Do not lift the lid.
4. 4. Off the heat, still covered, 10 minutes.
5. 5. Fluff with a fork.
6. 6. Stir the lime juice, zest, coriander, olive oil and cumin through.
7. 7. Taste for salt.

Do not lift the lid

Rice cooks in trapped steam. Every time the lid comes off, the steam leaves and the temperature drops, and the rice at the top ends up undercooked.

Fifteen minutes, then ten minutes resting, and only then look at it.

Chop the coriander stalks too

The stalks carry more flavour than the leaves and they are not tough if chopped finely. Discarding them throws away most of what you bought.

Chop them fine and use them alongside the leaves.

Storing

Four days in the fridge. Cool it quickly and refrigerate within an hour — cooked rice left at room temperature is a genuine food safety issue, not a technicality.

Reheat until piping hot, once only.

The coriander darkens after a day. It is still fine; it just looks less fresh.