Which rice is best for what food?!
Answers: Personally I prefer basmati for any rice dish or plain.
There are many kinds of rice, and different types have different tastes and textures. I grew up on medium and long grain rice. Long grain rice is long and slender, and the grains are not very sticky and stay somewhat separate after cooking. Medium grain rice is shorter and is a bit more sticky after cooking. Both long and medium grain rices are great for rice and gravy dishes, red beans, gumbo and jambalaya. Recently, I have developed a taste for parboiled rice. Parboiled rice is steamed prior to milling to seal in the nutrients, and stabilize the starch on the surface of the grain. Because of this, the grains remain separate after cooking, and are not sticky or mushy. It is not very absorbent of the liquid after being cooked, so I especially like it in jambalaya. It allows the jambalaya to stay moist longer. "Instant rice", "minute rice" or "precooked rice" are almost fully cooked then dried. They cook very fast and the grains stay very separate after cooking, even more so than parboiled rice. This is the kind of rice you find in many dry and "just add water" prepackage Cajun dishes, such as prepackaged jambalaya and red beans and rice. They do not really suite my taste because the are not "ricey" enough. Short grain rice is short, and very sticky, mushy and absorbent after cooking; they do not suite my taste in what rice should be. All of the above are types of milled, white or polished rice, where the hull and the bran have been removed. Whole grain, brown and wild rices are more nutritious because of the bran. To me they are ok as a side dish, but don't work with gravy, red beans, gumbo or jambalaya.