Monday, July 17, 2017

Perfect Brown Rice (Instant Pot)

I am not being paid to say this, but I love my Instant Pot. It is big and it takes up a lot of space, but it cooks so many things perfectly for me. One of them is brown rice. I used to cook rice on the stove, and I would always end up over-cooking or under-cooking it, and it never seemed to take the same amount of time every time. Now I know that I can throw the ingredients in the pot, turn it on, and come back to perfectly cooked rice. I'm not going to pretend to tell you that the Instant Pot takes less time. By the time it reaches pressure, cooks, and then the pressure drops, it takes just as long as doing it on the stove. Every minute is hands-off, so you can just start it and walk away.

Note: I am listing amounts of rice below, but you can cook as little (or as much) as you want. Just make sure to use 1 1/4 cups of liquid for every 1 cup of rice.
This is mostly unseasoned brown rice, so it is very versatile for any meal. Feel free to add salt to taste if you are eating it on its own.

Ingredients:
1 cup brown rice
1 1/4 cups vegetable stock (or water)

Directions:
Add the rice and vegetable stock (or water) to the inner pot of your Instant Pot.

Put on the lid, and make sure the valve is set to 'sealing.' Press manual and then press + until the display reads 23. After that you don't need to press any buttons - it should beep when starting within a minute.

After it has finished cooking, the machine will beep several times. Let it cool for at least 10 minutes before doing a quick release on the lid. The machine will automatically switch over to 'keep warm' mode. If you press the keep warm/cancel button at the bottom right, it will turn everything off and will generally come down from pressure more quickly. When releasing pressure, use a towel to protect your hand and quickly flip the valve from 'sealing' to venting.' A lot of steam will come out as soon as you switch it, so get your hand out of the way to avoid burns! Otherwise, you can wait until pressure releases naturally.

Use a spatula or a rice paddle (shown below) to scoop out all of the rice and put in a container to cool. Use immediately, or let cool and store in the fridge and use within 1 week. It will become fluffy again once reheated.

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