Tuesday, March 11, 2008

Red Cargo Rice - Thailand


I purchased a 5 lb bag of Red Cargo Rice. It comes from Thailand - I bought it some time ago so I don't recall the price.

From what I could tell it was about as healthy as brown rice, so I thought it would be a colorful addition to brown rice.

It is a pretty color. Problem is it stains. I cooked some in the microwave in a white Pyrex Casserole dish and it stained the dish! Even when I was rinsing the rice I could see the water turning a bit reddish.

The red rice tastes similar to brown - but it has a bitter edge to it. Probably mixed with other things you would not notice the bitterness so much. Though I did make some rice pudding with it - and it did have that bitter flavor.

Like I do with brown rice, I soaked the red rice for about 6 hours. This cut down on the slow cooking time.

Today I made some chicken enchiladas and added some cooked red rice to it - a good combination.

When looking at rice at the world food store - I was tempted to buy one of those huge bags of rice that are packed in cool zippered cloth bags... But I don't think we'd eat that much rice in a year...

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

I'm going to see whether we have that variety of rice here in Manitoba...it looks great...a nice addition to my Christmas food list !

lake said...

The aged Jasmine rice in the zippered cloth bags is very good..I buy some whenever I can find it..I just bought some of thr red cargo rice and am going to try it tomorrow .. I usually cook rice in a crock pot .. I also use a LaChamba black pot from Columbia SA that makes awesome rice in the oven

Anonymous said...

"The aged Jasmine rice in the zippered cloth bags is very good"

As is the aged Basmati rice in the zippered cloth bags. It typically has a lovely light "straw" flavour to it that the plastic packaged Basmati does not have. Maybe that flavour comes from the burlap? I have tried several different brands and while they vary, they are all superior to the plastic packages.

What would you do with all that rice? If you love it as much as I do you eat it! It becomes the base of your meal with each person eating about 1/2 cup of dry rice. Leftover can be re-heated or eaten cold with milk or cream and brown sugar as a desert or fast food for the kids. The light fluffy texture of Basmati is preferred by children (over traditional long grain) and holds sauces better. Basmati is delicious plain white, with only butter, or any sauce. Rice this good, you tend to eat more of.

I am new to Red Cargo Rice, and like it. It does stain I notice, and it is a bit coarse textured and nutty flavoured. I have mixed it 50/50 with Calrose or Basmati by cooking the Red Cargo first, then adding the lighter rice and water when most of the water is absorbed by the Red Cargo.