Cooking Rice Properly: Tips and Recipes for Better Health

Rice belongs to every menu because it contains many vitamins and minerals. The offer in the supermarket and at the discounter is large: There is, among other things, round grain, medium grain, and long grain rice. Each variety is suitable for other types of preparation and dishes. What are the differences? And how do you get the perfect rice?

Recognize good rice quality:

Good rice smells like fresh grain. If it smells sour or musty, it is probably of poor quality.

Prepare rice properly:

Rice is prepared in saltwater. The most common methods are:

1. Cooking: The rice is cooked like pasta in plenty of salted water and then poured off. However, many healthy ingredients are lost when pouring.

2. Sources: Boil the rice briefly with at most twice the amount of saltwater and then switch the stove to the lowest setting. The rice slowly absorbs the water and swells as a result. This way, most of the ingredients are preserved.

Varieties: Paraboiled, brown rice, wild rice, and white rice
When cooking long-grain rice, different cooking times must be observed. And every long-grain rice is suitable for other dishes:

1. Brown rice takes around 30 minutes to cook. It remains grainy and tastes nutty.

2. Parboiled rice is cooked for around 20 minutes. It is particularly loose and grainy because no starch escapes when cooking. "Parboiled" stands for "partially boiled", in German "partially cooked". A technical processing method ensures that the rice does not have to cook for so long. The nutrients are preserved.

3. White rice has the shortest cooking time at around ten minutes. It doesn't get so sticky if you wash it before cooking. White rice works best with sauce. White rice also includes Thai and basmati rice, which have an intense fragrance and aromatic taste.

4. Wild rice: This is not rice, but North American sweetgrass that grows near rivers and lakes. Most of the wild rice now comes from conventional farms. Wild rice has a higher protein content than conventional rice. Because it is expensive, it is often sold in mixtures, for example, mixed with basmati rice.

Health hazard from arsenic in rice?

Some viewers have warned the market editors that rice may contain arsenic . However, the Federal Institute for Risk Assessment considers an acute health risk to be unlikely. The effects known in connection with long-term absorption of inorganic arsenic, such as skin damage, vascular damage, and damage to the nervous system, are also unlikely due to the consumption of rice.