Comment by happyglands | Hacker News Reader

Comment by happyglands | Hacker News Reader

I'm struggling with this right now and it's kinda driving me mad... My asian parents gave me a rice cooker and I'm starting to suspect there's some kind of magic involved. They use no measurement cups whatsoever, just follow this knuckle rule, which to me, as an engineer, makes no sense... Their rice cooker pot is a different size than mine, they cook different quantities than me and don't even bother to spread the rice on the pot so as to measure this precisely. Whenever I cook rice, I end up with a pool of water that bubbled out of the pot, rice stuck to the bottom and not fluffy at all.

I even started a "diary" of rice cooking with the measurements (coincidentally in Bear also), but all my entries so far are marked as "FAIL". My parents were here the other day and I asked them to cook rice and use my measurement cup to find out what that knuckle rule translates to. Apparently, it's 1 rice to 1.6 of water. Did that the next day, FAIL... I've tried to wash the rice, even change the plug I use, the area of the house... It's annoying to say the least.

I even tried their rice cooker for some days, same results. I guess there's some magic asian touch to it.

Rice cookers are super lenient with water quantities. Sometimes they "beep" for being done a little early, I've found that leaving the rice for like 10 minutes in the cooker after it's officially done to help a lot with consistency.

Also are you sure you aren't using parboiled rice, which needs slightly different measurements?

Yes, I'm using regular rice. My main issue is not even the end result (although the rice ends up pretty dry/sticky depending on the amount of water) but rather the fact that I end up with a puddle of starchy water on my kitchen top.

Put the rice cooker near your sink and aim the steam vent towards the sink.

Sounds like you might not be washing your rice, and/or cooking too much rice for your rice cooker.

Leaving the rice also to rest for a while after it was cooked will also help prevent the rice from sticking on the rice cooker. No need for high end rice cooker.

Washing rice helps make it more sticky for sushi rice but would give different results depending on the method; how much you washed it and if you let it soak before cooking. Washing and soaking is NOT necessary if you just want quick, easy rice.

But for sushi rice, I rinse rice out in a large bowl at least 8-10 times until the water starts running clear, then let it sit in water for 15 minutes before draining, adding it to the pot, add the water to one knuckle. I don’t use a cooker, just a regular pot with nonstick spray.

It's not a "ratio" as you have to account for evaporation, which is more or less constant across different amount of rice.

The missing part of course is cooking your rice for entire life.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com