Rice

I've been cooking a lot of rice lately for my weekend meals, as well as my weekday lunch bento; I thought I'll share with you how my rice are like. I have mentioned before that I usually cooked mixed grain rice. Well today, I'm going to show you what I actually mean. So above is what my rice grain looks like. I've switched to Japanese short grain rice since last year June. They are more expensive, at SGD7 per kg, and it is one of the luxury I allowed myself. I can eat 2kg of rice in 2 months. I started this switch after coming back from Wakayama where I ate an average of 4 bowl of rice a day (2 bowl for breakfast, 2 bowls for dinner), not to mention sometimes rice is also eaten for lunch! Yes I do love my rice. I am truly asian!

Interestingly, I also love mixed grain rice. Actually I fell in love with mixed grain rice from my trip to Korea. Again, I ate a lot of rice there, and they usually serve me glutinous rice or mixed grain rice. I want to say that I am not a health freak or anything, but I really love brown rice or mixed grain rice cause it makes the rice texture so much chewier and crunchy. So again. small luxury I allow myself, I buy like 2kg of mixed grain from Taiwan whenever I am there for a business trip. The above was my latest buy which I got in May this year. It has ten types of grain inside it! 2kg should be sufficient to last me for maybe 2 years. 

You must be wondering why I can go through 2kg of white rice but 2kg of mixed grain can last me 2 years. Well above photo might explain a bit. So for example today I cooked total 5 serving of rice, using 2 cups of white rice, and half a cup of mixed grain. The reason being, I just wanted to texture, and mixed grain usually need longer to cook. It is better to soak the rice before cooking as well. And now that I've learned to use my timer function on my rice cooker, I usually let the rice soak for one hour or two before cooking it. I read somewhere that Japanese rice is also better if you soak it before cooking. 

So there you have it, my high end rice eating habit. When I cook more japanese dishes, I don't add the mixed grain at all to make it more, well, Japanese like. This usually mean grilled fish dishes, or Japanese curry. I will probably continue to support my little expensive rice habit until I can no longer afford it. It is not really a necessity, its just those small pleasure that I really enjoy in life. And because the grains are so damn expensive, I actually pick up every single grain that fell on the floor. And when cooked, not a single rice is gone to waste. It really makes you appreciate your rice a lot better!