A scientist in the kitchen

For April’s Grow Your Own, I am sharing with you an age-old practice in my father’s hometown. It is basically a rice growing town, with farmers still practicing traditions handed down for generations. One of these traditions is patilaok or the sharing of rice harvests. It is the practice to share with friends and neighbors the first batch of milled rice from their rice harvest. So often we get a share, a kilo or two, from neighbors. We get to taste different rice varieties as they are really proud of their harvest. Since April is harvest season, we have enjoyed these gifts each week.

We eat rice three times a day. When cooking rice for dinner, we often cook extra rice so that the leftover rice can be cooked as fried rice for the next day’s breakfast. Sometimes, we cook fried for lunch or dinner if the dish calls for it, if there is extra rice and if I feel like cooking fried rice (which can be often).

Cilantro rice

2 tbsp vegetable oil
5 cloves garlic, minced
4 cups cold cooked rice, crumbled to separate grains
a bunch of cilantro, chopped
salt

Heat oil in wok. Add 1 tsp salt, stir to dissolve salt then add the garlic. Cook garlic in oil, make sure it does not get burnt. When garlic is light brown in color, add the rice. Stir quickly to prevent rice from sticking in the wok and to distribute heat evenly throughout the rice. I usually cook it like this for around 5 minutes. When rice is heated through, remove from fire then add the fresh cilantro. Stir again then serve.

I served cilantro rice with fried salted fish. The fish is called espada or swordfish, about 12-15 inches long flat fish with thin flesh. The fish is cut in the middle to open it up, cleaned then salted and dried. This was my first time to eat this kind of dried fish. The saltiness was just rice and it was very crunchy when fried.

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Imagine this, Filipinos eat rice three times a day. Yup, that’s how much rice is a staple in our diet. And take note, it is usually fried rice in the morning. Well, some regions it is just plain rice. But for Tagalogs, we love our fried rice in the morning. It’s usually that the night before, we cook rice with extra servings to fry the next day. Incidentally, fried rice is called sinangag.
One current issue today is the probability of having rice shortage. Now this would really send commodity brokers negotiating for the importation of rice. Believe it or not, while the Philippines has probably trained the best rice breeders from different countries, we still import rice. Ironic isn’t it? It’s not so much as access to the right varieties, investments in rice production but also political will. But then that’s another story.

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One of the analyses I do that is related to my work is do bioinformatics analyses. It is mostly doing analyses of gene sequences, designing markers for characterizing my rice population and relating the traits to the markers so I can select my plants. I don’t mind using Window-based softwares but when it is in the DOS mode… my mind goes blank whenever I see the command prompt, I have to go back to my notes all over again.

Just some facts on rice:

- There are two major groups of rice: japonica rice and indica rice
- Japonica rice are usually the sticky rice, much preferred in Japan and Korean (the better to eat with chopsticks)
- Indica rice such as the basmati rice tend to separate when cooked
- In the Philippines, rice is cooked steamed and eaten with viands
- In some countries, rice is sauteed first with spices before it is steamed
- The rice we know belongs to the species Oryza while wild rice belongs to the species Zizania

Want to steam rice the traditional way?

Measure the amount of rice you want to cook. Put in a pot and wash the grains twice. Level the rice grains in the pot. Measure the depth that the rice grains made using your fingers. Add enough water to the same level that you have measured with your fingers. Steam.

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What’s in a name? And what’s that latinized name for all living things, you know, the italized name in parentheses that usually comes after the common name? Well, that is the scientific name. This is the permanent name given to an organism, so no matter what part of the world, people can still understand what organism they are referring to. Of course, there are thousands of organisms out there already whose common name is well known - think dog, cat and apples. But imagine in the Middle Ages, where communication between people must have been very difficult, organisms are described rather than named, often long descriptions which can be subjective. Linnaeus, the father of modern taxonomy, deviced a scheme, the binomial nomenclature as the scientific names of organisms. It is in Latin, well, because Latin is a dead language and it won’t change it’s meaning over the years. It consists of the genus and species (much like the surname and the first name). It is italized (if your typing in a computer) or underlined separately (if you are writing it down. The genus starts with a capital letter and the species name in small letters.

So the proper way to write the scientific name would be:

Oryza sativa or Oryza sativa

Not: ORYZA SATIVA, Oryza Sativa or Oryza sativa.

Can you guess what I’m featuring in this week’s Weekend Herb Blogging?

Right, it’s all about rice - the crop on which I do my research work. I’d like to share with a New Year tradition, a type of rice called palitaw which I have blogged about already. But, hey, we had extra rice flour so I made another batch. The recipe can be found here.

The sesame seeds I used are white ones. There are black sesame seeds which I will be using as another palitaw variation in the coming weeks.

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Lia of Swirling Notion’s is host this week. Ever wondered how a market looks like in other parts of the world? Check out “To market, to market”. Or you can share yours, too.

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Rice is always served on our Media Noche feast (of course, I’m in rice research) so for our New Year’s Eve dinner recently, I cooked some fried rice.

It’s quite easy to make. I prepare four cups of leftover rice, and refrigerated it a few hours before cooking. I prepared choppped garlic (one whole), chopped carrots, 1/4 cup chorizo de bilbao, 1 piece Chinese chorizo, scrambled eggs (2 eggs only, as we only harvested 2 eggs that day), 1/4 cup of chopped ham, and some cilantro I found in the ref. Saute garlic in 3 tbsp oil, add a dash of salt, add chorizos and ham and saute some more till the aroma permeates the room. Lovely smell here. Add 1/4 teaspoon pepper, 2 tbsp soysauce and 1/4 cup water. Simmer everything for a minute then add the rice. Mix everything till rice is heated through. Add the scrambled eggs which have been cut into strips and mix for a few minutes. Serve in a plate topped with chopped cilantro. Enjoy!

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More rice recipes

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