Corn Rice

My aunt and I used to be really curious about what makes rice really yellow when it's served at Chinese restaurants, or, in my case, Indonesian festivals.

Egg yolks don't do that, at least not without sticking to every grain and changing the shape so that it looks lumpier.

Butter doesn't do that. Margarine doesn't do that without making it taste like margarine, which it didn't.

As it turns out, making a rice pilaf with turmeric spice or, if you can afford it then saffron, is what gives white rice a vivid yellow coloring.

Also, feeding genetically-modified golden rice to Chinese kids without telling their parents. But hey, it worked! Vitamin A for every body!

And now there's corn disguised as rice.

I've seen risoni pasta that's shaped like grains of rice, but corn is new.

Rico corn rice goes for about Php. 70 per kilogram, it does expand (just not as much as rice), and it cooks pretty speedy-quick. The instructions at the back of the pack say to wait for the water to boil first, then pour in the corn rice.

It doesn't taste very much like corn, which is too bad because I really do like the taste of corn even though it makes my stomach acids act up...and, I think corn rice kind of makes my stomach acids act up. Not as badly as actual corn, which gives me water brash, but just that I digest corn rice much faster and get hungry again after a couple of hours.

For that reason, I wouldn't change my staple to this, but it's an interesting ingredient to work with...

Here's me stuffing cabbages with corn rice...

The directions on the pack say that, unlike with real rice, it's better to wait until the water is boiling and then add the corn rice.

So, as the rice cooks below, the cabbage leaves get steamed up top...

I've been having a tactile food craving. I've been wanting to wrap something, like a tortilla or a crepe or something. Cabbage leaves would do, but I wondered how to get them to stay rolled. A tortilla, I could stick with some melted cheese or even cornstarch and water.

But as it turns out, cooked cabbage is very pliable. Once it's rolled into a wrap, it sticks to itself.

I thought the recommended amount of water on the pack, per cup of corn rice, actually left it quite dry. I overestimated the water the next time, and came out with a porridge.

So, I thought that I'd make it into champurrado. Not champorado, but champurrado substituting corn rice for corn meal, adding chocolate and cinnamon sugar.

Maybe I should specify...

- 1 cup corn rice
- 3 cups water
- 2 star anise...things...
- 2 Tbsp brown sugar
- 1 1/2 Tbsp cocoa powder
- dash of cinnamon

Although, I don't recommend this recipe that I made up because this was actually pretty intensely flavored. I steeped the star anises in the water, and kept them in there when the water boiled and I added the corn rice. When about halfway done, and the water had turned cloudy with what I supposed was corn starch, I plucked out both anise seeds. The corn rice retained the tangy numbing flavor.

...I still prefer the sticky rice version. While cornstarch is one effective thickener, corn rice doesn't seem to have any left after processing, so it was like ordinary rice dumped in hot chocolate.

I might have put too much anise, since the lift it gave to the dish was a little intense...

Also, the recipe I based this off mentioned star anise as a possible spice, but stuck with cinnamon. Good call, I think, since cinnamon in the chocolate did give it a very woodsy sort of groundedness. Both together...intense, is all I can say. Maybe if I'd doubled the amount of corn rice...because these are flavors that, though new to me in combination, I do think all worked really well together.


But I've thought up of other recipes to use corn rice in, which I'll write more on later.