Rice Poll

I love the medium thickness rice stick noodles (I've bought them from Asian Best), I use them for chicken or beef pho, they don't dissolve immediately upon cooking like the smaller noodles do

When making rice dishes from scratch I think it's essential to wash the rice, removing the outside starch makes it less glutinous and sticky when cooked, and that is important for all recipes

I've read that dried out take-out rice is the best rice to use for home-made fried rice recipes since it fries easily, but I don't know. I tried to make kim chi-hot dog fried rice with it recently and it was awful

I always wash and steep the rice, whether boiling or frying. For a couple of hours if I have the time. Some people steep overnight.

Basmati FTW - it has a much lower GI than any other kind so is better for yiz sugar levels.

I'll cook jasmine if its going to be for fried rice though.

And obvs risotto is its own genre, but Ive gone off that gloop anyway.

Brown rice is the devil and is the reason I gave up trying to be vegetarian as a kid cos every recipe seemed to require it and I hated it so much.

I buy the 5kg sacks of Maharajas Choice, and honestly I never worry about usebys, I'd use it all up within 3-6 months easily.

Risotto doesn’t have to be gloop. It’s essential to wash the rice, removing the outside starch so it's less glutinous and sticky when cooked. That is especially important for risotto. You want to make a creamy mixture where the rice grains are separate. That involves a lot of attention, slowly adding stock to the mixture while you're stirring it

Oh I know all that, I think I just got burned out on risotto after the 90s. It is nice immediately out of the pan but very quickly clags.

I've been using this rice for a few years. As close as brown rice gets to being fluffy like white rice. Really versatile for a short grain
https://www.oishii.sg/wiki/413/#:~:text=Genmai%20is%20whole%20grain%20rice,bran%20layer%20and%20the%20germ.

i love brown rice so much. especially with a little gravy. just wanted to say that.

we buy the 25 lb bag of jasmine rice from costco. I buy smaller bags of basmati for indian dishes. I've stopped washing rice to conserve water. I toast the rice in some oil (~1 tsp per cup), use a bit less water (e.g. 1.4:1 instead of 1.5:1), and end with 5 minutes off heat with lid on. Always get seperate grains and no gloopiness this way.

always make too much rice and stir fry the leftovers a day or two later. Highly recommend Night Market book for stir fry recipes, but I hear you on the low power gas burner. I bought a high power propane camping burner for wok cooking outside.

The restaurant where I tend bar has very good food but falls completely flat on their rice game. I've thought about taking the co-owner/kitchen mastermind a cup of basmati and saying "try this and never look back."

I've never been a rice washer, then I read about all the toxic chemicals from polluted water that can be on your rice. Now I'm still not a rice washer. Maybe I don't believe a bit of water can get rid of those chemicals, maybe I'm trying to conserve water, maybe I'm just lazy.

washing the rice for me is about rinsing the starch off the grains, but yeah there is probably all sorts of stuff that you are better off not thinking too much about that gets into the food chain.

Ive seen some indian recipes that call for soaking the rice first as well. I wonder, is it to do with the tools at hand or altitude as well? They do a lot of cooking in those odd little whistle pressure cookers.

I always thought pressure cookers might be so popular in the subcontinent because it is so hot there that containing steam and heat and being able to release it out of a window would be a huge plus.

Better for cooking dhal

yes! and that as well

just wanted to add that to make good chana dal most Indian recipes recommend washing and soaking the split gram as essential preparation!

just a word on brown rice, if you heat a tbsp or so of ghee in your rice pot, and sautée the brown rice in that ghee for a minute or two just until it begins to emit the most positively divine fragrance -- you'll know, because you'll say, oh, my God, this smells so divine, and so will anybody else who smells it -- and then, before it over-caramelizes, you add the water or stock you're going to cook it in, bring to a boil and then cover it tightly (I line the lid with some paper towels, this trick really gets the rice to the right texture I find), then reduce the heat to very low and cook as long as your directions say -- brown rice takes a bit longer than white but not, in my experience, the full "twice as long" some cookbooks advise -- and then once the heat's off let it sit five or even ten minutes unbothered before removing the lid, well, should you do this, you will have some very lovely rice indeed.

I've done the saute method previously with basmati, for some "Mexican style" rice. Which was just basically rice sauted with onions, cumin, garlic, tomatoes, hot sauce and then cooked in chicken stock. And the result was decent enough, but no divine moments!

yes, the sautée is good with regular basmati but not unbelievable. but something in the brown basmati with this, it's really next level.

I want my rice too be sticky. Makes it easier to pick up with chopsticks.

yes, both are good in the right meal

Question: can rice cookers be trusted to get brown rice right? Mine doesnt have a specific setting for it. TBH Im considering swapping it for an instant pot or similar, cos the cooker I have has to have all the lid innards dismantled and washed and dried after every use or it gets mould in the seal which is annoying.

I get it done OK in my rice cooker but have to add much more water and sometimes put it on twice.

a zojirushi/tiger/cuckoo/other asian rice cooker with brown rice setting will get brown rice right

rice cooking is a feature that was added to the instant pot as an afterthought imo, it's not designed to cook rice

i worked for a short while with a Japanese chef and he rinsed his (regular short grain, white) rice to remove excess starch then soaked it for ~1/2 hour before cooking. when it comes to brown rice i rinse, then soak it for a couple hours if i have time. think it comes out better/more tender that way (1:1.5 :: rice:water)

xp

yes, instant pots are especially unsuited for white rice - I was fooled by some bad food youtubers that they are also rice cookers. I'm going to get a decent Asian rice cooker when I've got the dosh, not a ridiculously expensive one, but I looked at some good mid-priced options. I'm not buying any more basic £30 ones off e-bay.

i love the idea behind simple rice cookers, it's ingenious. perfect rice cooking with simple electric components, no circuit boards or software, no scales, no timer. how do they do it? i'm glad you asked! boiling water is always 100c no matter how slow or fast it's boiling, so as long as there's water in the pot the temperature will be no higher than 100c. once the water is all absorbed by the rice the temperature of the rice can rise above 100c. below the pot is a magnet made of an alloy designed to become demagnetised above 100c - this magnet is part of a switch that completes the heating circuit. so when the rice has absorbed all the water the temperature goes above 100, the magnet turns off and the heating circuit is disconnected.

it's an impressive old tech invention. Lol I previously thought it was the weight change that switched off the heating circuit.

the first automatic one invented in 1955.

yeah i have one of those cheap no-circuitry ones, it's fine

Yeah we had a $15 Kmart rice cooker with a glass lid whose only setting is cook or warm, I assume it worked the same way - the spring-loaded circle in the middle of the element that pops up (even my new cooker does it that way). We had it years with no issue and no burnt rice, only reason we had to turf it was the nonstick coating was all coming off.

that is the issue I have with the cheap ones, the shitty cheap teflon pot that the rice starts sticking to after a few months of use.

yeah i have one of those cheap no-circuitry ones, it's fine

no doubt. i had one (don't recall brand) that lasted nearly 30 years. replaced recently with another "no-circuitry" Zojirushi that cost ~$50. probably set for life
xp

one I've been looking at is made by Yum Asia and the appeal of it to me, more than all the fancy features it has, is that the inner bowl is ceramic coated and more durable than the awful cheap teflon ones.

Oh that might be ours calz, post a picture? It does brown rice very well

https://m.media-amazon.com/images/W/IMAGERENDERING_521856-T2/images/I/71CiUfDgerL._AC_SS450_.jpg

this baby

those are cool but I think you really want one of these babies that costs $500

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2ZdM-IYUa2I

another rice cooker that is cool and maybe worth investing in is a persian rice cooker that does tahdig. yum yum

https://assets.epicurious.com/photos/5cc881466844e07bbd4a579d/16:9/w_4992,h_2808,c_limit/Pars-Persian-Rice-Cooker-04252019.jpg

ok wow

I'm really liking the build quality of that pannasonic inner pot - "hard diamond inner coating" Yes!

This is actually the one we have, it gets used very frequently.

does the inner pot scratch easily during washing? I think the Yum Asian models all have the same kind of ceramic (BPA-free and PTFE-free) pot and I'll admit this is a tedious obsession of mine.

No, not at all. I wash it frequently and it’s still perfect.

Damn I did not know a dedicated persian rice cooker was a thing. I have been wanting to make tahdig but it gives me angst just thinking about it.

when I was talking abt Persian rice on Sunday we were specifically discussing how hard it is to do that in a regular pot, even a heavy-bottomed one!

a persian rice cooker that does tahdig

WHAT

I don't have the countertop space for a tahdig rice cooker, though a couple of my relatives use them and like them. idg why it's hard to do in a regular nonstick pot tho.