Perfect Rice
Posted by terrepruitt on August 27, 2009
I was making rice tonight and I thought, this is so easy, but not everyone knows about this funny little trick, so I wanted to share.
I was not familiar with a rice maker until I met my husband. I was accustom to Uncle Ben’s white rice you make in a pot on the stove. The whole point being to make it fluffy and NOT sticky. But my husband wouldn’t eat that. He only ate “sticky rice”. And he makes it with a rice maker. Since my apartment in San Jose was really small I received a small one as a gift. It was so cute. We don’t have that one any longer.
Anyway, the way he taught me how to cook rice in a rice cooker was to pour the rice in. To me it doesn’t matter how much because to me left over rice is fine. So, pour the rice in. And if it is white rice, rinse it. I hate this part. I always lose rice because in our present rice maker my hand is just that little bit too small that rice escapes when I try to get out most of the water. But usually I only lose a little bit so it works out ok. After you rinse it all you have to do it make sure you have enough water to cover the rice up to the mid-point of your first finger’s knuckle. What? Yeah, I know, odd, but it works.
You put your finger on top of the rice and make sure the water reaches up to half way up your finger only to the first joint. Always works. Rice comes out perfect. How, because Hubby and I have different size fingers, I don’t know. But it works.
But low and behold, that only works for white rice. We found out that you have to add more water for brown rice and then that also means it takes longer to cook. Took two times of waiting for the rice to be done and then having it be crunchy for me to figure that one out!
Sometimes I put a little bit of garlic olive oil in there or lemon infused oil (learned the lemon one from a friend—yum!). Either oil gives the rice a slight flavor plus helps it NOT stick to the pot. Love that.
As you can see from the picture there are measures on the actual pot, never used those. Sounds like an exercise in patience to me. I just dump, rinse, and fill. I rinse white rice well, but not the brown rice. What about you, do you use the finger water level method?
Terre Pruitt's Blog 
Michele said
Love that finger water level trick…Steve N. taught me that way back in H.S, and you are right it works EVERY time!! I just finally got a new rice cooker about 4 months ago. If you can believe I had been using the same cooker that was a wedding gift – from my first wedding, was that ’87 or ’88 ??!! I love rice cooker rice, thanks for blogging!
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terrepruitt said
It is so funny most people that use rice cookers know that trick. And people that always have rice know that trick—I bet they don’t even need their finger, they can “eye ball it”. I need to at least “measure” with my finger.
I don’t know how old the rice maker is that we use, but it was John’s so it must be old. It looks old. But it works.
Thanks for stopping by!
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Linda Walton aka bobbysgirlforever said
WOOT! Yes Terre, I use the finger method as well and it does, INDEED, give perfect rice! My fiance’ is half-Hawaiian and I learned this early on in our relationship as he just HAD to have his rice daily! Not SO much anymore, but we still get AWESOME cooked rice! I gave up the rice cooker and went back to the stove method due to a flaw in the cooker! The finger method still works wonders there as well! *wink*
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terrepruitt said
My husband’s mother is from Hawaii and so that is how he learned the method. It makes me laugh because it is so simply but it works.
Thank you for stopping by and commenting. Hope to see you back.
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