Random food rant: why are people so weird about cooking rice?



People seem to be so weird about cooking rice.  If I had a rice grain for every person who has told me they can't cook rice, I'd have a lot of rice.   

My steps to cooking rice (for consumption with Indian food):

1.  Buy good quality basmati rice - e.g. Tilda

2.  Put said rice in a saucepan

3.  Add some water

4.  Heat until cooked (about 15 mins but can be slightly less or slightly more depending on type or rice)

5.  Drain

    
Lots of people seem to feel that that last step is Wrong and, therefore, spend a lot of time experimenting with step 3 so that they can omit step 5 (i.e. using an amount of water such that they don't need to drain it and then complain that they have undercooked rice or burned rice. But, really, there's nothing wrong with step 5. If you think about it, why should there be? It's rice. It's not going to cook any differently in more water than in less water. It's not going to dramatically change texture by being moved from pot to colander. I sometimes accidentally get the water amount exactly right and it does not taste any different to when I drain it.

The real trick with rice, in my view, is to make sure you cook it for the correct length of time. If you're inexperienced, the best way to ensure that is to start tasting it from the 10 minute mark to make sure you don't miss the window. Once you've been doing it for a while, you can just do it by eye.