Ingredient: Rice - General
Category: Rice
Season: All
Domesticated rice comprises two species of food crops in the Poaceae ("true grass") family, Oryza sativa and Oryza glaberrima.
These plants are native to tropical and subtropical southern Asia and southeastern Africa . (The term "wild rice" can refer to the wild species of Oryza, but conventionally refers to species of the related genus Zizania, both wild and domesticated.)
Preparation as food
The seeds of the rice plant are first milled using a rice huller to remove the chaff (the outer husks of the grain). At this point in the process the product is called brown rice. This process may be continued, removing the germ and the rest of the husk, called the bran at this point, creating white rice.
Where brown rice contains all of the ingredients of a healthy meal, tea rice, with the nutrients of rice germ and rice brain, is not a standard in counties for commercial offerings.
The former Beriberi disease was related to the stripping off of all ingredients of the bran, however the impact of aflatoxins and other mycotoxins contributed to the problem.
Today, parboiling is a first method to move some of the nutrients from the bran to the rice corn before stripping the bran, however the energy requirements are high compared to dry processing technologies.
White rice may be also buffed with glucose or talc powder (often called polished rice, though this term may also refer to white rice in general), parboiled, or processed into flour.
Adding nutrients, especially those lost during the milling process, may also enrich the white rice.
While the cheapest method of enriching involves adding a powdered blend of nutrients that will easily wash off (in the United States, rice which has been so treated requires a label warning against rinsing), more sophisticated methods apply nutrients directly to the grain, coating the grain with a water insoluble substance which is resistant to washing.
Despite the hypothetical health risks of talc (such as stomach cancer), talc-coated rice remains the norm in some countries due to its attractive shiny appearance, but it has been banned in some and is no longer widely used in others such as the United States.
Even where talc is not used, glucose, starch, or other coatings may be used to improve the appearance of the grains; for this reason, many rice lovers still recommend washing all rice in order to create better-tasting rice with a better consistency, despite the recommendation of suppliers.
Much of the rice produced today is water polished
In Japan there are several varieties of short-grain rice, ranging from the mildly sticky to the very sticky rice used to make sushi (it makes absolute sense that in the countries where chopsticks are used, rice with a stickier, more clinging consistency is far more manageable).
This is sometimes called 'glutinous' rice, but as rice does not contain any gluten, it's a false name and I prefer to describe it as sticky rice, which is much more accurate.
In Thailand and Southeast Asia the rice grown and preferred is sometimes called jasmine or fragrant rice.
The quality is very good, and though it's actually a long-grain rice, when cooked, the grains have a firm texture and a good bite, they have a faint stickiness and tend to adhere to each other. In this case the rice is both fluffy and sticky, and this is how it should be.
Cooking Rice
To cook rice it is either boiled or steamed.
It can be cooked in just enough water to cook it through (the absorption method), or it can be cooked in a large quantity of water, which is drained before serving (the rapid-boil method).
Electric rice cookers, which are popular in Asia and Latin America, simplify the process of cooking rice.
In Arab cuisine, rice is the ingredient of many soups and dishes with fish, poultry and meat.
It is also used to stuff vegetables or be wrapped in grape leaves.
When combined with milk, sugar and honey, it is used to make desserts.
In some regions, such as Tabaristan bread is made using rice flour.
Also extremely popular are combinations; for example fried rice is boiled (or steamed) rice that has afterwards been stir-fried in oil.
Rice may also be made into rice porridge (also called congee or rice gruel) by adding more water than usual, so that the cooked rice is saturated with water to the point that it becomes very soft, expanded, and fluffy.
Rice porridge is commonly eaten as a breakfast food, and is also traditionally a food for the sick.
Rice may be soaked prior to cooking, which decreases cooking time. For some varieties, soaking improves the texture of the cooked rice by increasing expansion of the grains.
In some culinary traditions, especially those of Latin America, Italy, and Turkey, dry rice grains are fried in oil before cooking in water.
In some countries, rice is commonly consumed as parboiled rice, also known as Minute rice™® or easy-cook rice.
Parboiled rice is subjected to a steaming or parboiling process while still a brown rice.
This causes nutrients from the outer husk to move into the grain itself. The parboil process causes a gelatinisation of the starch in the grains.
The grains become less brittle, and the colour of the milled grain changes from white to yellow.
The rice is then dried, and can then be milled as usual or consumed as brown rice.
Milled parboil rice is nutritionally superior to standard milled rice.
Parboiled rice has an additional benefit in that it does not stick to the pan during cooking as happens when cooking regular white rice.
Pre-cooked or par-boiled rice is actually cooked before milling: this means the grains are tougher so require more water and much longer cooking time.
This is to help it stay more separate, but there is a cost "The loss of flavour" .
A nutritionally superior method of preparing brown rice known as GABA Rice or GBR (Germinated Brown Rice) may be used.
This involves soaking washed brown rice for 20 hours in warm water (38 °C or 100 °F) prior to cooking it.
This process stimulates germination, which activates various enzymes in the rice. By this method, a result of research carried out for the United Nations Year of Rice, it is possible to obtain a more complete amino acid profile, including GABA.
Quick-cook or easy-cook rice has been partially cooked after milling and then dried, therefore, all it has to do is reabsorb water.
It is quicker to cook, only 8-10 minutes instead of 12-15, but again there is a cost "The loss of character and flavour", putting it in the 'sliced white' category, ie dull and pappy.
Cooked rice can contain Bacillus cereus spores, which produce an emetic toxin when left between 4-60 degrees Celsius.
When storing cooked rice for use the next day , rapid cooling is advised to reduce the risk of contamination.
The myth that cooking rice is difficult, puts people off buying them out of fear.
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