Most People Cook Rice Wrong — This Chinese Trick Changes Everything

Most People Cook Rice Wrong — This Chinese Trick Changes Everything 📖 Get Make It Go Further — the habits from my mother's kitchen, written down for an American grocery store (244 pages, 46 dinners): https://mrsjinkitchen.com 🥢 Subscribe for a new kitchen habit every week — ordinary groceries, better dinners. Stovetop rice, my mother's way: washed until the water runs clear, left alone under the lid, never stirred. If your rice comes out gluey, burnt on the bottom, or hard on top, it is not the brand and it is not you. Rice cooks in STEAM, not in water, and nobody ever showed you that. Below are the seven things my mother did, with every measure she never wrote down. Nothing to buy. Hao ma? 🍚 THE CLOCK 5 minutes hands-on, about 45 minutes waiting (20 soaking, 15 cooking, 10 resting). Make a full pot on Sunday; the cold leftovers are the start of fried rice. 🍚 THE CARD: MY MOTHER'S STOVETOP RICE Serves 4 to 6. • 2 cups long-grain white rice or jasmine rice (about 400 g), from the plain bag, never instant or boil-in-bag (pre-cooked rice cannot hold steam) • 2½ cups (600 ml) cold water for jasmine, 3 cups (720 ml) for American long grain (or water to the first knuckle over leveled rice) • A heavy pot with a tight lid Put the rice in the pot. Cover with cold water, swirl with your hand, pour off the cloudy water. Repeat 3 to 4 times until the water is nearly clear (this washes off the loose mill starch that turns to glue). Add the measured cooking water. Let the rice soak in it for 20 minutes. Level the rice with one stir. This is the only stir. Lid on. High heat until it boils hard and rattles the lid, about 1 to 2 minutes. Turn the flame to the lowest it will go. Lid stays on. Cook 12 minutes for jasmine, 15 minutes for long grain. Do not stir, do not lift the lid. Turn off the heat. Leave the lid on and rest 10 minutes. Nobody lifts the lid. Open, fluff gently with a fork or chopsticks from the edge inward, and serve. 🍚 I WILL NOT ARGUE Long grain or jasmine, both work. A pinch of salt in the water or none. Butter on top is American and that is fine. The brown crust on the bottom of the pot goes to whoever gets there first. 🍚 THE PAN IS HONEST Gluey lump → the rice was not washed. Burnt bottom, hard top → the flame stayed high after the boil. Wet middle → the lid came off too soon. Broken, pasty grains → a spoon went in after the water. Mush all through → too much water. Soft with no bite → it came from a box that was already cooked once. Thin brown crust on the bottom → the cook's reward. 🍚 ONE QUIET THING ABOUT THE STORE A big plain bag of rice is about $15 and feeds a family of four for two months. A box with a flavor packet is about $2 and feeds them once. Nobody is cheating you. A packet is easy to sell and a sack is not. 🍚 THE HABIT Cook the pot full. Cool the leftover rice on the counter within an hour, then keep it covered in the refrigerator up to 4 days. Cooked rice also freezes well in flat bags for 2 months. What never goes in the freezer is the raw bag; it lives in a tin by the stove. 🍚 WHAT I WOULD ASK OF YOU Carry two things: the clear water at the sink, and the lid nobody lifts. Then come back and tell me if every grain stood on its own, tell me honestly if you were stirring or peeking, and tell me your state. 🍚 NEXT TIME IN THIS KITCHEN That cold bowl of rice becomes real fried rice, with the egg and the green onion. #rice #chinesecooking #homecooking