Why does basmati rice smell bad

Why does my rice smell weird? If the rice only smells after its been left in the cooker for a while, the problem is that it's spoiled. People mostly worry about food poisoning from meat but rice can be a significant cause, especially if its kept warm for a long time: bacteria love warm, moist conditions and rice is easy for them to eat, too. Is basmati rice brown rice? Yes, brown rice is medium or short grain rice, while basmati is long grained rice.

The difference is the aroma unique to basmati, which is grown in the foothills of Himalayas and northern states of India. Brown rice can be sticky and separate depending on the type of rice you buy. Why is it called jasmine rice? Jasmine rice is also known as Thai fragrant rice, given its pleasant popcorn-like smell.

This is due to the presence of a molecule called 2-acetylpyrroline 17 , Why Basmati rice is expensive? Furthermore, since good-quality Basmati Rice is only sold by brands, they too include their cost of production and packaging, which makes it an expensive sell in the market.

If basmati rice is aged that it is also much expensive. Flavored Long grain basmati rice is also much costly than regular rice. Is Basmati rice a fragrant? This extra long grain rice has a fluffy, light texture and a delicate, unmistakable flavor.

The distinctive aroma of Basmati rice is enhanced with a unique aging process. Which type of basmati rice is best? As per my opinion, Kohinoor and Shri Lal Mahal are the best basmati rice brands as they offer extra-long basmati rice with minimal fat, sugar and cholesterol. The length of Shri Lal Mahal basmati rice is 22 mm after cooking, which is the longest in Basmati rice.

Tags: basmati rice Islamophobia mass shooting Media San Bernardino. Basmati rice pales in comparison to Jasmine rice. Everyone laughs when I say that Jasmine rice smells like freshly washed feet. Enter your email address to subscribe to this blog and receive notifications of new posts by email.

Email Address. December 4, at pm. Amardeep Assar says:. December 5, at am. Support The Aerogram! The way it usually works for most is that we are brought up to regard Basmati as the gold standard of rice. Then, as we expand our gastronomic horizons, we discover other kinds of rice: the nutty red rice of Goa, the many wonderful rice varieties of Kerala, and even the great Italian risotto rice breeds or Thai jasmine rice.

We decide that perhaps we have been too restrictive in our approach by worshipping Basmati. There are many other interesting rice breeds all over the world. Even in India, we tell ourselves, there are rice varieties that are easily the equal of Basmati. But eventually, I think we all come around to one inescapable fact: Basmati is very special. It may or may not be the king of rice. But it is one of India's great national treasures, on par with saffron from Kashmir, pepper from Kerala or tea from Darjeeling.

And it is crazy for us not to value a rice variety that is the envy of the world. What makes Basmati so special? After all, there are thousands of rice varieties.

Why is Basmati deserving of special attention? Well, first of all, Basmati is an Indian rice that we've grown in the foothills of the Himalayas for many centuries. Secondly, the best kinds of Basmati, such as the Super Basmati from Dehradun have very long grains that stay separate and distinct even when you cook them. And like fine wine, really good Basmati needs to be aged. The older the rice, the more refined the taste. There is a scientific reason for this: the older the rice, the lower its moisture content - and rice with less moisture cooks better.

Great Basmati needs to be several years old. The real reason most of us prize Basmati so much, however, is the fragrance. Ask Indians to describe the smell of freshly-cooked Basmati and most of us will say 'buttery'. But actually the smell is not really buttery - which is why the rice improves when you add a little clarified butter or ghee. Scientists have now isolated the compound that gives Basmati its special fragrance.

It is called 2-acetylpyrroline and is found in most rice varieties. But Basmati has about a dozen times more of this compound than other kinds of rice. That is why the smell is so intense that it can fill the room. And that accounts for all our childhood memories of the smell of freshly-cooked rice. You find the same compound in the pandanus leaf, which is an important ingredient of Far Eastern cookery where they claim the smell is similar to vanilla.

But we know pandanus in India as kewda, which we call the screw-pine. Traditional Muslim chefs will flavour a biryani with kewda. They do this - without understanding the chemistry - to add an extra heft of 2-acetylpyrroline to the rice and thereby accentuate what we recognise subliminally as the fragrance of good quality Basmati.

A more cynical explanation is that they do it to mimic the aroma of good Basmati even when they are using poor quality Basmati. So Basmati is really one of the world's most special rice varieties.