I'll start with a disclaimer: as a kid I hated rice. My mother didn't know how to cook it very well, and some of her variations were even worse. It took moving to New York City and meeting my Puerto Rican spouse and eating in lots of good ethnic restaurants to really discover the beauty and breadth of possibilities regarding rice.

Your most fool-proof way to have rice that is all separate grains when finished cooking is to select a type of rice that characteristically acts this way. Your regular American grocery store long grain rice is the type that tends to stick to itself. The manufacturers prepare it by pre-washing and it is meant to simply be measured, add water (1 part rice to 2 parts water) and cooked for 15-20 minutes.

When you cook rice, once you've added the rice to the boiling water, put the lid on, turn the heat down so it simmers but doesn't boil over, and DON'T TAKE THE LID OFF TILL IT IS FINISHED. If you stir it during cooking, it will release all the more starch and break the grains make it really sticky.

Cooked basmati rice:

http://miec.ca/assets/images/Cooked_Rice_3b.gif

I enjoy a type of larger-grain Mexican rice (San Francisco brand with a monk on the front wrapper) that I buy in a Mexican grocery store, and I've found other types in Asian markets that I like. There are many many varieties of rice in the world. Those varieties that don't come from the U.S. typically need to be rinsed several times before you cook it. After rinsing, cook it in the same way as above, with water and a little salt, you don't need to add oil or sauté it.

http://archive.laprensa.com.sv/20060718/eleconomista/Untitled-8.jpg

http://farm1.static.flickr.com/207/484570479_d689a8a572.jpg?v=0 (click to see this image)

Washing Rice: Use a bowl and a sieve and put the rice in the sieve and place that in the bowl (there may be other techniques, but this is what I do). Run water into the bowl, swish the sieve around a few times, lift it out to see if the water is cloudy. After a few rinses it should be less cloudy, and when it looks pretty clear then pour the wet rice into your pan, and since it is wet, I put a little less water in (up to 1/4 cup less than usual).

Coating the rice with oil by frying and then cooking it is one way to help make it less sticky, but not fool-proof. I've had it stick that way also, and it has more calories in it from the oil. (I generally sauté the rice ahead of time if I'm fixing something like rice and pasta, such as orzo - where I brown the orzo first, then add the rice and warm it up. The goal is to have brown orzo so you can see it in the rice, like the browned noodles in Rice-a-Roni). (Orzo means "rice" but is a wheat grain made to have that look.)

http://www.goya.com/english/recipes/images_recipe/recipe0004.jpg

All of this is not to say that sticky rice is a bad thing. In the Puerto Rican portion of my family there is a favorite part of any rice (arroz) dish that they will fight over - the "pegau" or crispy slightly burned bit of the rice on the bottom of the pan. When you dish the rice (which usually isn't sticky) into the bowl for dinner, you would NEVER put the pan in the sink to soak stuck-on rice from the bottom. You get a spatula and pry it until it starts to peel off of the bottom, and usually put this on the top of the bowl of rice. They'll grab it off the top and gobble it down every time! If you make a dish like Arroz con gondules (rice and pigeon peas) it isn't truly successful until the rice has formed a substantial layer of sticky browned pegau on the bottom).

Here's an interesting site with entirely different directions, that includes feeling the rice during cooking and straining water out. This sounds odd to me, but the recipes with it sound interesting. http://miec.ca/html/rice.html

The point here is that all around the world many people cook rice and aim at different results, based upon the type and dish it will be part of. Good luck with your cooking adventures, and I hope you find a good type of rice to cook the way you prefer.

When i am cooking 1 cup of rice, I just put the rice in a pan and add 2 teaspoons of oil. Then fry it on high heat for about a minute stirring continuously, till the rice is coated with oil. Then remove from the fire. In the cooking vessel, I will ad 2 cups of water for every one cup of rice. Put the rice and water on high heat till the water comes to a rolling boiling state. Then I will off the stove and close the vessel with the lid. In about 10 minutes the water will be completely absorbed by the rice. Check if the water is absorbed. Then fluff the rice with a fork. It is done.
By the way, I cook busmati rice.

I cook rice in a pressure cooker.I fill the bottom of the cooker with 2 to 3 cups of water and the put the rice along with water in a vessel,place this vessel or container inside the cooker.Leave for just 3 whistles.Not more.Never use direct cooking method.That will result in a saggy moist rice.

If the rice is made for having it along with some gravy or with curds then :

The method is that for every 1 cup of rice I pour 1 1/2 cup of water. They turn out to be separate but slightly moistened.

In case I want it for making some mixed rice like lime rice,mango rice or coconut rice ,fried rice etc then I soak the washed rice for 10 minutes and then pressure cook it .For this method for 1 cup of rice I pour 1 1/4 or even less can be used (if it is basmati rice) .This results in a dry and separate grains of cooked rice.
One or two tsp of oil can be added if desired to the rice along with the water.
For both methods I use raw rice often.