Unpopular opinion: I was using my rice cooker wrong for almost a decade

So I've had this basic rice cooker since I bought it at a Target in Austin back in 2014. I always just filled the inner pot with rice, added water up to the first knuckle on my index finger like my mom taught me, and hit the button. It worked fine, rice came out okay, no complaints. Then last month my buddy who's a line cook at this Thai place watched me do it and just started laughing. He told me I need to rinse the rice like five or six times until the water runs clear before cooking. I thought that was overkill, but I tried it that night and the rice came out way fluffier and not sticky at all. I felt like an idiot for all those years of gummy rice I just accepted as normal. Has anyone else had a kitchen habit they learned late?

3 comments

3 Comments

julia_lee26d ago

Wait so you been eating gritty rice for 10 years just cause your mom said so?

finleyf8815d ago

Nah but hear me out. "Got too comfortable with one way of doing something" is exactly the problem here - why fix what ain't broken? My mom taught me to rinse rice twice and that's what I do. It works fine. I've had rice at fancy restaurants that was grittier than what I make at home and people paid like 30 bucks for it. Maybe gritty rice is how it's supposed to taste and everyone else is overcomplicating it. Ten years of consistency means I know exactly what I'm getting every time. No surprises. That's worth something.

walker.max27d ago

That tip about rinsing reminds me of something my neighbor taught me about popcorn. She soaks the kernels in water for ten minutes before popping them, supposedly makes them fluffier. Maybe we all just get too comfortable with one way of doing something and never think to question it. Then one random conversation changes everything you thought you knew.