How to cook delicious rice and what kind of rice to buy

Rice is, at first glance, a simple and straightforward product. Perhaps there is no person on earth who has never tasted rice in his life. Entering the store, eyes run up … Steamed, long-grain, round, polished, brown, red … All this can be found on the shelf in one store! Have you ever guessed that there are actually more than 5 thousand varieties of rice? How can one understand and cook rice in all this variety so that it is tasty and not boiled, and also does not burn and does not remain solid inside. Let’s try to figure it out in this article.

A little about rice and its types

Asia is considered the birthplace of rice. It is in the cuisine of these countries that rice occupies one of the first places. And it is there that it is grown and exported to other countries. It is believed that each variety of rice has its own characteristics and subtleties in taste. Such varieties as Basmati, Jasmine, Patana, Arborio are widespread in Russia. But most often, in Russia, rice is divided not by the name of the varieties, but by the method of processing, cleaning and the shape of the grain (polished / unpolished, regular / steamed, long-grain / round-grain), each of these types of rice has its own characteristics in taste and method of preparation. Let’s consider three main types: white polished, steamed and brown.

How to cook white milled rice

White rice is the most common item on the shelves of our stores. It can be long-grain and round-grain. Properly cooked long rice makes crumbly side dishes, while round rice is more suitable for puddings, milk cereals, risottos and rolls.

It is not difficult to cook a side dish of this type of rice. The main thing is to choose the right dishes, to know in what ratio and How long cereal is cooked.

For a glass of long grain rice, you will need one and a half glasses of water. A glass of round rice needs a little less – 1 and 1/3 glasses of water if you want it to keep its shape, or about 2 glasses to make the rice boil. Long grain rice is cooked for about 18 minutes, round grain rice will cook a little faster, in 15 minutes.

How to cook parboiled rice

On store shelves, you can find translucent, amber-colored rice, usually long-grain. This is parboiled rice. Its difference is that the grain is steamed. With this method of processing, most of the vitamins and minerals are transferred from the outer shell of the grain to its core. Parboiled rice is always crumbly when cooked and changes color from amber to white.

To cook such rice, you will need 2 glasses of water for 1 glass of cereals. Rice is boiled for 10-12 minutes after boiling.

How to cook brown rice

Brown rice grains are not cleaned of the outer shell and this is what gives them a brownish tint. Such rice is well known to everyone who looks after their figure and health, tries to eat right. It contains more fiber, vitamins and microelements, so this type of rice in dietary nutrition is considered the most popular. It is as easy to cook as the first two types of rice. A glass of brown rice will take 1 full and another 3/4 glasses of water. And it will take longer to cook the rice – 45 minutes after boiling.

Rice cooking rules

There are several rules for cooking rice that apply to any kind. We will now tell about them.

1. It is best to cook the rice in a heavy-bottomed saucepan. So the heat is more evenly distributed and the risk that the rice will burn is reduced.
2. Be sure to turn down the heat after boiling the rice. If you do not reduce the heat to a minimum, then the moisture will evaporate too quickly, the rice will remain solid inside and burn to the pan.
3. Cover the rice with a lid while cooking. The lid should fit snugly against the pot. If you don’t put a lid on the rice, the water will evaporate too quickly.
4. Do not stir the rice after boiling. When stirring, the rice grains lose starch, it will turn out to be sticky and sticky, the rice can burn.
5. Be sure to rinse the cereal before cooking. This will help remove excess starch, dust and dirt from the rice surface.
6. Don’t serve the rice right away. After the rice is cooked, let it sit for a while.
7. If you absolutely need a very crumbly rice, you can fry it in a little oil before cooking. True, the rice should be completely dry when frying, so after washing the cereals will also have to be dried.
8. Do not cook different types of rice in the same pan, they have different cooking times and it may turn out that one type of rice will not cook until the end, and the other will be too cooked. If you want to make a side dish with different types of rice, mix them ready-made.

Rice is a very useful product, it contains vitamins of group B, vitamins E, H, PP and many trace elements: potassium, calcium, magnesium, zinc, selenium, copper and manganese, iron, phosphorus and sodium. And in brown rice, brown or wild, there is still a lot of fiber. Do not give up this product even if you are on a diet. Properly cooked rice will not harm your health or figure. Include it in your diet, the main thing is that it fits into the daily norm of KBZhU.