Cooking brown rice can be very confusing if you pay attention to a written recipe or package instructions. There’s more than one way to cook brown rice, just like there’s more than one way to cook chicken, beef, or vegetables.
Brown rice is whole-grain rice that is less processed than white rice, giving it greater nutritional qualities than processed rice. Because brown rice has its outer hull left in tact, it is a more wholesome and natural grain.
White rice and brown rice have a similar nutritional profile in the number of calories, protein and carbohydrates. The main difference between the two is created during processing.
When the outer layer or husk of an unprocessed grain of rice is removed, you get brown rice. When the next two layers, the bran and the germ, are removed, you get white rice. White rice is often polished, or par-cooked and re-dried.
On the way from brown rice to white rice, many vitamins and minerals are lost in the process. Vitamin B1, B3, iron and magnesium that occur in the outer layers of the grain are discarded.
However, in the processing of enriched white rice the vitamins are added back to increase nutritional quality of the final product.
Cooking brown rice is important to my boxing and conditioning Coach Nasser, he eats a lot of it. Nasser believes in whole grains for the best conditioning nutrition. The only problem is that every time he cooks brown rice, it comes out differently.
“Sometimes the rice is firm and crunchy, other times it’s soft and starchy,” he complains to me. “One batch of brown rice will taste very nutty, the next will be bland. What am I doing wrong?”
There’s more than one way to cook brown rice, I tell him. A cold cook will give you different results than a hot cook. Have you ever noticed how the grains sometimes split on the ends, while other times they stay in tact? This is the result of the rice heating with the water or not.
You can try this experiment in your own home. Place two sauce pans of a similar size on your stove top. Add 10 ounces of water to the first pot and bring it to a boil. Once it reaches the boiling stage, put ½ cup of brown rice into the pan, reduce the heat to a soft simmer, and put the lid on the pan. This is a hot cook.
In the second pan, add 10 ounces of cold water and ½ cup rice. Place the lid on the pan and bring to a boil. Once at boiling point, reduce the heat to a soft simmer. This is cooking brown rice in a cold cook.
After about 30 minutes or so, you should find that the cold cook has a lot more moisture, is a bit softer and the ends of the grains are split. The hot cook will be much nuttier, drier, and chewier.
Which way of cooking brown rice is the correct way? There is no correct way, it’s up to you as the cook to control the heat and arrive at the result you want. Whether chewy or crunchy, nutty or soft, the way you prepare this grain is within your control.
You can watch as it happens! See the entire cooking brown rice video. http://www.norecipelifestyle.com/cooking-brown-rice/cooking-science/
I am thrilled to be an E-zine Expert Author and have a number of articles published on a variety of cooking topics (and write new ones all the time!) Page down to see the entire list and click the ones that are helpful to you.
Before I became Chef Todd Mohr, I was Todd Mohr - a guy who liked to cook. A lot of people, including me, even thought I was a pretty good cook. For starters, I had my five meals, well, recipes, I suppose, that I could make well. Being a creative person, I also used some of the techniques from my tried and true \"recipes\" to experiment a bit with new dishes. Some were good and some not so good, and I usually never knew what the difference was.
Through a series of events, I decided to change careers in 1996 and pursue my passion for cooking, so I enrolled in Baltimore International Culinary College. 18 months later, I emerged: Chef Todd Mohr.
The greatest thing I learned in culinary school was the \"how\" and the \"why\" that had been missing from my cooking all those years. My recipes only gave me the \"what\" - which left so much out! The greatest thing I gained in the years after culinary school, was the practical experience from working in kitchens and experimenting at home. Being observant, I learned even more \"hows\" and \"whys\" in addition to \"whats\" along my culinary journey. This experience and experimentation, more than anything else, is what turned Todd Mohr into Chef Todd Mohr.
My experience includes kitchen experience - all the way up to Executive Chef, as well as college teaching experience, starting and operating a successful catering company and then finally, the culmination of all of my passion: opening The Cooking School in Cary NC in 2007.
From The Cooking School, came \"Cooking Coarse\", my daily video blog that quickly gained a loyal You Tube following due to the uniqueness of the instruction offered. It was through feedback received from \"Cooking Coarse\" viewers that I decided to launch WebCookingClasses.com and provide this information to the world.
When I started getting emails that my videos had changed people\'s lives, I knew I was on to something and that was when WebCookingClasses.com was born.
This is my passion - I am excited to share it with you!
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