Rice
Types of Rice
Rice is an essential part of the human diet, and is a substitute for many foods due its diverse nutritional qualities. There are many types of rice as it can now be grown in nearly every place in the world. The more popular types that are eaten, as well as being renowned are:
- Sweet Rice a sweet and soft characteristic to this rice, and is especially popular in Thailand. Requires soaking, and steamed to give the best results.
- Soft Long Grain Rice A very soft cooking texture, similar to short grain. Basmati and Jasmine rice fall into this category. This requires medium amount of water at a medium temperature. It also doesn't require much time to soften.
- Firm Long Grain Rice An apt name, this rice holds firm and is an underdog of the rice world. This is ideal for frying due to its excellent resilience. This type of rice requires more water, and is cooked for a longer period of time at a higher temperature.
- Soft Short Grain Rice This short grain rice is very popular in Korea, China and Japan, as it has a soft texture and is very sticky. The Italians cook this with stock, to make Risotto. This rice tends to soften quickly and requires medium amounts of water.
- Milled Rice Milled rice is the typical way in which we find rice in the markets today. It is stripped entirely of its husk and leaving behind the core of the rice only.
- Broken Rice During the process of making rice, kernels can break. These are bagged separately and sold. Their natural size makes them ideal for porridge.
- Parboiled Rice This is the only type of rice which comes slightly pre-boiled. It also is great for later frying in the wok. It does however require ample amounts of water, and heat.
- Brown Rice Brown rice is regarded as being much healthier as it has the husk and bran still with the rice. This makes it high in fibre, yet difficult to store and to cook as it is very rough. It requires a long cooking process with lots of water, due to the bran layer.
History of Rice
There are many unproven mythological tales as to how rice came to be, though historians hold little or no stock in any. Most believe the roots of rice come from 3000 BC India, where natives discovered the plant growing in the wild and began to experiment with it. Cultivation and cooking methods are thought to have spread to the west rapidly and by medieval times, southern Europe saw the introduction of rice as a hearty grain.
The first cultivators of rice in America did so by accident after a storm damaged ship docked in the Charleston South Carolina harbour. The captain of the ship handed over a small bag of rice to a local planter as a gift, and by 1726, Charleston was exporting more than 4,000 tons of rice a year.
Regions of Rice
Today, rice is grown and harvested on every continent except Antarctica, where conditions make its growth impossible. The majority of all rice produced comes from India, China, Japan, Indonesia, Thailand, Burma, and Bangladesh. Asian farmers still account for 92-percent of the world's total rice production. More than 550 million tons of rice is produced annually around the globe. In the United States, farmers have been successfully harvesting rice for more than 300 years. There are thousands of strains of rice today, including those grown in the wild and those which are cultivated as a crop.
The rice seeds we are able to buy are known as "rough" to rice farmers. At one time, the rough was enclosed by a hull or husk. During the process of milling, the hull and various bran layers of kernel are removed, and the rice is polished, giving the resulting seed a bright, white, shiny coating.
How it's made
Rice is harvested traditionally by two people in a canoe. One person would pole the canoe through the reed beds while the other did the actual harvesting. The harvesting is done by bending the reeds down over the canoe and hitting them with a sharp blow from a wooden rod. The blow will cause most of the ripe grain to be released, but leaves the reed and green grain undamaged. With this fashion of release, the grain remains intact. Much of the grain falls into the canoe, but some is intentionally allowed to return to the water as seed to replenish the reed bed.
When the rice is initially brought back to the camp, it is full of water that needs to be removed immediately to keep the rice fresh and prevent rot. This was accomplished by digging a shallow pit and starting a hot fire. A drying rack, constructed of green branches and grass was placed over the fire pit, and the rice was spread over it until most of the moisture had been evaporated off.
The rice was then placed in a container, put over another fire, and stirred constantly to allow it to heat slowly, sap the remaining moisture, and loosen the husks.
The rice was then tossed from bark trays into the air to separate the chaff from the rice, leaving only the heavier grains. The hardest and most resilient of the chaff is separated from the rice by placing it in a pit lined with skins. Someone would then walk or dance on the rice lightly to crack the chaff off without breaking the grains. The rice and last chaff were then separated and both used as food products.
How to enjoy!
Apart from habit, the reasons for soaking rice are to shorten the cooking time and to allow for maximum expansion of long-grain rice, particularly basmati. A soak also makes the grains a little less brittle so they're less likely to break during cooking. If I'm using older basmati, which needs to be treated carefully if it's not to break, I soak it first. (Recipes vary in suggested soaking times, with 30 minutes most common.) But for most everyday meals, I skip this step and still get good results. If you do soak your rice, be sure to drain it thoroughly or you'll be using more water in cooking than you intended.
Watch this space as we will continue to bring more ways of cooking rice!
