Rice

Ancient Chinese wisdom says: "If you eat a handful of rice for Breakfast every day, all diseases will leave the body." And in Sanskrit, "rice" means "the basis of nutrition". Currently, there are more than 2,500 varieties of rice in the world.

Rice is not only white, but also yellow, red, bluish, black (wild) and brown. For a long time, it was believed that rice was domesticated by humans about 8 thousand years ago. However, in 1997, potsherds were found on the banks of the Yangtze river with the remains of rice porridge, which is at least 11.5 thousand years old.

It is no secret that rice is best prepared in Eastern countries-China, Japan, Korea, Vietnam – where rice is traditionally the main component of the daily diet. By the way, in Chinese, the verb "eat" is most often passed by the combination "Chi Fe", which means "eat rice". In other countries, rice appeared much later. For example, in the territory of Transcaucasia and Central Asia, rice began to be grown in the II–III centuries BC; in Europe, it appeared in the VIII century ad, and in America - in the XV–XVI centuries ad.

There is an opinion that rice came to Russia in the pre-Christian era. However, it took root here only in the XV century, coming to the territory of present-day Ukraine through Hungary. For a long time, the Russians called the Saracen grain rice, Saracen wheat or millet farming. At the same time, the simplest dishes were prepared from rice, including rice porridge with raisins, which the French still consider a delicious dish.

In modern Russian cuisine, rice has found a much wider application. It is used for preparing first and second dishes, sweet dishes, side dishes and fillings. The main thing is to choose the right kind of rice and adhere to some simple cooking rules. For example, in order for the rice to cook better, it needs to be filled in cold water, and to keep the grains intact, the rice is filled in salted boiling water.

According to the degree of primary processing there are several types of rice:

a) with an outer shell (Shala) - this rice is released from the shell immediately before cooking or used whole for cooking rice broth;

b) brown (brown, whole) – this is rice, peeled only from the outer shell;
C) ground-rice, cleaned completely from the fruit shell and-partially – from the embryo and seed shell (this rice is rough to the touch);
d) polished-rice with complete cleaning of shells and germ;
e) steamed-this is unprocessed rice, which is first soaked in cold water, then covered with hot steam under pressure and ground; 6. 6. crushed-rice, sometimes preserving fragments of the fruit shell and embryo;
e) glazed-ground rice covered with a thin layer of talc mixed with glucose;
g) air-heat-treated rice, ready to eat;
b) bran, the fragments of the shells of rice;
I) flour – mainly consists of parts of ground ground rice, although in Eastern countries flour refers to ground brown rice;
K) starch-is about 90% of the dry matter of the ground grain and is used as a filler in the production of sauces, syrups and some desserts.

According to the grain length, rice is divided into long-grain, medium-grain and round-grain.