Brown Rice Batch Cooking Tips and How to Use a Perpetual Rice Starter

This recipe is based on the recipe in Nourishing Broth: An Old-Fashioned Remedy for the Modern World by Sally Fallon Morell and Kaayla T. Daniel. I shared it with a friend recently, then decided to brush it up a bit and share it with you as well.

Quantities are approximate. I've offered the large quantities I use to save time in the kitchen, and much smaller quantities for your first try.

Questions or comments? Please scroll down and share them at the bottom. I always respond within a few days. 

Ingredients

Large batch quantities

6 cups organic brown rice (I've used both short grain and long grain, with my only strict criteria being that it's organic)

2 liters warm water (for soaking before cooking)

a generous 1/3 of a cup of raw apple cider vinegar or whey

approximately 1 1/2 cups of pre-soaked rice from my perpetual rice starter (see detailed sections on this below)

2 1/2 to 3 liters chicken or beef bone stock (if I don't have stock on hand, I use water and add 2 tablespoons of gelatin.)

cooking fat (I use home rendered tallow; lard would work too; coconut oil would work but might impart a coconut flavor)

3 teaspoons sea salt or 2 teaspoons salt

1 teaspoon seaweed meal or powder (optional, for increased nutrition)

Small batch quantities

(if you've jumped to this section, scan through the large batch quantity list above for extra notes on some of the ingredients)

1 cup brown rice

2 cups warm water

1 tablespoons raw apple cider vinegar or whey

approximately 1/4 cup of pre-soaked rice from my perpetual rice starter

2 cups chicken or beef bone broth

2 tablespoons cooking fat

1 teaspoon fine sea salt

a pinch of seaweed

Steps 

1. (Optional) - rinse the rice before soaking. I buy organic rice in bulk bags, and I find this rice to be dustier than the rice in small plastic packages in the supermarket, so I choose to rinse before soaking. 
2. Soak the rice overnight. After optional rinsing, combine rice, warm water, and optional perpetual rice starter (more on this below)and apple cider vinegar or whey in a non-reactive bowl. Cover loosely and leave at room temperature for 8–12 hours.
3. Drain: Drain the soaked rice through a fine-mesh strainer. Rinse in a sieve. If you like, spread the rice on a towel and press to dry as much as possible (this drying step is totally optional and I don't do it, but it does reduce the spattering and hissing in the next step).
4. Toast: Melt cooking fat in a heavy-bottomed pot. Add the rice (it will hiss and spatter noisily) and stir continuously, watching closely until you see the individual grains beginning to turn white or opaque in colour. The whole grain wont change colour, just a portion of it. When all or most of them have begun to change colour, its time to add the stock.
5. Add liquid and boil down: Combine stock or water and optional gelatin, salt, and optional seaweed. Pour it in with the rice. Stir briefly to combine evenly. Bring to a boil and boil uncovered until the liquid is level with the top of the rice.
6. Simmer: Lower heat to the lowest possible simmer. Cover tightly and cook undisturbed until all the liquid is absorbed and the rice is tender, about 35–45 minutes or up to an hour. Do not lift the lid during cooking.

Storing the cooked rice

I have two things to say about storing left over cooked rice. 

Thing one - my personal experience has been that cooked rice keeps for a week or more at the back of the fridge (where its very cold, things get icy back there).

I don't freeze it, because for us that seems to change the texture in a not great way. (But this guide says that freezing cooked rice is ok and that it can actually turn out better when thawed and reheated than refrigerated rice -- so try it both ways.)

Thing two - spoiled rice would be nasty. This comprehensive guide to safely storing left over rice is full of details on exactly why.

So use your discretion and common sense in terms of how large of a batch to do, and if in doubt you'll be pretty safe if you start out being guided by the article I just linked to. 

If ever your left over rice needs to be tossed, the chickens will love it, and so will the critters in your compost bin -- so it'll end up feeding you one way or another.

Ways to use the cooked rice

Once the rice is sitting ready in the fridge, I have a number of ways of using it:

• on the day of cooking, we eat hot, freshly cooked rice as a side to a savory meal,
• or in a bowl by itself with added butter and whatever other yummy things people feel like dropping in with it (I like butter, garden greens, and extra seaweed; grated cheese is also good)
• my kids sometimes add butter and molasses, or cream and honey
• on subsequent days I might reheat rice in a steamer. Here's a reheating guide.   
• or I drop it cold into soups or stews and stir it through until all is hot and ready to serve (minimum 75 degrees Celsius all the way through for safety)
• or I fry it until crispy in a little cooking fat in a cast iron fry pan. (This takes a while. Don't do it on a day when you need to get food on the table fast. Keep the heat not too high and turn it frequently while you get the hang of it. We like to add a generous glug of olive oil near the end and let the rice get crunchy in the olive oil. Then we serve it beside or under a hot strew - yum.)
• sometimes I heat rice in a pan on the stove top with veggies or garden greens,, then put the pan under the grill with sliced or grated cheese on top until the cheese is your preferred shade of done.

How to use a perpetual rice starter

I keep a jar of approximately 2 cups of rice with water to cover it, perpetually in the fridge. It's a bit like the concept of a sourdough starter that you keep, feed regularly when out of the fridge, and refrigerate when not in use. (Here's a guide on the care and maintenance of sourdough starters.)

When I need to start a new batch of rice, I get the rice starter out of the fridge and add 3/4 of the jar of soaked rice to the rice I'm about to soak and cook.

I refill the starter jar with more fresh dry rice and more water, stir well, and leave it on the counter overnight before putting it back in the fridge the next day. (Occasionally, as needed when the rice starter jar starts to smell a bit ripe, I re-home it in a clean new jar.)

Why a perpetual rice starter?

The idea of keeping your rice starter going perpetually the same way you would with a sourdough starter is that as time passes, the rice starter keeps evolving toward a balance of critters that get better and better at digesting the anti-nutrients specifically found in whole brown rice. And thereby increasing the effectiveness of your overnight soak/fermentation over time.

I confess I cant remember where I first learned this idea. So today for this post, I did a bit of research to confirm if I was actually talking sense or not.

It turns out I am -- here's what I was able to confirm, in layman's terms. 

Why pre-soak or ferment brown rice before cooking?

Whole grains (including rice), seeds, and nuts, are high in minerals like zinc, iron, calcium, and magnesium -- that's one reason why I prefer whole/brown versions of them over "white" versions where the outer bran layer has been removed. (The other benefit of whole/brown vs white is the fiber content.)

But, grains seeds and nuts are all intended by nature to sprout and grow. Accordingly, they defend themselves against being digested in various ways. One of these is the presence of phytic acid.

Phytic acid is a compound found in the outer bran layer of whole/brown grains, seeds, legumes, and nuts. When you eat these foods in their whole/brown state without processing them in some way first, the phytic acid that's in the bran layer along with the minerals binds to them in your digestive tract and renders them indigestible. Then they're carried out of your body along with the fiber, before you can absorb them.

We humans don't make phytase (the enzyme required to break phytic acid down) in our digestive tracts, so soaking/sprouting or fermenting these foods can improve mineral absorption by reducing phytic acid levels.

This study found that fermentation treatments were more effective in decreasing phytic acid (56–96%), than soaking (under 20%).

Sources not linked to above

Nutritional Composition of Rice: A Comprehensive Overview

Effect of Germination and Temperature on PhyticAcid Content of Cereals

Brown Rice vs White Rice: Nutrition, Arsenic, and When White Is Actually the Better Choice