Most People Are Cooking Rice Wrong! Try These Chinese Tricks for Perfect Rice Every Time

You measure the rice and the water exactly the way the back of the bag says, and the rice still comes out heavy. The grains stick together in one wet lump, the bottom is soggy and the top is hard. You stir it to fix it and it turns to glue. It was never your fault. The ratio on the bag was written for a different rice. I'm Mei Lin, and I grew up in Guangzhou, in the south of China, where rice is not a side dish. Rice is the meal. My mother cooked rice for eight people twice a day, measured every grain with a little tin cup, and never once served a heavy pot. These are the ten Chinese tricks she used for perfect rice every time, and none of them cost a penny. In this video: • Why the water ratio on the back of the bag is wrong for jasmine rice • The two words to look for on the bag at an Asian grocery store • How to wash off the starch dust that glues your grains together • What Chinese grandmothers do with the first rinse water • Why soaking for 20 to 30 minutes makes rice cook evenly all the way through • How to measure the water with your finger, and why it beats a measuring cup • A teaspoon of oil or a spoon of lard for glossy, separate grains, and why Chinese rice is never salted • Boil with the lid off, then lid on at the lowest heat for 12 minutes • The 10 minutes off the heat that make rice fluffy • How to use every trick in a rice cooker • How to make the golden crispy rice crust on purpose • Honest troubleshooting for sticky, hard, wet or burnt rice • Cooking double on purpose, and how to store leftover rice safely • Why cold rice makes the best fried rice and congee No special equipment and no microwave pouches. All you need is a pot with a lid that fits, ninety seconds of washing, and the patience to leave the lid alone. It's the same method my mother used in her kitchen in Guangzhou. Did anybody ever teach you to wash your rice? Did your mother or grandmother measure the water with her finger too? Where was she from, and what did her kitchen smell like when the rice was nearly ready? Tell me in the comments. I want to hear it before it is gone.