Everyone knows the outdated dependable white rice that we normally use as a facet dish for grilled meat or as a base for a shrimp fried rice. Maybe we have now additionally used it to stuff greens, to provide physique to a soup plate and even to organize a refreshing drink. The rice we already use may be very versatile, and for this very cause, we don’t cease to assume if there are different varieties with different qualities.
Do you know there are extra rice varieties than these you normally purchase and eat? Within the following traces, we’ll briefly let you know about them.
Classifications of rice
There are a number of methods to categorise the totally different rice species and varieties, together with the botanical classification. We’ll go away this one apart, in order to not make issues tougher with scientific phrases from biology, and we’ll focus first on the classification of rice by its form. Rice varieties are normally categorized this fashion for industrial and culinary functions.
Lengthy-grain rice
Lengthy-grain rice varieties are characterised by their remarkably elongated grains—three or extra instances longer than vast. A typical instance of long-grain rice is Jasmine rice, a scrumptious selection which you’ll be able to find out about in additional element at mahatmarice.com/merchandise/jasmine-white-rice/.
Lengthy grains are very wealthy in starch, so that they require extra cooking time, and, relying on the sort, are inclined to clump collectively in boiling water. Nonetheless, if cooked accurately, they don’t type a compact sticky mass, however the little lumps fashioned, when cooled, separate from one another and don’t stick collectively. This makes them simple to eat with chopsticks, which is why the long-grain varieties are broadly consumed in East and Southeast Asia.
As they’re very wealthy in starch, which incorporates varied fragrant compounds, long-grain varieties are additionally very tasty. Relying on the varieties, the flavour, particularly when the grains are sizzling, will be just like nuts, popcorn and even mushrooms.
Medium-grain rice
Medium-grain rice varieties have grains which are about twice so long as they’re vast. Their starch content material is decrease than that of long-grain rice. If correctly ready, medium-size grains don’t type lumps and stay fairly free. For this reason medium-grain varieties are probably the most consumed exterior Asia and Africa, particularly in tropical and subtropical America, the Caribbean and southern.
Europe, the place free grains are most well-liked for the rice dishes cooked in these areas. A typical medium-grain rice is the one used to make paella.
Because it incorporates much less starch, medium-grain rice is normally much less flavorful, but it surely serves completely properly as a facet dish or as a base for a meal with loads of seasoning and a few items of meat or fish.
Brief-grain rice
Brief-grain rice varieties produce grains which are virtually as vast as they’re lengthy, making them virtually spherical in look. These grains are normally wealthy in a type of pectin, and due to this, they have an inclination to stay collectively to type compact lots. Because of this, they’re technically known as ‘glutinous rice’—from the Latin phrase gluten, which means ‘glue’. Nonetheless, we shouldn’t be misled by this identify, since short-grain rice varieties, like all others, lack the attribute protein of wheat grains known as gluten.
As a result of they have an inclination to stay collectively in compact lots, quick grains are broadly utilized in far northeast Asia to prepare dinner candy dishes and the rest that requires grains caught collectively in roughly massive parts.
A typical number of short-grain rice is the so-called Japanese rice, used to organize sushi.
Brown rice and white rice
In fact, rice varieties will be categorized by different standards, similar to degree of processing. Thus, we acquire the next sorts:
• Brown rice: grains from which the fiber layer overlaying them—known as bran—has not been eliminated. Attributable to bran, brown rice grains have their attribute colour.
• White rice: grains from which the bran layer has been eliminated, leaving solely the starch reserve.
• Semi-brown rice: white rice with bran residues.
• Rice with germ: grains from which the plant embryo has not been eliminated.
Now you understand there are extra kinds of rice than the one you at all times purchase and eat, and you’ll select the extra appropriate rice to attempt a brand new and scrumptious dish.
