Start with high quality long grain rice. Basmati is one of the best. Wash off the excess starch from the rice. This will prevent it from making a sticky mess. Put the rice in a deep bowl and run cold water over it. Once the bowl is full of water, use your fingers to swish the rice around. The water will start getting murky. Now gently pour this water out. Repeat this process till the water is mostly clear. This will take at least 4-5 washes.

Now fill it up one last time. Don't wash the rice again. Just leave it in bowl, covered with water, for about 30 minutes or so. After the soaking, you will notice that the rice grains have turned a nice milky white.

OK, let's drain the water out carefully again. Try and get as much water out of the bowl as you can without pouring out the rice grains as well. This takes patience.

On to cooking the rice...

Put the rice in a heavy-gauge pan that has a flat bottom. A Dutch Oven, for instance, will do nicely. This bit is important. If your pan is made out of some thin flimsy metal, your rice will burn on the bottom while the grains at the top may not cook properly. You also need one with a tight lid, or else the steam will leak and your rice won't cook right.

Now put in the water. Normally, a long-grain rice recipe calls for twice the amount of water as rice. If you've done the cleaning and pre-soaking, then use 1 cup rice and 1.5 cups water.

I like to add 1/2 teaspoon salt to the rice, but most Asian recipes don't salt the rice. This is your choice.

Put the pan on medium high heat. Wait till the water boils and starts bubbling. Now turn the heat down as low as you can, cover with the tight lid, and let it just sit there for about 15-20 minutes. Resist the urge to lift the lid and peek at the rice. No, you can't have even one peek!

After the 15-20 minutes is up, turn off the heat. No, you still can't lift the lid. Now you have to let it "stand" for another 10 minutes or so. This will help the rice to "settle" so you don't have dry grains on top and wet grains at the bottom.