What are some good rices to try in stir fried rice besides regular white rice (please read details...)?!
What are some good rices to try in stir fried rice besides regular white rice (please read details...)?
I thought I'd try to make my stir fried rice a little healthier by using brown rice instead of regular old white rice. BLECH! Brown rice is far too chewy and sticky to use for that application. At least, that was the concensus of myself, my family, and the people I had over for dinner (note to self: don't experiment when you're having company). So, is there a kind of rice that might be better, nutritionally, to use for stir fried rice, but will have the texture of white rice and without being too strongly flavored (or sticky)? I normally use regular, old, enriched, minute rice.
Or am I being too worried about it? Is white rice only marginally less healthy than other type of rice? I've always heard it just wasn't that nutritious.
Answers: well the problem is the minute rice... (to me its equivalent to tv dinners).. You need real rice.. Look for long grain basmati rice in the store...
The best stir fried dishes are made with cold cooked rice.. So what I do is boil up 2 cup measures of dry rice to 4-5 cups of water (just make sure the water is one thumbs joint above the top of the rice) add a bit of salt, allow to come to boil, cover with tight lid, turn down low and dont touch for 20min.. Then afterwards, rice will be done, fluff with fork.. and cool rice overnight or for hour in fridge.. Then proceed with your best fried rice recipe.. I dont know why, but the cooling seems to help the rice hold its shape,, makes that flaky fluffy rice texture.. Minute rice is mushy and always falls apart for me.. its also pre processed.. no nutrition left.. Goodluck! Brown reice there is over a hundred different kinds of rice so you can really experiment, one of my favorites is basmatti, there is a kind that is called california basmatti that smells really good...you can also buy some wild rice that you can mix with your white rice, either make it(it's kinda hard to make) or you can find cans of wild rice at the grocery store. Try to give brown rice a chance...it really is better for you. My favorite rice to use in any dish is Jasmine Rice. It has a wonderful flavor that doesn't overpower the rest of the dish and it's easy to cook with. It's a little more expensive than minute rice or white rice but well worth it. It isn't a bleached rice like what you have been using.
Brown rice can be a little tricky to cook with as the cooking times are different than any other rice. If you put the cooked brown rice in the fridge overnight it will firm up and be less sticky. Also try to find instant brown rice because it is less sticky to begin with. This is what I use and it turns out pretty good its not exactly the same texture as white rice but definitely not sticky. Its just a pain to remember to make the instant brown rice the day before!
P.S. I discovered this when I was trying to use up leftover rice. Chinese restaurants make perfectly tasty fried rice using brown rice. It is the healthiest for you so don't give up on it, just because you didn't prepare it properly the first time you tried it. It simply has to be prepped a certain way to remove the textures you disagreed with. Look it up on the FoodNetwork's website. Alton Brown did an episode on rice.
Heck even if you had to resort to a boil-in-bag rice product, Success Brand Rice makes a version. Rather than long-grain brown rice. Alternatively, seek out some varieties of brown rice which are short-grained for different cooking options.
Or you could try wild rice, which has scads of flavor and much easier to cook.
And Japanese rice, remember, is tasty precisely because of a 'sticky' texture --they make it sticky on purpose using sushi vinegar. It's not brown of course, but if you are eating healthy in other ways and getting enough of these nutrients then don't worry. You could forego the brown benefits for the sake of great asian cooking. I eat a spoonful of wheat germ every morning, for example. idk what the kinds of rice name are but maybe you cooked the rice wrong because brown rice does cook different than regular white rice i don't cook but my mom does maybe do some research on cooking brown rice lol For goodness sake, don't EVER use "Minute Rice" for ANYTHING! It's crap! It has no nutrition other than carbs.
That being said, cook your brown rice in advance using the standard 1.5 parts water to 1 part rice. Just find a simple recipe for cooking brown rice on the internet. There is a million of them.
Now, the key to a good fried rice is to put the cooked rice in the refrigerator and chill it down BEFORE you fry it. After it is chilled down, you can separate the grains by smashing it around. Fried rice was invented as a way to use leftover rice. You never want to use hot steaming rice that is fresh to cook fried rice.
And the other key is you have to use a VERY HIGH HEAT PAN (WOK) to fry the rice and veggies in. You will need a good high-heat tolerant oil such as Peanut Oil to fry the rice. It should only take a few minutes from start to finish. The longer you cook it, the more sticky and nasty it will get. Like all wok cooking, it is a very fast saute cooking technique.
Good luck! Cooking is a passion and a skill. Don't get frustrated with bad results, just keep learning. Basmati Rice and some info:
Description - Basmati Rice is a non-glutinous rice that has been cultivated at the foot of the Himalayan mountain ranges for centuries. The rivers Yamuna and Ganga feed the fields. The rice is long-grain and scented and when literally translated from Hindi it means ‘queen of scents’ or ‘pearl of scents’. It is the world’s best rice one can use for cooking although, for variety one uses jasmine and parboiled rice. For centuries it has been exported to the Arab countries and many of their traditional rice dishes are cooked with long grained Basmati rice. It is an aromatic long grain slender rice from India and Pakistan, is fragrant and has a nutty flavor.
Cooking Hints: – Boil it in water for perfumed rice dish or just add ghee to the water to enhance its nutty aroma and double your rice dinning experience. Add some whole spices, nuts, dried fruits, vegetables and beans (or meats) to the rice and make a rice dish into a main meal.