SMART SHOPPING: WILD RICE

000

Although it’s usually stocked in the supermarket with long-grain, brown, and basmati, wild rice is actually an aquatic grass. (Wild rice is native to North America, growing naturally in lakes, but it is also cultivated in man-made paddies in Minnesota, California, and Canada.) When we tasted five brands both plain and in a soup, textural differences stood out the most; our top three, including our winner, cooked up springy and firm, while the other two blew out. What accounted for the difference? Processing. To create a shelf-stable product, manufacturers heat the grains, which gelatinizes their starches and drives out moisture, according to one of two methods: parching (the traditional approach) or parboiling. To parch, manufacturers load batches of rice into cylinders, which spin over a fire—an inexact process that produces “crumbly,” “less toothsome” results. Parboiling, a newer method, steams the grains in a controlled pressurized environment. The upshot: more uniform and complete gelatinization, which translates into rice that cooks more evenly. In the end our favorite product, Goose Valley Wild Rice, benefited from the parboiling method: It retained a “bouncy pop” and the grains had a “crunchy exterior yet were tender inside.” An added boon: Its flavor was “woodsy” and “pecan-y.”