Wednesday, July 22, 2009

Cooking Brown Rice

Brown Rice has become very popular for those who concern more about healthy food. It's the type of rice with least polishing to remove rice shell. Most of Vitamins are still maintained in the rice. It also contains fiber, unsaturated fat, high vitamin B, Niacin, Calcium, Phosphorus, and many others. It's good for the body and it's a good organic food dieting.

Although brown rice is very healthy, but cooking brown rice is not easy. For many elders (especially my mum), they say that brown rice are too hard to eat.. and not so soft.

There are a few simple technics:

1. Mix brown rice with white rice. You can add 1/2 part of brown rice and 1/2 part of white rice. Soak in water 4 parts for 1 hour. Then cook in your rice cooker normally.

2. If you want pure brown rice, I recommend a presoak of up to 2 hours. This will help soften down the rice, and when cooked in the rice cooker, add 20% extra water.

However, these technics really depend on which type of brown rice, how old the rice is (usually newer rice needs less water). And what type of rice cooker you're using. Just keep trying for 2-3 times and remember to presoak before you cook and you may need extra water.

I personally love to mix brown rice with jasmine rice. This gives out nice texture and nice smell. You will get softness and good smell of jasmine rice with slightly sticky chewy of brown rice.. and moreover.. it's healthy!!