TJ’s CERTIFIED ORGANIC THAI JASMINE RICE

New Products: Trader Joe’s ORGANIC JASMINE RICE

Thai Jasmine Rice is wonderful, one of the tastiest kinds of rice varieties out there, alongside Indian Basmati. TJ’s has had regular Jasmine rice for a long time, and that one too is quite good. Recently however they introduced an Organic version if that interests you. The package states it’s CERTIFIED ORGANIC and “Product of Thailand”. Importantly, TJ finally has cooking directions and ratios on the package which seem correct (I have found some printed directions on rice are way off!) On this package they list using a 1:2 ratio, meaning 1 cup rice to 2 cups water and cooking the rice for 15-20 minutes. This is a good starting point for you to use. Now I rinse Jasmine rice very minimally, maybe just once instead of the standard 2-3 time as I want to preserve as much of that jasmine aroma as possible. It’s organic and as far as I can tell, quite clean, you don’t have to go overboard washing this and washing out some flavor. Washing rice these days is mostly about removing excess starch anyway, not cleaning it of debris. Make sure you drain the rice for 10 minutes too in a colander to keep your rice/water ratio on point. If you find your rice too mushy then next time reduce the water slightly. Let it sit too after cooking for 10 minutes. ORGANIC JASMINE RICE $3.49 (2 lb bag)

DIRECTIONS: Bring two cups of water to a boil in a pot with a very tight lid. Add a little salt. Add 1 cup of rinsed, drained rice. Cook 10 mins on medium heat, then reduce heat to the lowest possible heat and continue cooking for 5-8 minutes. Then turn off heat and let it sit for 5-10 minutes with the lid closed. Fluff rice and optionally add a little butter.

BTW where do you store rice? I have taken to keeping it in the fridge if there’s space – otherwise in a dark cool pantry in a zip lock bag.