It is not necessary to rinse the current rice at all, it will not stick together anyway. But if a distant relative of the gargle raccoon is still alive in you, rinse it. Only with cold water. Indians always soak even the purest rice for 15–20 minutes before cooking. | After absorbing water, the grains no longer feel irresistible attraction to each other and are cooked crumbly. I prefer not to soak rice, but to fry it. To do this, it must be dry. It is best to use ghee – it gives the rice a delicate nutty flavor.
Three-seven-two
When I was in the eighth grade, the radio station pleased me with the Youth Channel every morning. There was also a heading like “Advice to hostesses”. And in it, they once told a recipe for cooking rice in Chinese. Many years have passed since then, I got acquainted with Chinese cuisine in general and some Chinese in particular. No one has ever heard of such a method. But I persistently continue to cook rice this way – and even from the most insane variety, it turns out brilliantly. So, you take two parts of rice, three parts of water. Lightly fry the dry rice, pour boiling water over it, add some salt, and close it tightly with a lid. It is better to take a large saucepan – water will immediately get out of a small one, the rice will turn out badly, and you will have to wash the stove for a long time and tediously. You need to cook according to a strictly defined time schedule. Three minutes on high heat, seven minutes on medium, two on low. Learn by heart, write a cheat sheet. Twelve in total. And twelve more (it is possible and more, until tomorrow morning, if you like) you need to keep the pan gently wrapped in a blanket, a blanket, a pillow … To keep her warm and comfortable.
If, after the first 12 minutes, you decide to open the lid and see what is happening under it, you should see the following picture: the water does not splash anywhere, the surface of the rice is smooth, evenly covered with small holes. The presence of holes means that the rice “breathes” – a system of steam channels is formed in it, due to which it is cooked evenly. If you want to stir the rice while cooking, you will only spoil it. It will burn from the bottom, but not enough on top. Stirring requires only one type of rice – for risotto. But what a stirring! ..
Hinder me, hinder!
Risotto is super food. Everyone eats it with pleasure – from ignorant babies to experienced gourmets. And we need a little for her. The main thing is rice and broth, a little olive oil, a little dry white wine, a little grated Parmesan – and anything else that your darling wants. Risotto can be made with mushrooms, berries, vegetables, fruits, nuts, herbs, meat … and some other submeats like Parma ham or salami. That is, risotto is the Italian analogue of the famous Irish stew, into which everything that comes to hand is thrown. It’s easy to do, but you can’t be distracted. Rice for risotto is often called “risotto”. From what we sell, the Arborio variety is best suited – its short, round grains will provide enough starch to give the risotto the correct “creamy” consistency. Washing it, in an understandable way, is contraindicated – all your creaminess will be in the sink.
The broth (preferably chicken, homemade) must be brought to a boil in advance and kept ready over a tiny fire so that it does not lose heat. First, the rice is fried in olive oil along with other “hard” foods. For example, finely chop the onion, fry until soft, then add the rice and, stirring occasionally, fry until the rice becomes translucent. For the next half hour, continuous stirring is the main thing you will be doing.
The liquid is added to the risotto as follows: first, pour in the wine. Then add 1 glass of broth and, stirring, wait until it is absorbed. Wait – add 1/2 cup. Soaked – half a glass more. Then another half glass. And then a quarter. And get in the way, get in the way! After about two and a half glasses, they usually put all sorts of delicate additives like spinach or tomatoes. At the very end, pour in parmesan and, if the “creaminess” is not enough, throw in a piece of butter. Risotto does not tolerate heating, it must be eaten immediately, and all without a trace.
Towards pilaf
Pilaf is incredibly different. Pilaf with quince, pilaf with chickpeas, pilaf with mushrooms, with stellate sturgeon, with mussels, with vegetables, just with potatoes … and even pilaf with dolma made from grape leaves! And the name is not quite the same: where is pilaf, where is palova, where is pulao … Rice for pilaf is a completely separate article. You can, of course, take parboiled rice, which will not stick together, even if you want to. But nevertheless it will be, as they say, “typical wrong”. For Uzbek pilaf, you can go to the market and buy large pink rice “devzira” – it has an incredible aroma, and the color is pleasing to the eye. For sweet pilaf (Indian, Indonesian), long-grain oriental rice is suitable – it is dry, very tender and cooks quite quickly. If you cook pilaf with meat in one of the many Uzbek options, there is one rule for laying rice: in a cauldron, it should lie on meat, onions and carrots, in no case touching the bottom. And he, too, must not be interfered with!
You live great!
It would seem that the fewer operations the producers perform on rice, the better – the more whole and useful it is. It turned out that everything is not so simple. Of course, brown rice is the ideal food. It is cleaned of rice husks – a hard shell that protects the rice grain from damage, and the bran shell remains with it. It is in the bran that all kinds of vitamins, minerals and other useful substances such as folic acid are found. Polished white rice has little or no benefit. Only one nutritious fiber – and that in brown is two and a half times more.
The only significant advantage of polished rice over brown rice is its shelf life. Brown rice contains essential oils, and from this it quickly deteriorates. So manufacturers recommend keeping it not in a closet on a general basis, but in the refrigerator, like a VIP. Japanese scientists, who are eager to explore everything in the world, have found that brown rice is even more worth soaking. Because if you fill it with water about a day before cooking, new life will hatch in the grains. You will swallow it without noticing (unless you are in the habit of having dinner, armed with a microscope), but your body will appreciate the additional enzymes. Upon careful study of the issue, it became clear that steamed, that is, substantially processed, rice is also healthier than white. It turns out that they process it while it is still in the shell, and during the steaming process, most of the vitamins and minerals are transferred from the bran into the grain itself. Because of this, parboiled rice is raw and has a color not white, but golden. However, this is not for long: after cooking, it will become as snow-white as polished.
Wild at heart
Another incredibly healthy rice – wild – not rice at all. He was so named for lack of imagination. In fact, these are zizania palustris, from the aquatic herb family, – a sacred product of the ancient North American Indians. They worshiped him and ate him on major holidays. From all his savagery in our time, only the cost remained. {p = ”kstati”} Wild rice is now grown mainly in Canada, on the lakes. Eating it just like that is not only expensive, but also unusual. However, it’s worth a try. You just need to remember that it is cooked for quite a long time – at least 45 minutes. Cook it without salt over medium heat in a ratio of 1 part rice to 4 parts water. Wild rice with onions, carrots and celery will make an excellent soup. In addition, they can be successfully stuffed with poultry, game and large fish. And if you add pieces of figs, grapes, apples, dates, cashews and walnuts to the ready-made cold wild rice and pour over sweet and sour dressing (lemon juice with honey and nut butter), you get the Delight for Astonished Guests salad. {/ p}
Sorting
To pretend to be a rice connoisseur, you need to know a few more magic words in addition to arborio and zizania. The word “Basmati” in Hindi means “fragrant”. The grains of this type of rice are especially good in appearance – during cooking, the basmati grows in length, and not in width. His homeland is the foothills of the Himalayas. It is believed that the best rice variety in the world is Dehradun Basmati (after the name of some area in India). In the East, rice is often cooked in a mixture with various spices. Most often they are coriander, cardamom, cinnamon, bay leaf, and coconut milk. If you add sugar to all of the above, you get a classic oriental dessert. “Jasmine” is Thai rice with color that rivals Snow White’s skin. It has a very delicate aroma (a sophisticated professional scent really picks up jasmine notes in it), and the structure is so delicate that it can stick together during cooking. It is also quite brittle. It should be treated in the same way as with Snow White while waiting for the Prince – to keep it in a hermetically sealed glass box and not to touch it again with your hands. There are dozens, if not hundreds, of other varieties of rice. One of the most popular varieties is black rice with a strong nutty flavor – its grains turn dark purple when cooked. There is red rice popular in India. There is glutinous rice, from which pudding is made in the East. There is the so-called “wild rice pecan”, which has nothing to do with either wild rice or pecans – it is just a hybrid with a taste that is quite reminiscent of popcorn.
Offal
Rice can not only be cooked and eaten. You can drink it, sift it … you can even draw on it! This is me about rice milk, rice flour and rice paper. They also make wine from rice, and vinegar from wine. Some of this set can be easily built by yourself.
If you put rice in a coffee grinder and “hum” a little, you get a squeaky dust from which pies and pancakes are baked.
And if you take a glass of ready-made rice, add 2,5 cups of boiling water, grind the whole thing in a blender to an absolutely homogeneous state, and then strain through a cloth – you will have milk. It is delicious to mix it with honey, brown sugar, or maple syrup. You can add vanilla extract. If your baby is allergic to cow’s milk, this is a very cute substitute. To be honest, I don’t know anything about the production of rice paper, but, they say, nothing special, no more complicated than papyrus.
Indians always soak even the purest rice for 15–20 minutes before cooking.
Stirring requires only one type of rice – for risotto.
Risotto can be made with mushrooms, berries, vegetables, fruits, nuts, herbs, meat …