Wednesday, September 24, 2014

Grain of the Week - 39 - Muthu Samba Rice

Muthu Samba Rice the staple rice of SriLanka is one of the prettiest grains of rice you will ever see. Shiny and shaped like a tiny pearl (muthu in Tamil translates to pearl in English) it is very nice looking rice. But the praise from me stops right there. The rice has a distinct smell that is delicious or downright disgusting depending on the person.

My SriLankan friend told me that the rice is the smell of her childhood and it usually brought back good food memories for her. Her daughter and son on the other hand call it "poo poo" rice because of the strange smell. She gave me some rice to try, even before cooking just the raw rice has a distinct smell that is not very pleasant.



Remember the Red Samba Rice that I talked about a few weeks back? That rice on the other hand does have a faint smell when raw but after several washings before cooking it has a faint smell which is not overpowering and is very tasty.

Take a look at this article "Why does Muthu Samba Rice Stink?" and the comment sections which clearly shows that this is one of those things that you have to get used to.





As for the nutrition details, muthu samba is par boiled. What does parboiled mean? Parboiling is the process where the rice is partially boiled in its husk, steamed and then dried. The boiling process transfers the nutrients from the husk are transferred to the endosperm. This preserves almost as much nutrients as a brown rice. Back home parboiled rice is what we ate mostly. The problem here in the US, getting good parboiled rice.

White raw rice on the other hand (Basmati, Sona Masuri) are milled - the husk, bran and germ are all removed leaving only the glucose rich endosperm. It is then polished to get the shiny look.

Brown rice is the most nutritious with just the husk removed giving it a nuttier taste.

Source:Differences between Brown, Raw and Parboiled Rice

Tell me if Muthu Samba Rice for you is pleasant or unpleasant?


Like what you are reading? Subscribe!

1 comment:

  1. The article really helped... i bought muthu samba rice mistaking it for the seeraga samba rice. I didn't like the smell while cooking. Waiting for lunch time to taste it. For safer side i added jeera seeds to rice to subside the stinking smell!

    ReplyDelete

Thanks for stopping by. Appreciate you taking the time.
Comments embedded with links, spam and in poor taste will not be published.