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Cooking Rice!

 
By Robin Forbes

There are many ways people across the world cook their rice. From plain boiled rice to paellas, in this article we will describe how to cook different types of rice, and include a couple of easy recipes.

There are many types of rice, but we will cover the main types, long grain white rice, brown rice and short grain. Long grain is the most common in the US, Europe and Asia. We eat it boiled plain, or with vegetables, meats and sauces. If you ever go for a ‘Curry’ or ‘Chinese’ this is what you generally eat as a side. Two very popular dishes are egg fried rice and pilaff rice. Egg friend rice is plain boiled rice which is then recooked with egg, peas and a little soy sauce, and pilaf is cooked with whole spices and stock to make a fragrant side dish.

On my travels I have seen many ways of cooking rice, but the standard way is to boil it with plain water.


Plain White Method

When you cook any rice it needs to be washed well first. This removes dirt from the field and excess starchy dust. Use three quarters to one cup per person and add to a tall sided pan. Fill the pan with water to double the level of the rice and bring to the boil for 15 mins, or until all the water is gone and the rice is light and fluffy. Cooking this way provides a base for many other dishes , if you find it a bit boring there are many ways of improving it.


Perfection

My preference is the traditional Persian style where you start off by soaking washed rice for 3 to 5 hours, then using a tall sided pan add the rice and three times the amount of water as there is rice. Bring to the boil and cook it for around 8 minutes or until the rice is firm and slightly ‘al dente’, drain and put back into the pan. Add 100ml of water and 20 grams of butter over the top of the rice and steam for another five or six minutes or until all the water has evaporated. The resulting rice is fluffy and delicious. To aid the drying out, actually to stop condensed water from dripping back on to the rice, cover the lid with a dishcloth.

Another traditional eastern style uses stocks and spices. This is from India. Start with Half an onion and 2 cloves of garlic, both finely chopped, add any spices you want, cardamom and star anis are the two most used in pilaf rice, but they must be left whole so they can be removed once cooked. Using a tall sided pan add 30ml of vegetable oil and fry the onion and spices until soft, then add the rice and fry for a further 2 mins. Add twice as much stock as rice and cook until all the liquid has been absorbed.

Cooking Brown Rice

Brown rice, or rice which has not had its outer coating removed is becoming more popular as the health benefits of fibre in one's diet are becoming more widely recognised.

Normally I cook it as for white rice but extent times to forty minutes. Some suggest adding more water than the two to one ratio, however to retain the nuttiness I enjoy I tend to limit it to exactly two measures of water to one of rice.

Simply recognising that brown rice takes longer to cook, and using any of the methods used for white rice will result in success, even the cook and drain method used for Persian style Basmati ~ but with the initial boiling period extended to twentyfive minutes.

Brown Rice is an acquired taste but I now prefer it to other forms. In our home it has become the principal way we cosume rice.

One of our readers sugested adding finely chopped onions from the start and this results in a more fragrance and tasty rice, as does using stock rather than plain water. As I write this there is some leftovers in the refrigerator (it can keep for up to three days).

There you have it, tastier and more nutritious ~ outer layers of brown rice are rich in vitamins and minerals ~ so important these days ~ try it a few times and I suspect that like me you will stay with brown rice.

Short Grain Rice

Short grain rice is used in a lot of popular dishes in Europe from paella to risotto and even in rice pudding. It is usually cooked with stocks or cream and is creamy and nutty in taste. Paella is a Spanish dish originally from Valencia but there are many variations to it across the world. Valencia paella is a mixture of seafood and rabbit but it is your choice what you put in it as you are the one who will be eating it!

PAELLA
Start by roasting some chicken legs (or rabbit if you like) also roast some red and yellow peppers, peel and deseed these and slice into strips. Add some onion, garlic and chilli into a nice big paella pan or wide frying pan if you don’t have one, and fry till soft in plenty of olive oil. Add the rice (same amounts as with long grain) and fry for a few mins. Then add a nice chicken or vegetable stock steeped with Spanish saffron, don’t use too much saffron or it can ruin the overall flavour. Add the heated (important) stock slowly pouring some in, allowing it to be fully absorbed before adding more, (Rob do we add something here?) then pour the rest in and add the chicken and as much seafood as you like. I would use prawns, musselles, cockles, lobster, swordfish or shark and squid. Add the sliced roasted peppers and cover with foil, then put in a preheated oven at 180 degrees for about half an hour or until the stock has been absorbed. Never, but never use the Tartrazine saffron substitute. It may be yellow but it rots your guts and causes hyperactivity in children.

Did you know that it was Alexander the Great who brought rice back to Europe?

More Related Links:

Wikipedia - Rice All about the tasty grass!!!
Diet for Kids Healthy kids.
Cooking Brown Rice Steve Pavlina's Method.

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