Why There's A Crispy Film On Top Of Your Rice Cooker Rice
A rice cooker is one of the handiest kitchen appliances to own, and we have a Japanese home cook to thank for it. It makes cooking rice basically foolproof — there's no guesswork or watching the stove. Plus, you can use it for other foods, like making oatmeal or baking a rice cooker cake. But if you've ever opened up the appliance and found a thin film on top of your cooked rice, it's actually a common occurrence. While the steamed grains are still completely safe to eat, you might be wondering what causes this and how to prevent it from forming.
This pesky film is essentially created by the excess starch from your rice, which dries up once the water evaporates. The easiest way to avoid this is to simply rinse your rice thoroughly before cooking it. This will remove any excess starch, which means no more weird film. You can rinse the rice in a mesh strainer with cold running water. When the water runs clear, you're ready to pop it in the rice cooker.
The importance of rinsing rice
While you might be questioning whether you really need to rinse off your rice, it's worth doing so for multiple reasons. Aside from preventing this thin film from surfacing, rinsing off the excess starch also helps you achieve soft, fluffy rice. Grains of white rice have had the bran, husk, and germ removed, exposing the starchy inside — what is essentially powdery, starchy rice flour is generated as the grains bump against each other in the bag. If you don't wash it, the starch makes the rice clump together and gives it a gummier texture.
Cooked white rice is substantially improved by rinsing the raw grains, but even so, your brown rice will still benefit from a quick rinse. Washing it also helps get rid of bugs, dust, dirt, and even chemicals from your rice, which can't really be removed any other way. Rinsing your rice will also prevent it from foaming or bubbling excessively in your rice cooker, since this is another inconvenience caused by too much starch. So if you want perfectly fluffy rice and no annoying film, a good rinse will make all the difference.