Which Rice for Which Dish- Kitchen Conundrums with Thomas Joseph

hey everybody thomas joseph here and today i'm super excited to share with you a very popular kitchen conundrum and that is about rice now rice is probably one of the most consumed foods around the world with over half the population eating rice and today i'm going to share with you the different varieties of rice which one you should pick up and use in which dishes and some ways in which you can prepare rice at home kind of an overall rice 101 today i'm going to share with you a few different varieties here and what dishes they're typically used in and how you can use them at home now in front of me i have kind of three different categories of rice the closest plate to me here is the long grain rice and it's pretty self-explanatory you can look at these grains of rice and you can see that they are actually much longer than they are wide now common varieties of long grain rice here in the united states the most popular one would be carolina rice which is a long grain rice sometimes it's sold converted or pre-boiled where it's a quicker cooking rice you might see that in your supermarket and then two other varieties that are gaining popularity here in the united states this is jasmine rice here and then next to that we have basmati rice now jasmine rice is typically used in a lot of southeast asian cuisines thai cuisines it has a wonderful fragrant flavor to it basmati rice is typically used in indian cuisine for rice dishes like biryanis and the way in which a lot of people treat these long grain rices is in washing them before cooking them even some basmati rice recipes will ask you to soak the rice allowing it to absorb a little bit more water and therefore the cooking time is reduced but what that washing or soaking stage does is it rids the outer coating of the rice of its starch so that you get a nice fluffy rice in the end so these long grain rices are most notably in the end fluffy and tender and they don't really cling together and that's in part due to this washing and soaking so after the long grain rice category we have medium grain rice now you might say to yourself ah i never really heard that term medium grain rice but one of the most popular rices in the united states as well that we use is arborio rice and arborio rice is actually considered a medium grain rice now in terms of the ratio of length to width or thickness you can see that it's much shorter and a little wider in front of me i have an egyptian style short grain rice which is actually pretty new to me i have the carnaroli rice which is a spanish rice that is typically used in paellas and then last but not least i have an arborio rice here now from medium grain we go to short grain and short grain rices are typically used in china japan and korea and in front of me i have a sushi rice here which is obviously typically used in sushi it is a rice that is as you can see almost but not completely as long as it is wide and that's really signature of a short grain rice varietal now this is sushi rice this is samba rice which is an interesting rice that i've just heard about and that is actually from sri lanka and then next to this i have mochi rice or sticky rice which is used a lot in japan as well now oftentimes these short grain rices are rinsed before use to rid itself or to rid the outside of the rice granule of excess starch so that it's not too too clumpy most of us over here in the west don't use rice cookers but in asia they're used quite frequently to get a really perfect rice whether that be the sticky rice that some cultures are used to or slightly fluffier so i'm showing you here with these three plates white rice varieties any of these white rice varieties can be purchased in brown rice form brown rice is basically the white rice here but it's with the bran and the germ still intact it has more flavor it's a little nuttier in flavor but one thing you have to be careful with because there is a good amount of oil in the bran and the germ brown rice tends to go rancid much quicker so you don't want to buy this in large large quantities unless you plan on consuming it on a regular basis so just keep note of that now in addition to brown rice there are some really interesting colored rices out there right here i have a bhutanese red rice which is really interesting and it gets its wonderful color from the anthocyanins in the plant and then a black rice here which some people also call it a purple rice and this also gets its color from anthocyanin pigments but it's much much darker and more maroon now next to this i have a really kind of novelty rice which this is a rice that is actually colored with a little bit of beet but you'll see this more and more in specialty shops and some upscale grocery stores a lot of colored rices whether it be with green tea or bamboo it's a white rice that is actually pigmented with some other type of either vegetable or spice or coloring now today i'm going to share with you since i'm here in new york i'm going to share with you a kind of an easy method of making carolina long grain rice now again guys depending on how or what you buy the method of preparation is going to be different whether you're steaming it rinsing it soaking it so i have a pot here with three cups of regular water and two cups of rice and this is kind of a good method for carolina long grain rice and other long grain rices in general like if you're using basmati or if you're using jasmine having this one part rice to one and a half parts water is a pretty good ratio so what i need to do first and what i've mentioned before is i need to rinse the rice of the excess starch that's on the surface and this will help to give us a fluffy rice in the end a rice that doesn't stick together and isn't too clumpy so i'm going to go over to the sink and rinse this rice under cold water until the trail of water beneath the sieve is nice and clear it's not milky or opaque so i'll be right back all right guys so our rice is nicely rinsed you can see that it almost gets a little bit of transparency around the edge i'm gonna hold it up against a little bit of the unwashed rice and you can see that there's definitely a different color the rinsed rice is a little shinier and slightly translucent around the edges and this is how you know you've done a good job now also as i had mentioned before you want to make sure that the water rinses nice and clear and this takes a few minutes under running water and you'd want to make sure that you're agitating the rice around in the sieve getting off all of that excess starch and you will have in the end a nice fluffy rice so again i have three cups of water in here in my pot i'm gonna add a little pinch of salt and today i'm using water and salt but depending on your preference you could use some other things here you could use chicken stock vegetable stock a little bit of aromatics in with the water like some thyme or something like that would give a nice fragrance to your rice but it's really up to personal preference and what you're used to and what you like so the rice is going into the pot here i'm going to give this a gentle stir and i want to bring this back up to a boil i'm going to reduce the heat to a simmer a bear simmer and i'm going to cover the pot and simmer this until the rice is tender and that's going to take anywhere from 15 to 18 minutes and after that i'm going to let the rice rest for about 5 minutes off the heat so that any steam or excess moisture has the chance to really absorb into the rice the rice isn't too too hot we'll be able to fluff it into a nice textured pilaf almost and in contrast to the long grain rice medium and short grain rices require a little less water to the grain itself the pot is coming up to a boil i'm going to reduce the heat down to a very very low temperature cover the pot and this is going to cook gently for about 15 to 18 minutes and after it's done cooking and the rice is tender i'm gonna let this sit covered for about five to ten minutes before we're ready to serve it now some cultures like in the middle east and even in europe where a pilaf would be very popular this cooking method or process is done in the oven which is a little bit more gentle and even because the heat is coming from all around the pot and that gives you a nice fluffy rice in the end all right so it's been about 10 minutes since the rice has been done cooking we're allowing it to kind of steam and relax and now is the time to take a fork look at how nice this looks you guys and gently with the tines of the fork kind of fluff the rice up starting with the top layer and then kind of working your way down to the bottom and this gently just kind of separates the grains of rice and so there you go you have nice fluffy long grain white rice now if you were going to serve this up with your meal go ahead right now if you were going to store this for the long term i would recommend putting this out onto a baking sheet and cooling it in one single layer because rice has a tendency to cling to itself while it's cooling so to avoid that clumpiness a nice flat even layer while cooling is fantastic now here you guys go a beautiful simple white rice just one of the many ways you can prepare rice at home i hope i've encouraged you to try some different rice varieties read up on them try different cooking methods flavor them in different ways and as always guys enjoy and as always guys click like and subscribe [Music]

Channel: Everyday Food

Views: 49,814

Keywords: Recipe, Recipes, Cooking, Cook, Food, Dinner, Easy meal, Dinner tonight, Everyday Food, Home made, Sarah Carey, Martha Stewart, Family meal, easy cooking, how to, food ideas, quick dinners, fast recipes, easy recipes, quick recipes, rice

Id: gaxj8Z-rzTM

Length: 10min 31sec (631 seconds)

Published: Tue Jul 24 2018