Rice Porn

One of our favorite dinners in recent years has been pan-seared scallops in lemon butter sauce served with rice or orzo. We typically use Basmati rice, but on occasion we have used Jasmine rice. Both are very tasty. The thing about orzo and these kinds of fluffy rice is that they do not maintain the shape of a container – say a circle mold. Bummer.

We’ve been watching reruns of the 1990s, Japanese, Iron Chef series. In some of the episodes, the contestants use glutinous rice. Now, I don’t know about you, but I had never previously had glutinous rice. I imagined that it would be sticky and not for folks with gluten sensitive enteropathy or gluten sensitivity. On my grocery outing this afternoon, I decided to get some glutinous rice. I found it in the bulk foods area where I typically find salted cashews, currants, raisins, Jordan almonds, and other indulgences.

In the protein area, I found some mid-sized scallops; they didn’t have my favorite giant scallops. They also didn’t have PEI mussels or oysters and other things on my shopping list. I chalked it up to the recent ice storm. In the sushi area, I found some chicken pot stickers.

Tonight, Susan made glutinous rice which we served in a circle mold. It held its shape as if had been cast. After a nice dinner, we reviewed this latest culinary experiment. Here are the highlights:

• Glutinous rice should be soaked for several hours before cooking. Bummer!
• Glutinous rice requires steaming in a colander or similar device. Too fussy for me.
• Glutinous rice requires time for fluffing after steaming. I mean, that is just downright Fru-Fru.

The bottom line is that glutinous rice requires a much larger investment of time than say Basmati rice. And, although it holds its shape nicely when put in a mold, it just tastes like RICE! The verdict is that we won’t be cooking glutinous rice again. The reward simply isn’t worth the investment of time and effort.

Nonetheless, I must say that the meal turned out fine, and we learned something about rice that we hadn’t known before. And isn’t that what life is all about – trying out new things? Buen provecho!