You can gauge the importance of rice by the millions of bowls (and appetites) it regularly fills: about half of the people on the planet rely on grain to feed themselves.
You can also hear greetings in countless languages; “Did you eat rice?” is probably the first thing you say to someone. A common refrain from Burmese to Sinhala to Vietnamese, these rice-eating updates can also be heard in Hong Kong, Cambodia, Malaysia, Thailand, and elsewhere.
You can see the importance of grains when the language basically sees them as synonymous with food. In Japanese, breakfast is essentially “breakfast” and dinner is “dinner”.
Malay and Mandarin have different names for cooked and uncooked rice. “Compare it to English: rice is rice,” Lo Yi Joon says on his Take A Bao podcast. “Indigenous farmers in Borneo have more ways to describe rice.”
Cereals are vital in many Asian countries, both in terms of when people eat and the rice fields that shape their landscapes. Japan has even used rice as a currency since the 10th century. In the 1500s, it was an alternative to coins for buying property. Just imagine buying a house in Australia in the same way today (in quantities that could be enough to produce millions of sushi, pad thai and nasi lemak).
Of course, you will find this product far beyond Asia, from rice in West Africa to rice and peas in Jamaica. It can be a dessert (such as sütlaç in Turkey), a soup dressing (such as maandhia in India), or filling a cup as a sweet drink (sikhye in Korea).
Nor does it necessarily have boundaries: chaufa is a type of fried rice adapted by Chinese workers living in Peru. Pilaf is a staple spiced rice dish in Russia that comes from Uzbekistan. Though cooking teacher Jamie Edwards is of Russian descent, this pilaf-style staple is new to her. In fact, she is more familiar with Chinese rice because her family is from Harbin in the north. “Most Russians in Sydney arrive via Shanghai and Harbin.”
Edwards teaches cooking classes at Sydney’s Cornersmith and is the co-author of his book Use Everything and its sequel Kitchen Companion, The Food Saver’s AZ, published in November. This new book features a myriad of ways to repurpose leftovers, from churros to scammed paella. If you have any grains to use up, “there’s no better recipe on the planet than oatmeal,” says Edwards.
There are many other strategies that prove that “rice is healthy”, so here are more examples from around the world.
In Iran, “rice is part of the daily diet,” says Hamed Allahyari, owner of the Salamatea restaurant in Melbourne.
“I remember my mom had a rice cooker, but I never saw her cook in it.”
This is because cooking rice in the traditional way and getting the tahdig golden brown at the bottom of the pot is a precious feat.
“This is a cultural dish that uses pasta, which we strangely call pasta. Very thin angel hair pasta works best for this dish. You can easily forego meat to make a vegetarian version.”
You may remember cookbook author Samin Nosrat cooking tahdig with her mother on her Salt Fatty Hot Show. “There are many stories about tahdig and many more legends,” said Nosrat, who, like Allahyari, is of Iranian descent. “New wives are judged by their tahdig.”
Achieving the perfect tahdig crust—golden and crispy rather than painfully charred—requires a lot of experience. Optimum crispiness is only achieved when the rice has just been charred and the serving of tahdig is limited by the size of the pan so only a small amount can be shared. Allahyari said, “That is why we fought for this. This is my tahdig, don’t touch it!”
If you flip the pan onto a plate, the tahdig becomes a “spectacular crispy lid”. Rice in different geological layers in this dish can be transformed to your liking. Cereals are traditionally interspersed with bread and potatoes, but Allahyari has seen new updates with pumpkin, lettuce and beets.
Allahyari explains how to achieve the perfect tahdig in his new book Salamati: Hamed’s Persian Cuisine. It also has many other Iranian recipes cooked with rice, from lubia polow (mung bean pilaf) to rice pudding served during Ramadan.
“This is a very common dish when we have iftar,” he said. Rice allows you to replenish your carbohydrate stores, and dessert sugar comes in handy after you’ve been starving all day.
Allahyari remembers making rice pudding for 2,000 people at his mosque during Ramadan, but his recipe for sholezard (saffron rice pudding) was different from what he served at the time. This new recipe was created in collaboration with Julia Busuttil Nishimura (author of the books “Spicy” and “Around the Table”): it gets even more decadent with extra cream, milk and vanilla, and he believes that Busuttil Nishimura suggests roasted rhubarb for a tart, good taste.
“Greeks often use rice,” says Peter Konistis, head chef at Ploós and Alpha restaurants in Sydney. “Pilaf is an important product of Greek cuisine.”
Some types are more of a side or supportive behavior — “basically a vehicle for all the other tastes,” Konistis says. In addition, there are superstar dishes such as gamopilafo, the signature Cretan wedding pilaf.
Alpha chef Peter Konistis says his way of cooking is “a more relaxed way of cooking Greek food that speaks to how I grew up in Australia.”
You’ll find rice stuffed with many of the staples of Greek cuisine: sealed in dolmada vine leaves and densely packed in various types of summer vegetables such as yemista. The chef pointed out that there are two types of yemista.
“You get either the vegan version, which full-blooded Greeks eat for half a year for religious ceremonies, or the version stuffed with rice pilaf with fried minced lamb and lots of fresh herbs and spices left over from the year. ”
Filling any empty space in a recipe with rice is essentially Greek ingenuity – think rustic pies. Konistis says that in Kefalonia there is a slow-cooked lamb pie stuffed with rice and lots of cheese. “In northern Greece, starting from Kavala, one of the most famous pies is shredded chicken, which is layered with boiled whole chicken and then served with broth to make rice pilaf,” he said. The finished dish, Konistis adds, is a tender filo wrap with alternating steamed rice, chicken and Greek ricotta.
One of my all-time favorites, this pie combines some of Greece’s most beloved ingredients: silver beets, pickled rice, kalamata olives, rice, and phyllo tortillas. The preparation will take a little time, but don’t delay, I promise it will be worth the effort.
If you love spanakorizo, the classic spinach and rice dish, you’ll be happy to know that there are many closely related versions. “At home and in many taverns in Greece, you get the purest version of leeks, so it’s just very slow cooked leeks with rice.” -bodily. Finished with rice and sprinkled with crumbled feta cheese.
A specialty from central Greece, where the chef’s mom is from, consists of almost caramelized eggplants infused with olive oil and honey. “In rice pilaf they put a lot of crispy fried onions. So it’s a meal, not a side dish,” he said.
Given the ubiquity of rice in Japanese cuisine, it is difficult for Nagi Maehashi to name all of his favorite ways to cook with this grain. However, the author of the popular RecipeTin Eats website and upcoming Recipe Dinner has some advice.
“I like a simple bowl of rice — a hot bowl of rice with something on top, like stewed beef (gyudong), chicken and eggs (oyakodon), or sashimi and seafood,” she says.
She also enjoys fragrant rice prepared in a variety of ways, such as chahan (Japanese fried rice) or takikomi gohan (rice made with seasonal ingredients).
“Although I rarely cook it, I love mochi — a very sticky rice cake that can be eaten in many forms, but my favorite is baked until crispy and smeared with soy sauce!”
I eat Japanese rice all year round. It is a key element of our daily nutrition. We love making rice with seasonal ingredients, it’s easy to make and it’s perfect for me.
There are many ways to recycle leftovers in Japan, so does Maebashi have a favorite strategy?
“Augia!” – she said. “Also known as zosui, this is a Japanese rice soup in which leftover rice is cooked in a broth or soup. The classic way to eat ojiya is after nabe (Japanese hot pot). the ingredients smell
Japan was originally called “mizu ho no kuni” (“land of aquatic plants”), and there are many shrines throughout the country dedicated to Inari, the “God of Inari”, so the grain cleaner has a deep connection with the country. In Japan, rice is endlessly mixed and reinvented: as a thirst quencher (thanks to sake and amazaka) or as a pantry staple (soy sauce, miso, and other Japanese staples are made from rice-based koji). It’s also nukazuke’s forte: These Japanese pickles are fermented in rice bran, a by-product of rice milling. Sydney’s Comeco Foods Shokupan Biscuit is a gluten-free bread made from rice: Owner Yu Ozon first learned how to make it in Japan after learning about the method’s success at the University of Hiroshima.
Not all rice products in Japan are also edible—think washi tape and lanterns carefully fashioned from rice paper. Once again, the University of Hiroshima has come up with another ingenious use of grain: its scientists have turned waste rice husks (from rice milling) into innovative LED lights. For the first time in the world, it provides a sentient afterlife for the 100 million tons of waste husks that are generated worldwide every year.
There is always fried rice on the Filipino breakfast table – it is called “sinangag”. The best rice for fried rice is leftover rice, even better if you have chicken rice left over from the evening.
A celebration of color and flavor, this turmeric rice is a great side dish or standalone dish with vegetables, grilled meats or scrambled eggs.
The secret to juicy chicken is to lightly simmer it and then quickly soak it in ice water to stop the cooking process.
In Sallum, the best part of sickness is Mom’s chicken broth. What I like most about it is that it is light and beautifully aged. The broth melts slowly in the stomach, making it the perfect tonic on an overcast day.
A Mexican staple, this delicious red rice can be made with any vegetable mix you like.
Jambalaya is a one-pot Louisiana classic: rice cooked with meat, seafood, vegetables, and spices. Recipes vary from family to family, whether it’s Creole or Cajun – here’s a Creole version with tomato.
Post time: Sep-28-2022