Baked Brown Rice with Herbs

A Healthy and Tasty Dish

Aug 2, 2009 Melody Mundawarara

This is an elegant, nutritious and quick-to-make dish made from wholegrain rice. The herbs enhance flavour.

Brown rice is unmilled or partly unmilled. It is a natural, whole grain that remains unbleached. The process that produces brown rice removes only the outermost layer, the hull, of the rice kernel and is least damaging to its nutritional value. Brown rice still has its nutrient-rich bran and germ. Ironically white, polished rice sometimes has nutrients lost during milling and polishing added back synthetically.

Unmilled rice has mild nutty flavour and is chewier than white. If you're accustomed to white rice, making the switch to brown suddenly can be difficult. It's somewhat of an acquired taste for many people. However, it can be done - it similar to switching from white bread to brown. It is well worth the effort. Adding extra sauces to mask the wilder taste of brown rice for a while to allow your tastes to adjust. Once you've acquired a taste for brown rice, it's likely you'll never go back to white. Herbs are also helpful in enhancing the flavour of brown rice.

Brown rice is not only better for you, but it's better for the environment than white rice too. This is because it is less processed - the less processing of a food (or any other product), the less energy required. There's also the issue of the vitamins added back in - produced in laboratories and factories from a variety of chemicals; and these sorts of processes are well known for their negative impact on the environment.

Brown rice does take a little longer to cook than white rice, but the time isn't much longer if you pre-soak the rice for a while and cook using the absorption method. This is where you use less water and cover the pot, leaving very little excess water left by the time the rice has cooked - the steam generated using this method also helps speed up the cooking process.

Unmilled rice goes rancid faster than white. However, it can remain in storage for 6 months under normal conditions but hermetic storage and freezing can significantly extend its lifetime.

Baked Brown Rice and Herbs Recipe

Ingredients:

2 cups long-grain brown rice
1/2 cup diced onion
4 1/2 cups chicken or vegetable stock, boiling
2 teaspoons dried thyme
1 bay leaf
1 teaspoon dried marjoram
1/2 cup minced fresh parsley
1 teaspoon minced garlic (optional)
Salt
Tabasco sauce to taste
1 tablespoon vegetable oil

Method:

Preheat the oven to 190 degrees C.
Heat the oil in a heavy saucepan, add the onion and garlic (if using), and saute for 2 minutes.
Stir in the rice and mix well. Add boiling stock and the rest of the ingredients. Stir well, cover and bring to the boil.

The copyright of the article Baked Brown Rice with Herbs in Recipes is owned by Melody Mundawarara. Permission to republish Baked Brown Rice with Herbs in print or online must be granted by the author in writing.

Perfect brown Rice