Rinsing Jasmine rice is not necessary, it comes out great without the rinsing. If you do want to rinse it: add your rice to a medium bowl, add water and stir the rice until the water is cloudy. Strain the cloudy water on a sieve and repeat the process two more times.
“But in all seriousness, it's important to wash rice because it removes any excess starch so that when you cook it the grains remain separate.” For creamy dishes like rice porridge, risotto, or rice pudding that benefit starch's sticky nature, you can skip the thorough rinse.
First, jasmine rice needs no soaking, but it will benefit from a good rinse in a colander. For cooking, usually the math for rice is one cup of rice to two cups of water (or 1 ½ cups of water, depending on who you ask). But the best way to cook jasmine rice is to reduce the water amount to 1 ¼ cups for 1 cup of rice.
To be clear, even when you rinse short-grain rice, like sushi rice, the cooked grains will still stick together (they're supposed to). Still, they'll lose any unpleasant gumminess. And when you rinse long-grain rice, like basmati or jasmine, you'll actually come away with individual, discrete grains.
If your rice has absorbed too much liquid, the grains may have split and the starches may have given the rice a soft, gluey consistency. One way to fix that? Add even more liquid. Pour in some milk, a dash of vanilla, and spoonful of sugar, and suddenly your mushy rice is a rich rice pudding.
The more amylopectin starches in the rice, the more sticky the grains are after cooking (like short-grain rice). Since Jasmine rice is long-grain rice, you should get plump, separate grains and a slight stickiness. I like to rinse Jasmine rice to remove any excess starches or debris.
Rinse basmati rice very well before cooking.
Wash a few times (4 to 5) until the water runs clear. This will help remove starch from the surface of the grains. Starch is what makes cooked rice sticky and gummy, so for fluffy rice, it is important to remove the starch.
Jasmine rice hails from Thailand, while basmati comes from India and Pakistan. They're both long grain varieties, which means they cook up fluffy and not very sticky. Their grains also remain distinct, although jasmine is plumper, softer, and a bit more moist than basmati, which has a firmer chew and drier character.
If you do not rinse the rice, residual starch from the grains will gelatinized during the cooking process and create cooked grains to be of sticky texture. The rice will look more like risotto than the fluffy rice that are served at restaurants.
In a medium saucepan with a tight-fitting lid, combine jasmine rice, 1½ cups water, and ½ teaspoon salt, and bring to a boil. Stir once, cover, and reduce heat to low. Simmer for 18 minutes.
Jasmine Rice Water Ratio
The perfect ratio is 1½:1, which means 1½ cups of water per each cup of rice.
Another reason to rinse rice is to remove excess starch on the rice kernels' surface. This "gives the cooked, finished product a fluffy texture with separate rice kernels," says Matt Slem, a culinary scientist and rice cooking expert at Lundberg Family Farms.
Rinsing rice before cooking is an Asian practice to remove dirt, dust and excess starch; but it's actually optional. However, we recommend cooking with a little less water if you rinse, because, without the starch to absorb the bit of extra water, your white rice may turn out too mushy.
This friction between the dry grains of rice creates starch dust that coats the grains. If the grains aren't washed before cooking, this residual starch will gelatinize in the hot cooking water and make the cooked grains of rice stick to each other.
Perfectly cooked Jasmine rice should be soft (but not too soft), slightly chewy, slightly sticky (yes, Jasmine rice will be slightly sticky), fragrant, and you should be able to make out individual grains of rice.
Technically speaking, basmati rice does not need to be soaked before cooking; you'll have fully cooked rice if you follow the directions below and omit the soaking. However, the rice will look similar to jasmine rice (see photo above, left).
Most types of rice, particularly white rice, have a high glycemic index, basmati rice is much lower on the scale. With a glycemic index between 50 and 58, basmati rice is a low to medium glycemic index food. If you have diabetes, small portions of basmati rice can be a part of your healthy diet.
Jasmine rice has a nutty flavor: in fact, some people say it tastes like popcorn! It's very similar to basmati rice, but it has a shorter grain and is a little stickier. Both are aromatic rice. Basmati rice and jasmine rice are in a category called “aromatic rice”.
White jasmine rice and other types of white rice have an almost identical nutritional profile. Jasmine rice contains slightly more calories and fat than some other white rices, but not enough to significantly affect a person's nutritional goals, or how full they feel after eating.
Aroma: Basmati rice is nutty and floral, whereas Jasmine rice is much more floral with notes of buttered popcorn. Texture: Basmati rice has firm, fluffy, clean grains, versus jasmine rice which is stickier, starchier, and softer.
Long grain rice
Fragrant rices such as jasmine rice and basmati rice fall into this category. Mainly cultivated in South and Southeast Asia, long grain rice has the lowest starch content, resulting in dry grains that don't cling to each other like other types of rice.
Bring the water to a boil. Lower the heat to low and cover the pot with a lid. Let the rice simmer until all the water is absorbed, or about 10 to 15 minutes. When checking for doneness, be sure to check the rice at the bottom of the pot, using a wooden spoon to make a well.
What kind of rice is used for sticky rice? The type of rice you need is jasmine rice. Named after the sweet-smelling jasmine flower, it's grown in Thailand and its key characteristics are a slightly sweet, fragrant flavour and sticky glutinous texture. Don't attempt to use other long grain rice varieties.