Will It Be Sous Vide? Biryani Rice Experiment
Hello cats and kittens, and welcome back to the roller coaster of emotions known asWill It Sous Vide? , a weekly column where I do whatever you want with my immersion circulator.
Last week’s win proposal came to us from irishnugget, and – although it was a little vague – I was glad it won as it gave me the opportunity to play with a certain grain that I was particularly interested in.
Like any regional cuisine, “Indian cuisine” is a rather broad topic. At first I thought of curry, but I suspected that this method would end up very similar to our chili experiment , so I chose biryani , a blended rice dish with tons of flavor that I have enjoyed in many good Indian restaurants. I’ve wanted to make a rice dish with this thing for a long time now, and it seemed like the perfect opportunity.
To be honest, I wasn’t really hoping it would work, but then I found a brown rice pilaf recipe on Anova’s website and was cautiously excited. As for the biryani recipe, I used it as a template, dropping coriander leaves (because my grocery store didn’t have them) and mint (because I forgot about it; it’s still on the counter).
I sauté my lovely spices in oil, add some chopped ginger and garlic, and add rice to coat it.
Then I added a pinch of saffron and mixed a little. Things started to smell good, pretty good, and I began to believe that this would all end up deliciously. (Ron Howard’s voice: “But it wouldn’t be delicious.”)
Then – in the classic case of “you know better, asshole” – I just threw it all in a bag of broth (a little less than the biryani recipe required), set the timer for three hours and left, believing that the recommended cooking time from the brown rice would be fine.
This was silly for two reasons:
- Brown rice takes longer to cook than white rice.
- Nothing is “just perfect”.
When I took the bag out of the tub, I was greeted by a coarse, solidified mass of grain formerly known as rice.
This was pretty disappointing, since the bag contained a lot of expensive spices, especially saffron. (As I mentioned, I’m just crazy about it .) So it sucks.
This (SAD! PATHETICAL!) Result could have been caused by several different factors. I could overcook it, and I’m sure I did, but I also began to suspect that maybe, just maybe, this cooking method was not conducive to tender, fluffy, perfectly cooked rice. (Reducing the stock could also be a bad idea.)
To find out exactly what went wrong and to see if the rice itself is sous-viding, I cooked up another batch of basmati, only this time I added a little more broth and cut out all those expensive spices because I don’t. … I like to cry. I then tossed it back into the 180 degree bath and tested it at various intervals.
The rice was predictably crunchy for one and a half and one hour marks, but for two hours it somehow turned into a grain that defied science itself, being both soft and crunchy in the same. I left it on for another half hour to see if conditions improved, but we never came close to what I would call “edible.”
After two and a half hours, the rice was even softer (although still crunchy in places!) And was still very unpleasant on my mouth. I threw the bag right into the trash can.
So, getting back to everyone’s favorite question: will there be Indian food sous vide?
Answer: I mean, I’m sure there are some Indian dishes that will look very good, but biryani is not it. In fact, I feel pretty comfortable saying that rice itself is just a poor candidate for an immersion circulator, although perhaps a heartier, darker rice would work better than a tender pale basmati.
I had to go with the curry, that’s what I’m saying, because then I could have a delicious curry instead of throwing out a whole bunch of (SAD! PATHETICAL!) Rice and about 30 strands of saffron.