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Cooking rice

4K views 18 replies 12 participants last post by  spoiledbroth 
#1 ·
What kind of rice do Chinese restaurants serve? It's kind of sticky. Is it sushi rice? I have no plans of buying a rice cooker so is like to know if there is any other trick to making a good rice for my stir fry.
 
#2 ·
For stir fried rice it's not sticky rice. I personally use long grain rice, Blue Bonnet, Jazmine, etc. cause i like th is dish on the dry side. But it really depends on how you like it.
 
#3 ·
A shorter grain rice will have the starchiness to.give you the stickiness. Sushi rice is probably more expensive than you want for such a purpose but it would work. Stickier rice is useful for eating with chopsticks, but Asian manners with rice are different and reflect the realities of eating rice with chopsticks. . Each person has a small bowl for rice. The bowl is held up near or at the mouth and the chopsticks scoop/shove rice into the mouth. So the issue of long grain vs short grain isn't such an issue. 

For fried rice, long grain is usually recommended as it breaks apart into individual strands. Red Maple locally serves a short grain fried rice that is nice as well. 
 
#5 ·
The restaurant rice is sticky because it's sat in the rice cooker for quite a while. And it probably hasn't been fluffed when it was done.Essentially it's a bit over-cooked. 

You can do this at home with some extra water and a little longer cooking time. Or a soak will often make long grain rice stickier too. Measure out your rice and water, let them soak 30 minutes up to 4 hours. Then cook. 

Or you could mix in maybe 25% short grain rice with the long grain to give it the extra starch to clump up more. 
 
#6 ·
Depends on you own taste. If you like it sticky, get a short grained rice and do not wash it too much to get the extra surface starch. If you like it dry, get a long grained rice and wash it. I would not mix rices.
 
#9 ·
You can not mix rice because different types of rice will require different amounts of liquid.

Chinese restaurant rice is a normal medium grained rice.  It is like Jasmine rice without the fragrance.  I would just buy a new crop Jasmine rice.  Get it early in the season, which is now, and don't expect the new crop to still be new come September.  The fragrance is the best.

So 1.5 cups of water per 1 cup of rice for Jasmine rice.   Use 2 cups of rice because 1 cup does not always like to cook evenly.  Put it all in a pan, bring to boil, turn it down to simmer, give it a one time stir, cover for about 10-15 minutes or until all the liquid is absorbed, the fluff, cover and allow to sit for another 10 minutes or so.
 
#11 ·
I worked with Chinese chefs. They buy the cheapest short grain rice they can and even broken rice if available. They are extremely thrifty.
 
#12 ·
I've blended short and long grain rice without problems.yes, I did adjust water volumes, but left the rice to do it's own thing during the cooking. Worked fine. The result is not as visually pleasing with disparate visible lengths, but this is minor. Ming Tsai uses a white and brown rice blend at his restaurants. https://www.ming.com/food-and-wine/recipes/simply-ming-season-9/house-steamed-rice.htm though I don't know if it's rice of different length types.
 
#18 · (Edited)
What kind of rice do Chinese restaurants serve? It's kind of sticky. Is it sushi rice? I have no plans of buying a rice cooker so is like to know if there is any other trick to making a good rice for my stir fry.
Re "What kind of rice do Chinese restaurants serve" I assume you are talking about Chinese American restaurants.

Sticky rice is used and implemented in Japanese cuisine, desserts, and appetizers.

If you want to serve a stir fry etc over rice, go with Uncle Bens, and follow the package instructions.
 
#19 · (Edited)
Sushi rice isn't as expensive as most think. Kokuho Rose is cheaper than California rose:

http://www.amazon.com/s/ref=nb_sb_noss_2?url=search-alias%3Dgrocery&field-keywords=california%20rose%20rise
kokuho rose is good and can be had in alot of asian markets (I've seen it all over the place). Generally things are much cheaper at said markets, I can get good quality basmati 10kg for 13.00, wonderful stuff.

I think the stickiness you're looking for is more a function of rice variety and starch content as opposed to getting old or hot-held rice. I know there is a little hack I've seen in some restaurants where to hot hold rice without clumping you would wash the rice once it's cooked. Blech. Good technique if you are cooking rice specifically to fry though. Anyway that's all an aside.
 
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