I disagree that stickier rice is great for stir fries.

If I am frying rice, I want my rice to taste fluffy (they don't stick together), yet firm (al dente, like in spaghetti).

I eat a lot of rice maybe because I am Asian. I love fried rice and actually use a bit less water than I would when I am just preparing standard steamed Thai jasmine white rice .

Oh. I use the rice cooker. I agree that cooking rice over the stove top is trickier.

I don't have a rice cooker. So I have to do stove top. Mine usually comes out fine

For a long long time, I had a rice cooker. Then I moved and lost some vital piece of the machine, along with the directions. But I was afraid of cooking rice on the stove (ALWAYS burned it), so I turned to boil-in-the-bag rice for several years. Only recently have I started to have the nerve to try making rice on the stove like regular grown-up people again.

I grew up using minute rice and once I moved out on my own I have a few found love for long cook rice on the stove. I think it just tastes better.

I've never had a rice steamer and wonder what the hoop-la is with them. Do they basically just steam the rice until it's done without the chance of buring it?

What does a minute rice look? I've heard of it but never know how it works or something. Im Asian too and our staple food is rice, but I don't know the english terms for different kinds of rice except for the jasmine which really smells good, the japanese rice that taste really good although on the sticky side, the thai rice and our own set of different varieties of rice grains.

medako: nope you can't burn rice in the rice cooker but you can either have a perfect or a not-so perfect rice. It always depends on the variety mostly but only a few adjustments on the water level and on some cooking time.