Sheldon wrote:
>
> Why soak for one and not the other? [snip]

One possibility: when you fry the rice in oil for pilaf the grains are
coated and will absorb less water when it cooks, so you soak it first;
when you have plain rice it absorbs more water in cooking and so there
isn't as much need to soak it first. In either case, it depends on the
rice crop and the texture you like. With the current bag we have of
jasmine rice I found that soaking it first makes it softer than we
like, so I don't soak it. The bag of regular long grain rice, though,
clearly benefits from a pre-soak.

Madhur Jaffrey recommends in one of her books that rice for pilaf get a
three-step preliminary treatment: 30 minutes of soaking, then 30
minutes of draining in a sieve, then the preliminary cooking in ghee or
oil. Comes out tender with separate grains. -aem