Rice the Versatile Cereal and Its Uses

Rice, the Versatile Cereal

Rice is a versatile ingredient. An everyday cereal grain and is a species of grass. Rice is the most widely consumed staple food for a large part of the world’s human population, especially in Asia.

Chinese legends attribute the domestication of rice to Shennong, the legendary emperor of China and inventor of Chinese agriculture From East Asia, rice was spread to Southeast and South Asia. Rice was introduced to Europe through Western Asia, and to the Americas through European colonization.

Rice can come in many shapes, colours and sizes and culinary preferences tend to vary regionally. The varieties of rice are typically classified as long- grained, medium- grained, and short-grained.

The grains of long-grain rice tend to remain intact after cooking eg. Basmati rice, the long-grain rice known as Thai Sticky rice, is usually steamed. Whereas medium-grain rice becomes more sticky and is used to make sweet dishes, for risotto in Italy, and many rice dishes, such as arròs negre, in Spain.. Stickier medium-grain rice is used for sushi; the stickiness allows rice to hold its shape when moulded. Short-grain rice is often used for rice pudding.

Rice is typically rinsed before cooking to remove excess starch. If you want to improve the texture and taste of your rice rinse the rice repeatedly until the rinse water is clear. To decrease cooking time rice may be soaked. For some varieties, rice may be soaked for 30 minutes up to several hours as soaking improves the texture of the cooked rice by increasing expansion of the grains.

Rice can be cooked in amazingly different ways but is basically cooked by boiling or steaming, and it absorbs water during cooking.

The amount of water added gives you different textures of rice. The treatment of rice before and after cooking also give it amazing flavours and tastes not to mention the textures.

With the absorption method, rice may be cooked in a volume of water similar to the volume of rice, Electric rice cookers and pressure cookers are popularly used in this method.

With the rapid-boil method, rice may be cooked in a large quantity of water which is drained before serving. this is the way rice is prepared in Goa and I believe in Mangalore.Rapid-boil preparation is not desirable with enriched rice, as much of the enrichment additives are lost when the water is discarded.

Rice may also be made into congee (also called rice porridge, fawrclaab, okayu, Xifan, jook, or rice gruel) by adding more water than usual, so that the cooked rice is saturated with water, usually to the point that it disintegrates. Rice porridge is commonly eaten as a breakfast food and is also a traditional food for the sick.

Its treatment will give you amazing results like your rice can be quickly fried in oil or fat before boiling, for example, saffron rice, risotto, pulaos this makes the cooked rice less sticky and is a cooking style commonly called pilaf in Iran and Afghanistan or Biryani (Dam-pukhtak) in India and Pakistan.

After you cook rice you can still stir fry it in oil to get amazing results for example fried rice or phodni cha bhat or chitra anna.

In addition in Arab cuisine, rice is an ingredient of many kinds of soup and dishes with fish, poultry, and other types of meat. It is also used to stuff vegetables or is wrapped in grape leaves (dolma). 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. Medieval Islamic texts spoke of medical uses for the plant.

Rice flour and starch often are used in batters and dredging to increase crispiness.

Here is my offering of versatile rice till now. This list is by no means the end of the list which means I need to keep updating my list.

Pulao/Fried Rice/Biryani (Indian Style Rice)