Rice – Why clean a pot (used to cook rice) with cold water

Easy! I steam fish about 1x per week with a bamboo steamer. You need to take advantage of the steam rising from the pot which can steam your fish in exactly the same way as the rice cooker - so you get a Bamboo Steamer like this one (available in tons of different places, including cooking-supply stores, Asian Foods stores, etc): http://www.amazon.com/Norpro-Deluxe-3-Piece-Bamboo-Steamer/dp/B00005EBH8

This steamer is basically open at the bottom (with bamboo slats) so you set this on top of the boiling pot, and it fills with steam, cooking the fish. It's recommendable that you wrap the fish in wax paper (I use baking paper in a pinch) and that will keep it from sticking to the bamboo.

Hope this helps! I recommend buying a bamboo steamer like this one - it's a common kitchen item that you can use for a ton of steaming - i.e. veggies, broccoli, fish, etc. No need to even be cooking rice - you just place this over a pot of boiling water, and it works great!

It is usually recommended that basmati and jasmine not be rinsed because they are not overly starchy and the taste is better unrinsed. American style short grain rice and japanese rice is usually rinsed to provide a cleaner flavor, but this can also wash away some of the vitamin fortification. Do not rinse risotto rice, since the starchiness is important to the dish.

When you do rinse rice, the purpose is to clean it and reduce the starch, but not to cook it, so cold water is probably best, but it likely does not matter much.

In the end, rinsing or not is not terribly noticeable, and mostly comes down to taste. You will definitely see both sides argued well. To me, this usually means either way is fine.