An adaptation of Tejal Rao’s recipe in The New York Times. It took several tries to get an Instant Pot recipe to work. The trick turned out to be using light coconut milk instead of full-fat coconut milk, which clogs the Instant Pot’s steamer vent.
Washing the rice is also important here.
2 cups long-grain white rice, such as Mahatma jasmine rice
1 2/3 cup (13.5-oz can) light coconut milk (see above note)
2 scant tablespoons sugar
1 teaspoon kosher salt
7/8 cup water (7 ounces)
If all you have is full-fat coconut milk, decrease the amount of coconut milk to 8.5 ounces. Add 5 extra ounces of water in addition to the 7/8 cup (7 ounces) of water, for a total of 1 1/2 cups of water (12 ounces).
Rinse the rice using a strainer until the water that drains away runs almost completely clear. I let the water run from the strainer into a clear glass so I can tell when the water becomes clear.
For cooking rice, polenta, or anything sticky, I recommend the nonstick inner pot manufactured by Instant Pot. It can be used under pressure just like the original metal pot.
- Combine all ingredients in the Instant Pot and stir well. Make sure all the sugar (if you used it) is dissolved.
- Plug in the Instant Pot and lock the lid.
- Make sure the vent lever is set to Sealing.
- Set the Instant Pot on Pressure Cook.
- Set to High Pressure.
- Set the Instant Pot cook time for 4 minutes.
- Turn off Keep Warm (to avoid baking the bottom of the rice) if your Instant Pot has a separate Keep Warm button.
- When the Instant Pot beeps many times (mine beeps 8 times) to signal that the rice has cooked, set your timer for 10 minutes.
When the 10 minutes is up, manually release pressure. - Open the Instant Pot and fluff rice with fork or spoon before serving.