RICE MADE PERFECTLY

American Long-Grain White Rice — 1
Chinese-Style Plain Rice — 2
Converted Rice — 3
American Jasmine Rice — 4
Thai Jasmine Rice — 5
Medium-Grain White Rice — 6
Japanese White Rice with Umeboshi and Sesame — 7
Riso — 8
Short-Grain White Rice — 9
Steamed Sticky Rice — 10
Long- or Medium-Grain Brown Rice — 11
Short-Grain Brown Rice — 12
Germinated Brown Rice — 13
Brown Basmati Rice — 14
Wehani Rice — 15
Black Rice — 16

Buddha is said to have existed on one grain of cooked rice per day while on his early ascetic path. His mendicant disciples are given the credit for the spread of the rice culture, along with its cooking pots, making rice basic fare throughout Southeast Asia and China. For the Buddhists, this set the atmosphere to imbue the grain with the power for supernatural nourishment (thus making rice the food of alms throughout Asia) as well as a simply wholesome foodstuff (the first food an Indian bride serves her new husband).

Japanese Zen Buddhists have lent the name "little Buddha" to each grain in their rice bowls; children love the association.

The gentleman-scholar Confucius, a contemporary of Buddha, was known as the apostle of virtuous living and a gourmet. He is said to have established the philosophical basis for today's Chinese cuisine: food that combines the attributes of fine sensory aesthetics with inner harmony. His meticulously prepared daily rice bowl, always perfectly white, would be the background for the jewel-like colors of contrasting or similarly hued complementary foods, served in a bowl that was also a work of notable artistry. This is the ancestry of the rice, cooked in basically the same manner, that graces our tables today.

Rice, the most popular grain in the world, comes in a wide variety of textures, colors, sizes, and tastes. It is grown in every temperate and tropical zone on this earth. The explosion of interest in traditional ethnic cuisines, from Asian to Middle Eastern cooking, has introduced a staggering array of different types of rices to the home cook. After cooking, some rices are dry, with each grain delightfully separate, while others are moist and sticky. All types can be cooked successfully in a rice cooker. Of all existing species of rice in the plant world, only two types have been cultivated. One is native to the African continent and the other, Oryza sativa, is indigenous to Asia.

This latter species is the rice that the world eats, knows, and loves. There have been tens of thousands of varieties, cultivated and cross-cultivated off the early ones, over a multitude of centuries.

There are two distinctly different shapes of Oryza sativa. One is long and slender, known as indica, or long-grain rice. The other is short, plump, and more translucent, known as japonica, or short-grain. Once you have these two types set in your mind, you have the key to knowing the basics about rice. Within each type of rice, there are many varieties. While some people think that rice is just rice, so very many traditional dishes call for a specific rice in their preparation. Indica (for India) is the grain of choice for pilafs, a favorite Western rice dish. It is a low-starch rice and cooks up dry, with each grain separate from the others. This is the preferred rice for salads and a pile of plain old hot rice and butter for dinner. Long-grain rice can be rather bland, like extra-long Carolina gold, or aromatic, like Thai jasmine and Indian basmati. Long-grain rice always requires more liquid to cook properly than medium- and short-grain white rices. Long-grain rices are popular in all cuisines of the Western world and are the rice of choice in India, China, and the Philippines.

Japonica (for Japan) includes short- and medium-grain rices. While Americans make a distinction between short- and medium-grain rices, please note that outside the United States these rices are both known as short-grain rice. These are the rices grown in Southeast Asia, Korea, and Japan and are generally not exported. The University of California at Davis developed the variety of medium-grain rice so beloved by Japanese-Americans, called Calrose, and a good portion of the California rice-growing land north of Sacramento is devoted to this and similar varieties of rice. The finest short- and medium-grain domestic rices are such superior rices that we were told they are brought as house gifts when visiting in Japan.

Short-grain rice is known for its clumpy, clingy nature, perfect for eating with chopsticks, and often eaten only when dining at a Japanese restaurant. It is beautifully made at home in the rice cooker, giving your sushi or Japanese recipes that wonderful authentic touch. There is also a short-grain sticky rice, sometimes known as sweet rice (it is not sugar-sweet) or glutinous rice. This is a specialty rice eaten in Japan, parts of southern China, and the mountainous northern areas of Indonesia, Thailand, and Vietnam, where it is rolled into balls and popped into the mouth. This type of rice is usually steamed, rather than boiled like other rices, because it is mercilessly sticky otherwise. It is also used in rice desserts and porridge.

Different varieties of japonica rice are grown in northern Italy, France, and Spain. These have plenty of the starch amylopectin and are featured in the traditional dishes of these areas, risotto and paella. Medium-grain rice is the rice of choice in the Caribbean, Central America, and Japan. Medium- and short-grain rices are nice for rice pudding, giving it a thick, naturally creamy consistency.

Rices are further categorized by how each is processed. Plain white rice, whether long-, medium-, or short-grained, is processed, or milled, by a procedure called polishing. The bran and germ are removed (hulled) to make the grain more digestible and faster to cook. It is then enriched by spraying it with thiamine, which is lost when the bran is discarded. Thiamine is needed for the proper metabolizing of carbohydrates and iron.

Brown, or unhulled, rice is a whole grain, with its bran and outer layer of fiber intact. It has all the vitamins and minerals rice has to offer. Because of the oil-rich bran, it is best kept refrigerated or frozen, rather than on the cupboard shelf, where it can go rancid. Brown rice will always take at least twice the amount of time to cook as white rice.

In the United States, more and more specialty rice varieties are being grown for niche markets. Several varieties of rice have been developed to perform like the imported white Thai jasmine and Indian basmati. There are numerous varieties of rice that have unusual bran...