Do I need to rinse rice before cooking?
Miscellaneous / / September 21, 2023
Rinsing cereals can be useful, but not for the reason that many people think about.
Do professional chefs wash rice?
Culinary experts consider: Rinsing rice before cooking will reduce the amount of starch that comes from the grains and makes the water cloudy. Is it free starch, or amylose, which settles on the surface of the cereal during the processing of raw materials.
Therefore, if the finished dish should be crumbly, then cooks recommend rinsing the rice beforehand. But if you ultimately want to achieve a sticky creamy texture, for example in risotto, paella or rice pudding, it is not recommended to rinse the grains.
Does rice become less sticky if it is washed?
To find out, experts have taken three types of rice (sticky, medium grain and jasmine) from the same manufacturer and compared how rinsing affects the stickiness and hardness of the grain. The grains were either not washed at all or rinsed three or ten times with plain water.
Contrary to what chefs think, rinsing does not affect the stickiness or hardness of rice.
According to the results of laboratory experiments, the stickiness of rice is not due to the surface starch amylose, but to another - amylopectin. It is leached, that is, it passes from the grains into the liquid, during cooking, and its amount is affected by the type of cereal.
Thus, the stickiness of rice primarily depends on varieties, and not on whether it is washed before cooking or not. According to the study, this property was most pronounced in glutinous rice, while medium grain and jasmine showed themselves to be harder.
Can you get rid of bacteria by washing rice?
No. Bacteria are killed only at high temperatures during heat treatment. However, cooking rice does not destroy the spores of Bacillus cereus, a waxy bacillus that causes digestive disorders. They become active and begin to multiply quickly if store for a long time cooked or rinsed rice at room temperature. The toxins produced by these bacteria cannot be eliminated by cooking or reheating. Therefore, wet or cooked rice should be stored in the refrigerator.
Should you wash rice before cooking?
Traditionally, rice was washed to remove dust, insects, small pebbles and pieces of husk that remain after the grains are husked. Therefore, if cereals are supplied from regions where the processing of raw materials is not monitored very carefully, it will not be superfluous to rinse it before cooking.
Currently, plastic is used heavily in the supply chain and products, including rice, end up in microplastic. It does not matter in what packaging - plastic or paper - the cereal ends up on the store shelf. In both cases, it contains the same amount of microplastics. In addition, pre-cooked instant rice contains four times more of it than uncooked rice. But if the grains are washed, it Maybe Remove up to 20% plastic from uncooked rice and up to 40% from pre-cooked rice.
Washing also allows remove about 90% bioavailable from rice arsenic. The level of its content in cereals is quite high, although this depends on the region of origin, variety and method of preparation. Therefore, it is better to eat a variety of grains and rinse the rice before cooking. In addition, consider that arsenic is also present in rice products, such as cakes, crackers, cookies and flour, as well as in seaweed, seafood and vegetables.
Besides arsenic in rice can Heavy metals such as lead and cadmium are also present. Rinsing beans before cooking reduces the levels of these substances by 7–20%.
But at the same time, a large amount of useful substances, such as copper, are washed out of the cereal, iron, zinc, vanadium. If rice provides a small percentage of the daily intake of essential elements, it will not have a serious impact on health. But if you eat large amounts of thoroughly washed rice every day, your overall nutritional quality may suffer.
We reveal all culinary secrets🍚🥛🥘
- How to turn any frying pan into a non-stick one
- How to cook rice to make it perfect
- How much does 1 liter of the most popular liquid products weigh?
- Do you know what the different sides of a grater are for?