Browned Savory Rice

Another way in which to add variety in serving rice is to brown it. Sufficient browned rice for six to eight peeople may be prepared by putting 1 cup of clean rice in an iron frying pan that contains no fat, placing the pan directly over the heat, and stirring the rice until the grains become an even, light brown. Rice that has been treated in this way has additional flavor added to it and can be used in the same way as boiled or steamed rice.

Rice browned in the manner just explained is used in the preparation of Browned Savory Rice, an interesting dish that serves as a tasty side dish with any meat or vegetables.

Ingredients:

1 cup browned rice
2½ cups water
1 teaspoon salt
1/2 up chopped celery
2 tablespoons butter
1 small onion, chopped
1/2 cup thick canned tomato juice
1/4 cup chopped pimientoMakes 8 servings.

Preparation:

  • Steam the browned rice in the salted water as in steaming rice, and cook the celery, which should be chopped fine, with the rice for the last 20 minutes of the steaming.
  • In a heavy skillet, brown the butter and add to it the onion finely chopped, the tomatoes, and the pimiento. Cook for few minutes. Add this hot mixture to the cooked rice a few minutes before serving time. Mix well, and serve hot.

Real Cooking
Did You Know?
Rice has been cultivated in Asia for over 10,000 years.

Historians believe that while the 'indica' variety of rice was first domesticated in the area covering the foothills of the Eastern Himalayas (i.e. north-eastern India) and lower plains, stretching through Orissa, Bengal, Burma, Thailand, Laos, Vietnam and Southern China, the 'japonica' variety was domesticated from wild rice in southern China. Chinese records of rice cultivation go back 4000 years.

The earliest remains of cultivated rice in India have been found in the north and west and date from around 2000 BC. Perennial wild rices still grow in Assam and Nepal. It seems to have appeared around 1400 BC in southern India after its domestication in the northern plains. It then spread to all the fertile alluvial plains watered by rivers. Cultivation and cooking methods are thought to have spread to the west rapidly and by medieval times, southern Europe saw the introduction of rice as a hearty grain.