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Do You Need To Wash Rice Before Cooking? Here’s The Science
(www.iflscience.com)
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this post was submitted on 23 Oct 2023
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Cooking
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I used to never wash my rice, but did notice the rice sludge in the rice cooker so figured, why not, let's wash it, and no more sludge, go figure. I even bought one of those two piece rice washing bowls from amazon which makes it so much easier. I'm a rice washing convert. Also, rice cookers are the greatest invention since sliced bread.
I didn't even know a rice washing bowl existed. I just pour rice in my drainer, spray with water, then dump in my pressure cooker.
Rice cookers are nice, but pressure cookers are better. Not just because you use less water, energy and cooking time, the consistency improves too.
ETA: Pressure cookers also result in a more food safe result, which I always forget about. See response re: Bacillus cereus, below.
Depends on the rice cooker. Nothing beats a Zojiroshi.
Best appliance I ever sprung for.
Damn straight, and I get to jam out to "twinkle twinkle little star" every time I turn it on.
The biggest benefit of a rice maker is that it takes care of itself. I pour in the ingredients and click to start. Then it’s just ready when the rest of the meal is, and I have to worry a lot less about timing that or about doing as many things at once.
Pressure cooker is better than a cheap rice cooker, but a higher end rice cooker is about the same. You can do more stuff with the pressure cooker though.
We use a ninja foodie / instapot and it's great! Consistency comes out nicer and more like Indian style basmati which we prefer.
How well does a pressure cooker keep a cooked batch of rice throughout the day?
Pretty well. Some might argue better than a rice cooker.
Modern pressure cookers usually change to a warm setting, similar to rice cookers, once the specified cook time has elapsed. Additionally, there are certain pathogens in rice (Bacillus cereus) that can survive in spore form to about 100C, but have been shown to be destroyed in the slightly higher temperatures that can exist under pressure. So, arguably, pressure cooker rice is food safe for longer at 'warm' settings than rice cooked in a rice cooker. There's less chance for pathogens to grow if the food has been better sterilized to begin with, provided no subsequent cross contamination occurs.
What pressure cooker do you use? I just tried today with an Instantpot and the bottom completely solidified after a few hours with the rest of the rice turned into mush. This is with the keep warm setting.
I use an instapot. A few hours might be too long to leave rice in there. I don't know. I usually at least turn mine off within the first hour or so and do something with it. Pretty sure food safety guidelines don't recommend leaving rice on warm for hours in any case.
Ah, okay. When I said "throughout the day", I actually mean throughout the day. As in making a large pot of rice in the morning and eating from that same pot for breakfast lunch and dinner. One of the main appeals of rice cookers is the ability to do that. It may not be recommended by food safety guidelines, but it's standard practice in any household that consumes a lot of rice and it's never been a problem.
Here are my findings for both, which are interesting, if you're counting calories and on a diet:
Cooking for consistency, initial consistency of rice cooked in Instant Pot is better, but yields much less rice, Rice Cooker yields almost 25% more rice per oz of dry rice.
1280 calories for 2 cups of uncooked white rice + 4 cups of water. Rice Cooker White Rice recipe yields 48oz of white rice .
1280 calories for 2 cups of uncooked white rice + 2.25 cups of water. IP White Rice recipe yields 32oz of white rice.
Now, of course I used less water in the IP than I did in the rice cooker, but it's the consistency of the rice I was testing.
I've also found if I cook a big batch in the rice cooker, and it's gloopy, I freeze it in individual sized meal weights of 8 oz, and when it defrosts, I can break it up in the plastic bag with my fingers, put it in the microwave for 3 minutes at 50% and it's perfect.
I don't understand what you're trying to say with the yield. The rice didn't go anywhere. The nutritional value of that pot of rice is the same regardless of how you cook it. Different methods just produce rice that absorb different amounts of water, so the weight is different.
By the time it's been frozen, thawed and microwaved, wouldn't rice cooker rice lose water weight and quite possibly be more in line with IP rice initial values? Not to mention all the energy used in the extra steps.
the weight doesn't change all that much post freeze, and the ease of having readily available frozen rice i can leave in the fridge to thaw overnight for the next days meal, beats having to use (and clean) the rice cooker or ip each time. it works for me, and feels like i'm cheating in how simple it is. one rice cook sets me up for a couple weeks of meals that i use rice with.
Mine uses 1.5 c water per cup of rice and takes 15-20 min with an Oster $20 unit. U telling me a pressure cooker is faster, and uses less water than that?
Just over 1 cup water to 1 cup rice (pretty much 1:1, plus the residual moisture from rinsing) for most white rice. 4 minutes at pressure, but probably comparable in practice. (have to wait for it to come to pressure and lose pressure after)
Really, it's been about consistency for me, but I've only compared to a basic Aroma rice cooker. I really liked my rice cooker, but side by side the IP was just better. Seemed like the grains were more consistent all the way through, like the rice cooker grains had a bit of hardness/density at the center and weren't as fluffy, from what I remember.
Interesting. I don't have the hard in the center issue with my rice at all and it comes out the same way every time. What kind of rice do you use most? I use jasmine.
Jasmine and basmati, usually. Sometimes, calrose. Rarely, something else.
I never would've said it was hard centered per se by itself, just in comparison. Before trying rice cooked both ways side by side, I really liked my rice cooker. But, after getting the pressure cooker, then trying both freshly cooked, this was my impression.
But, it's been years since I switched over, now. I remember looking into it (the Bacillus cereus issue also came up in reading), comparing, and finally getting rid of the rice cooker as the pressure cooker could do more, better.
I'm so hesitant to buy an IP cuz I don't need another kitchen device. Maybe I will when the rice cooker dies.