Rice Poll

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.

you should always use grapeseed oil. it's harder with oil that burns at lower temps i guess. glad to hear ppl are making persian rice, or want to.

I tried making Tachin in a Le Creuset pot and wanted to get a formed mass of rice with a crust, but it didn't work out. It just ended up being smoked basmati rice (a really great thing in itself, but it scents the whole house) with saffron, yogurt, barberries, coriander seeds, and toasted pine nuts

LOL my fancy newer rice cooker makes tahdig by accident (it crisp/semi singes the bottom of the rice every damn time).

I am in the space-challenged no-more-kitchen-appliances camp. One can make any type of rice in a pot, and one needs the $80 for saffron anyway.

in my local Asian supermarket the saffron is safeguarded on the shelves behind what used to be the cigarette/lottery kiosk from when the building was owned by a chain supermarket. Saffron is a much more expensive habit than smoking though!

hey i can stop anytime i want

xp amen!

the only issue i have with making persian rice in a pot is, you need to wrap a towel around the cover of the pot, otherwise it doesn't come out quite right. i don't know why, maybe the towel absorbs some of the moisture. then where do you keep the towel afterwards, you can't wash it properly with detergent b/c it's used for food preparation. so i always have this fire-singed towel that smells like polow folded up like, on top of my toaster oven.

you now have a towel that can also be used for proofing bread now imo

i just need to start baking bread.

I am with Sufjan Grafton here.

My kitchen is 6'x7', with maybe a pillowcase-sized amount of counter space. Many of you have closets the size of my kitchen.

I love my wife very much, but our bitterest arguments are about single-use appliances. We simply do not have room for: a microwave, toaster, toaster oven, electric kettle, coffeemaker, stand mixer, food processor, slow cooker, instant pot, and a fucking rice cooker. Like, maybe pick two of those? Three, max.

Anyways we make and eat rice frequently. Using a totally normal saucepan on the stove.

Solidarity to closet-sized kitchen users! When I said in the other thread I literally don’t have a stove I meant I don’t have any kind of built-in cooker unit nor the option of having one, countertop appliances only (and v limited space for those)

I cook rice in the microwave, comes out good

Oh man tho, my mum always did amazing Persian rice w tahdig (we have Iranian family) — not thought about that in a while but my bday is on Easter Sunday this year & I might try and nudge our family meal in that direction