Parboiled Rice

Southern Indians use a lot of parboiled rice (they just call it boiled rice) for everyday cooking. To process the rice, it is first boiled and then cooled with its hull intact. The rice is then milled for an extended shelf life. The parboiling process makes rice nutritionally sound (more like brown rice) and when steamed by the home cook, it delivers fluffy, nonsticky, single-grain rice. In addition to steaming (1 cup rice to 1½ cups water) or cooking it in a large volume of water, you can also use a rice cooker for parboiled rice (in which case, use equal amounts of water and rice). Incidentally, converted rice is parboiled rice that has been cooked a little more before being packaged for that quick convenience. In the south there is a common variety of parboiled rice called rosematta. In the uncooked state, this rice is yellowish brown with a red tint, but when cooked, the grains are mostly white with flecks of red. This rice does tend to have a stronger flavor, making it a suitable bed for some of the more assertive meat curries.