Southern Rice
I love the rice in soutern or soul food, especially with gravy. They are not at all sticky like the asian rice I have.
I have bought goya and uncle ben's brand rice to make a side dish of rice and lima beans but the rice was really flavorless. I could not eat it.
What brand and type of rice should I buy (one that I can find in a regular grocery) to get the decent flavored rice for my southrn dishes.
Any help would be appreciated.
Soup
Soup
Nov 03, 2007 02:41PM
Except for basmatti, and maybe jasmine, I don't think of rice having much flavor. Most of the flavor comes from salt and other seasonings that are added to the cooking water. Where have you had flavorful southern rice - that is rice that has flavor before adding the gravy?
paulj
Permalink | Reply
It wasn't minute rice was it? How did you cook the rice? If I were making plain rice to go with peas or on the side, I would cook it with salt and pepper, butter, and some broth or bullion for the water. Maybe even sautee onion in the pot before adding the rice. If you have a little jellied chicken stock left over or juice from cooking pork, put that in. It's like home cooking everywhere - you put in what you have until it tastes good to you.
Permalink | Reply
Riceland makes a very good long grain rice which cooks up "dry", or not sticky. It is farmed in Arkansas and Louisiana. This rice cooks in 20 minutes on the stove or in the microwave, 1 c. rice to 2 c. liquid. Or you can also use a rice cooker. For flavor, cook it in chicken broth, or add a teaspoon of a concentrated broth such as Better than Bouillion soup base. (Commercial broth and base are salty.) I like to add a pinch of saffron, as well.
Permalink | Reply
Long grain rice doesn't stick together as much as short grain rice. Perhaps that's the difference?
Permalink | Reply
You may be buying the wrong kind of rice. Most Goya is medium grain or parboiled. Uncle Ben's is also parboiled (known as converted) rice. Neither is acceptable to put it politely.
You need plain long grain or extra long grain rice, preferably US grown which shouldn't be hard to find since we grow enough rice in the US that we export it, even to Asia.
There are some good brands like Riceland or Mahatma but you can do just fine with some generics and store brands as long as they are long-grain and not "converted."
Don't buy the fragrant varieties like basmati which have distinct flavors. There are some specialty Southern rices, like Popcorn and Wild Pecan, but I think you're looking for the plain kind here.
Everybody has their own method of cooking plain white rice. Most people, like Sueatmo, use 1 cup of rice to 2 cups of water. I add slivers of garlic, salt and about 1 tablespoon of either olive oil, butter or bacon drippings. After about 12 minutes, I turn off the heat, fluff the rice with a fork, put the top back on the pot and let the rice finish steaming on its own until I'm ready to serve it. I never use a timer because at 12 minutes or so, the rice just smells done.
There are other ways that work well for other people. Guess it's how your Mama did it.
We had rice every day growing up in Louisiana. To Daddy, a day without rice was a day without sunshine. The first time I ever even saw potatoes at a Thanksgiving dinner was when I was close to 30 years old - I had never heard of such a thing! Now we've added them for a mid-western son-in-law - alongside the rice of course!
Permalink | Reply
Thank you making sense and to others. I do have about 6 different types of varieties of rice in the covered but all are geared toward asian/indian. So most of the rice are short grained and for the basmati and jasmine have a fragrence I don't want for my sourthern meals.
I just check uncle bens package, it is parboiled. I'll check for riceland.
Thanks everyone for good input. Perhaps it is the parboiling process but the rice taste and texture on the uncle bens and goya is all wrong.
Permalink | Reply
The parboiled or converted rice is cooked some before removing the bran. The result is supposed to be more nutritious. The texture also changes. I think it is popular with Americans because it is hard to mess up; the grains remain separate what ever you do.
As others have recommended, do try a regular long grain.
The texture and stickiness difference between long and short grain has to do with the starch content. Long grains is higher amylose, short high in amylopectin.
But I think taste difference have more to do with cooking preferences. Cultures that favor the short grain tend to cook the rice with little or no salt. Japanese sushi rice is seasoned after cooking. Often the rice is eaten with a salty dishes (stir fried) or pickled items. An American faux pas is to drown their Chinese rice with soy sauce.
Long grain rice is usually well salted during cooking. Typical proportions are 3/4 tsp of salt per cup of rice (and 2 cups of water). To many Americans even that rice is dull, hence the need to top it with gravy or butter. In Latin America, the same long grain is usually cooked in a simple pilaf fashion, fried with a bit of onion etc before adding the water or seasoned liquid.
paulj
Permalink | Reply
Good info by Paulj. For more details, the wikipedia material on parboiled rice is pretty accurate. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parboile...
The process by which Uncle Ben's is made is the same as preferred by many in India and has been around for thousands of years. Parboiling the raw rice made it easier to remove the husks manually before the invention of machines.
The US isn't a rice-eating country except for certain regions. People find it boring and/or don't know how to cook it. They buy that awful Minute Rice or settle for Uncle Ben's because they can't mess it up as Paulj says.
The texture of that stuff is just wrong, wrong, wrong for good Southern foods.
Permalink | Reply