I always hear this joke since childhood.

Some said, Filipinos are very clean. They wash their pandesal bread in hot coffee. But eventually they also drink the coffee even if it suppose to be dirty.

This situation also happens with rice. We always wash rice to remove the dirt before we cook it. But we save the rice washing to use it for our favorite chicken tinola recipe.

Why do we need to wash rice? We wash rice for two main reasons:

1. In order to remove dirt and foreign objects. We are also afraid that it might be contaminated with dangerous chemicals like pesticides. Rice sack is readily permeable with water and dusts.

2. We remove the powdered starch clinging to rice grain. This makes cooked rice clumpy.

In case of of iron fortified rice or the American enriched rice, washing should be avoided. If you really insist on doing so, use the washing for chicken tinola. I hope you know the reason why!

As a general rule, wash rice several times until the cloudiness disappears.