Blending rice

[torakris]

I have never cooked brown jasmine rice but I have found when working with short grain rice that as long as the brown rice portion is kept to 1/3 of the mix you can cook it on the regular white rice setting with out a problem. Cooking a batch of all brown rice in my IH rice cooker takes one hour, the regular white rice can take between 38 and 43 minutes depending on the specific course I am using. My rice cooker also has a wonderfully convenient 17 minute "fast" course but I would never use this for brown rice.

I used to soak the brown rice for a couple hours before cooking it in my 2:1 blend but once I forget and just cooked it without the soaking and it came out fine. Now I soak if I have time but don't worry about it if I don't.

I don't mix my rices in the bag as I prefer to control the blend each time.

[nakji]

Here's my favourite rice blend:

It's a mixture of regular white rice - medium grain here, I think, but I prefer short grain if I can get it, and millet. Note: It's important to wash the rice before adding the millet, or it'll float away in your wash-water. I think the millet gives it a subtle flavour and colour that I like.

[stuartlikesstrudel]

This talk of brown rice taking ages is confusing to me... I cook brown rice in our rice cooker (a very basic one with just on/off) and it probably takes twice as long as white, but that still only means it's about 40 or 45 minutes all up.

I am wondering if I've just been eating severely undercooked brown rice! But it's not crunchy, and I like the chewy texture, so I don't think I have.

I love the idea of adding all kinds of other things like beans or grains to rice... it's not really much more work so it could be done any time rice is being cooked, but it can add much more interest and nutrition. Great stuff, everyone

[helenjp]

White rice takes 45 minutes on the regular course in most rice cookers I have used. I don't recall the simple rice cookers I used in NZ taking that long. My previous IH rice cooker took 2-3 hours to cook brown rice, but my more recent "pressurized" (though not one of the real pressure-cooker types) rice cooker is more like 1 hour?