Fixing dinner last night, I pull out my box of [Uncle] Ben’s boil-in-bag rice. It says right on the front of the box in big letters “Perfect rice in 10 minutes!”
Checking the cooking instructions, it says to boil for 12 minutes for firmer rice, or 14 minutes for softer rice. Wondering where they get the 10 minutes from, I check the microwave instructions. Nope - 15 minutes for microwave!
Maybe their definition of “perfect” rice is “less than fully cooked”?
Weird. I used to use boil-in-bag rice a lot of various brands and all of them said to heat in the microwave for 10 minutes. And I’m pretty sure at least one of those brands was Uncle Ben’s.
I checked the one in my cupboard and it says “Boil for 10 minutes”. Are American minutes shorter? I have heard of a “New York Second”.
15 minutes in a microwave seems a long time, but that may be the voltage thing like electric kettles.
I make rice in an Instant Pot and that takes 15 minutes.
A microwave oven can shorten the time it takes for something to get hot, but it can’t shorten the amount of time it takes for something (like rice or pasta) to be in boiling water before it’s fully cooked.
Recently I’m seeing a lot of that pre-made rice in little microwaveable containers that heat up in just one or two minutes. I think they got started as one-serving rice bowls in Asia, but now they’ve come to America and branched out to many different kinds of rice dishes. I’ve seen brown and wild rice, jasmine rice, and other kinds. That’s fine with me. I buy Bibigo brand microwaveable rice bowls at Costco. I know it’s more expensive than cooking rice fresh all the time, but they’re so extremely convenient and easy. And there’s just enough in one for me and Mr. brown with no waste.
When I make regular rice in the microwave, it’s five minutes at full power, then 15 minutes at half power. (1000w microwave — basically you’re doing what you would do on the stovetop: bring to boil then simmer.)
Aren’t those things pretty awful from an environmental standpoint, though? I’m not sure because it’s not something I’d buy, but my vague sense is that they come in disposable plastic containers.
This or a rice cooker is the only way I know to do it right. The rice I buy from Sam’s Club or wherever comes out amazing from those devices. I lived in China for two years and even there, I don’t remember the rice being any better than what I can do in a rice cooker or pressure cooker.
Not only that, they are awful compared to properly-cooked rice. Properly-cooked rice has a nice aroma and texture, it is neither fluffy nor clumpy but a little sticky so you can eat it with chopsticks. The stuff in those packets* just tastes like rubber. One of the worst examples of substituting convenience for quality that I have come across.
*Generic reference, I don’t know that specific brand. The ones I’ve had came from an Asian grocery.
I bought my first rice cooker for ten bucks about 20 or so years ago. I found out it cooks other grains, too! Bulgar, farro, millet, you name it. When that cooker died, I bought an immediate replacement. Incredible, no-fuss rice. Put your seasonings in before cooking, it’s so easy!
When we are in AZ, it’s just me and Mr VOW. I bought a smaller rice cooker, and it’s one of the smartest things I’ve ever done.
Minute Rice is tasteless. I bought that rice-in-a-bag ONCE. If I want crunchy rice, I’ll buy Rice Krispies.
A rice cooker is a lot lighter than the Instant Pot. I’d never use the Instant Pot for just rice. That damned thing is hard to wrassle out of the cabinet.
Instead of being seduced by the “ready in ten minutes,” get a rice cooker and wait an additional ten minutes (20 minutes total). It’s worth it!
~VOW
I’ve never lived in Asia, but here in the US, at least, every Asian or Asian-American household I’ve been in has had a rice cooker. It seems to be a universally beloved device, from my observation. They are wondrous things – I just have no room for another appliance on my counter and my stovetop rice comes out the way I like it (unless I switch brands of rice – then it sometimes takes a cook or two to figure out the right amount of water. It’s not always “water to first knuckle above rice” or 2:1 – typically more like 1.5-1.75:1 water:rice for what I cook.)
Huh, I don’t know what kind of pre-packed rice bowls other folks are eating, but the ones I buy taste just fine. I speak as an Asian food-aholic, in particular, Japanese food. They’re not quite as perfect as the rice at a very top-notch Japanese restaurant, but they’re darned good.
And yes, they’re more wasteful than cooking it yourself, stovetop or rice cooker. After I retire and no longer spend two hours a day commuting, this tired 66 year old will eschew time- and labor-saving convenience rice.
I strongly recommend a rice cooker. We have two and it makes preparing rice incredibly easy and error-free. If you can measure rice and water, and then push a button, then you can cook rice with a rice cooker.
I’d love to know what brand that is. It might be on the shelf next to the dreck my husband buys once in a while, and maybe I can steer him over to it.
I buy “Bibigo”, a Korean brand, and my local Costco carries it. It is sold in eight packs.
Back when pandemic hoarding was an issue around here and most types of rice had disappeared from the supermarket shelves, I bought a ten-pound bag of basmati rice and found that it cooked up reliably light and fluffy without any issues.
When other rice reappeared at Kroger I figured I’d buy the cheap stuff, but what I got was unreliable, consistency-wise. Back to basmati.
Basmati makes the whole house smell delicious when it is cooking, and then it tastes like Heaven!
~VOW