With short grain rice i often want it to stick together. That works much better with chopsticks. Different rices cook up differently, and i like most of them.
I do have an Indian recipe that starts by soaking the long-grain rice and discarding that water, and that produces totally separate grains. So i guess i “rinse” in that case. But that’s an exception.
I never rinse rice. I’ve never encountered a problem with my rice that I thought rinsing would solve. I’ve had it both rinsed and non-. I can’t tell the difference. I think it’s a waste of time.
At home, 99% of the time it’s only the finest Thai Hom Mali for us. I also rinse my rice, multiple times, to reduce possible exposure to arsenic (despite the FDA’s opinion that it has minimal effect).
When camping however, Minute rice in the bag is tops!
This is the best rice I’ve ever eaten in my life anytime or anywhere.
I must not be alone in my opinion because, despite the plethora of rice types and brands at Mariano’s, the place is always out of this.
I owe you thanks because, while I was looking for a picture of my favorite rice, I found a link to actually buying it on line in much larger bags than what is sold in the store!
Addendum: Just completed an order for two 4 lb bags. That should hold me for a while. LOL
Grandma always made her rice this way and until I was older I didn’t know of any other way of cooing it
The funny thing was I never could make it as she did and my family here in ca thought I was nuts until someone gave me a couple of boxes of betty crockers rice pudding mix… I assumed it was rice a Roni so I made it and it tasted exactly how she made it
Heh. We have a recipe that calls for Minute Rice, Velveeta and broccoli. It’s a casserole that you bake. It’s a wonderful side dish. It’s very, umm, down home cooking I guess.
I have a rice cooker that I use for real rice. Love the jasmine rice. Basmati is good too. Not a big fan of brown rice. It can be fine though.
My knee-jerk reaction is that Minute Rice is an abomination, but on reflection, I doubt I’ve eaten it in close to 50 years. I should give it a try; maybe there are things it’s good for.
The ratio of water to rice is highly dependent on the type of rice you use. A really short grain rice may work best at 1:1; a really long grain rice might require 2:1.
On rice-rinsing, it does make a difference if you are thorough about it. I have a friend in the food truck biz who says he figured out that the way to get perfect Hawaiian plate-lunch rice is to wash the grains EIGHT times before cooking. I haven’t tested this, mostly because I like rice in most any incarnation so am fine with however it comes out, but given what an extraordinarily fine chef he is, I’m sure he’s right.
It’s funny how things change. When I was growing up, rice was this weird, exotic food we almost never had, except for rare ventures into Minute Rice for a daringly foreign meal. Now it seems like the most normal food in the world to me, and my pantry currently contains Calrose, Nishiki, red, and black varieties.
It just dawned on me that a photon can never experience the pleasure of Minute Rice, since time doesn’t have any meaning for it.
One thing about Minute Rice. It’s portion controlled. I don’t even make the package “league minimum” 1 cup. I make about 6 oz. I’m the only one that eats rice in this house. Even the smallest rice cooker is two cups. I think MR is good enough for me to not waste money.
Sure, properly cooked rice is better. So would a lot of things that I make at home. But is it better enough?
Huh. I grew up with rice. Uncle Ben’s Converted Rice, to be precise. It was a staple, and we had it regularly.
Also, if I don’t have time to make rice, I make quinoa. Which was an exotic food to me, but now I stock it as a staple. It cooks exactly like rice, except it take almost no time to be done. It has a more assertive flavor than rice, but I like it. I also like playing with different colors of it, just for fun.
Director David Lynch taught me about quinoa. I’d never heard of it. I was watching a David Lynch movie (on my VCR, IIRC) and in the “extras” for the movie, Lynch had a short video of him making quinoa and broccoli. Like Lynch, it was somewhat surreal.
I went out the next day and hunted down quinoa.
Hilarious, I was able to find the clip:
Yeah, you’re forced to plan ahead, 10 - 15 minutes. But the real trick is to not stand there, and watch the pot, because…
I recently packed my rice cooker away, because even if there was no screwup, the thing was a nuisance to clean, compared to the one-pot stovetop technique. On hand in my pantry, med grain white, Jasmine, arborio, and brown rice, and I must say that stovetop works a treat on brown. I use a little extra water when I cook brown, test the grains for tenderness, drain any extra water, and cover the pot and let sit.
Dan
Thanks, gonna try this!
Dan
Interestingly, my Asian-American wife doesn’t mind Minute Rice, on occasion. It’s useful when we’re just about to have dinner, and she says, “OMG, I forgot to make rice!”
I like Minute Rice. Mainly because I don’t really like rice, but it is necessary for some dishes, although never a major part. Having a box on hand means I can throw together a stir-fry or the like and have something appropriate to serve it on without stocking a grain I won’t eat otherwise.
Can you use an instapot to make “real” (as opposed to Minute) rice?
Yes, the Instant Pot has become my usual way of cooking rice. It even has a preset button labeled “rice”, so I just add rice and water to the pot, press the rice button, and let it go. It’s not necessarily faster than cooking it on the stove, but it’s more convenient since you can just “set it and forget it”. You don’t need quite as much water since the Instant Pot is more sealed, so I usually do 1 cup of rice to 1.5 cups of water (versus 2 cups of water on the stove).
Tip for Instant Pot rice: let the pressure let off “naturally.” It will take about 15-20 minutes, but this is a good thing. The IP will keep it warm, but sitting for a bit will let it “rest.”
Those of you who cook rice other ways should also rest your rice after cooking. Don’t take off the lid, don’t mix it around, just leave it alone for at least 10 minutes after it’s done cooking.
The texture is completely different. Mushy.
The advantage of Minute Rice is that it is almost completely idiotproof. I say “almost completely” because one of my brothers once messed up a box of Kraft Macaroni and Cheese, so he might be able to mismanage the Minute Rice.
My mother actually raised us on MR. She never bought or cooked the regular stuff. Likely this is why I’ve never really mastered real rice on the stove (I use either my Instant Pot, or a microwave rice cooker).
Supposedly it makes rice less gummy.
However, if you are using enriched rice - i.e. the generic stuff in bags at the grocery store - that is not recommended - because the vitamins etc. will get washed away. With a better quality of rice (we get 10 pound bags of basmati at Costco once or twice a year), rinsing is likely to make a noticeable difference. I just swirl it around in a pot until the water is mostly clear - it starts out looking almost like milk, with the first rinse.
I nuke it when I’m making smaller quantities, like a cup. Just put a cup in a lidded glass container (I suppose Tupperware would work, too). I do about 1 2/3x volume of water. 100% for 5 minutes; 50% for 15 minutes. All lid on. (I have a 700 watt oven.) Works a treat. Only discovered I could do this like six months to a year ago. And pretty much the same method as stovetop for me, except the 5 minutes is replaced by bringing to a boil, and the 15 minutes is done on the lowest heat setting, or just the teeeniest skosh higher.