Rice - to fluff or not to fluff?

[jsmith]

Is there a general rule of thumb on fluffing rice?

Always/never fluff? Fluff the long grained, leave the short grained unfluffed?

I generally never fluff rice, I find the texture goes mealy and the rice loses it's moisture earlier and becomes crunchy. My wife always fluffs her rice, she thinks I'm crazy for not fluffing mine.

Am I missing out on what could be better rice? A quick search on google seems to indicate most people are like my wife.

[nakji]

What do you mean by "fluff" the rice? I've heard this term before, but I'm not clear exactly on what it means - do you mean take a fork to the rice and stir it around after it's cooked, but right before serving? If so, no. What's the purported advantage?

[Prawncrackers]

If you're talking about plain steamed/boiled long-grain or jasmine rice then we always fluff, I know not of any Chinese family that wouldn't. Just a few minutes before eating, use the rice spatula (not a fork) to loosen the rice in the cooker. It makes it, well, fluffier. I suppose it matters what kind of rice is cooking, doesn't everyone do this with plain white rice? Probably don't need to with Basmati thinking about it.

[evilchef]

It all depends on the rice and also the way you have cooked it

I found through eating and cooking rice all over Asia,that it all depends on the way the rice is cooked especially the long grain variety

If cooked by absorbtion like a rice cooker you do fluff the rice so as to literally unclump it

If you cook by draining like pasta, you drain out a lot of starch and you can also refresh it a little with cold water and the rice will naturally fluff,

this is perfect for basmati and thai long grain ,as this was the way i cooked it at home

for italian and japanese rice which is predominantly short grain and cooked by absorbtion the chances of fluffing are remote

Edited October 27, 2009 by evilchef (log)

[jsmith]

Interesting responses. Nakji, that is what I meant by fluffing. When I watch people make rice, at least half seem to fluff it, half don't.

Prawncrackers, I'm talking about mostly white jasmine, basmati rice, and short grain asian (sorry not sure the type) rice cooked in a rice cooker. I've never fluffed it as it seems to form smaller clumps when I do that, but I'll try in the future.

[torakris]

Ｉ　ｄｏｎ’ｔ　ｋｎｏｗ　ａ　ｓｉｎｇｌｅ　Ｊａｐａｎｅｓｅ person that would leave their short grain rice (the only kind eaten in Japan) unfluffed. The fluffing is necessary for short grain rice to help some of the unwanted moisture to evaporate. Most people I know fluff it once, close the rice cooker and let it sit for a couple minutes then fluff it again before surving.

To fluff Japanese rice you need the rice spoon called a shamoji and working from the side of the rice cooker bowl (or pan) you scoop all the way to the bottom and then gently fold it. It is more like cutting into it than actually mixing.

This link will show you the proper way to mix Japanese rice, the mixing starts at 4:15.

[mizducky]

I've always fluffed my rice, whether white or brown, whether steamed in a pot on the stove or steamed in a rice cooker. As others have observed, it releases excess steam moisture, so the grains are more separate. In fact, I've found that fluffing brown rice, especially pot-steamed brown rice, really cuts down on the gloppy texture it can otherwise have (the mediocre hippy-brown-rice syndrome). I actually have a batch of brown rice cooling off after having been cooked (and fluffed) in the rice cooker just now, which I need to package up for the rest of the week's lunches.

[prasantrin]

I don't always fluff, and I don't think our rice was always fluffed when I was growing up, either. I think it was more out of laziness than anything else. When I was growing up, we didn't have a lot of leftover rice, so fluffing wasn't as important. It's more important to fluff (in my opinion) when you're going to have leftover rice, otherwise it cools into a hard mass. Not so good for making fried rice. But if you're just eating it right away, you can always just fluff your own serving when it gets to your dish.

(Growing up we didn't use small bowls for rice like Japanese and Chinese people do. We usually ate off a regular dinner plate or a largish bowl. Were I to use a small bowl, I'd be more likely to fluff. It's easier to get the rice into a small bowl of the grains are sort of separated already).

[baroness]

Torakris,

Do you know what is in that square container that the guy in your YouTube link adds to the rice? It looks interesting.

[prasantrin]

I'm not Torakris, but it's natto.

[Beebs]

I've always fluffed because it looks nicer when served. I don't care for the look of a big cakey clump of rice on my plate.

[OliverB]

I almost always fluff rice (I don't have a rice cooker) as it makes it - well - fluffy :-)

I also sometimes put a knob of butter on the rice once it's done, so I have to mix that in. Sometimes I add the butter at the beginning, if I don't forget.

Sometimes I scoop rice with a ladle or a cup to make a half ball on the plate, then I don't fluff.

But I've never really give this any thought, just something I've been doing automatically.

[sheetz]

I usually fluff because it helps to even distribute the moisture, especially when making a large quantity of rice. If you don't then the rice near the bottom will tend to get really mushy.