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I was in Whole foods last week and they had some interesting rice selections in their bulk food department. I purchased Purple Sticky Rice, Forbidden (black) Rice, and Himalayan Red Rice. I cooked the Purple Sticky Rice last night with the usual 1 cup rice to 2 cups of water in my rice cooker. when I checked on it about 40 minutes later, the rice was cooked, but there was still a lot of water left, so I scooped some of it out. It came out wonderful! Very fragrant and a nice slightly chewy texture and good flavor. Has anyone cooked this before? What ratio of rice to water did you use? I'll try the others later this week.

Michael

I love the black forbidden rice. It is so chewy.

I use the same ratio as with my brown jasmine.

Sticky rice is normally short grain and needs less water to cook than long grain rice.

Is it actually black sticky rice and just looks a little purple? They use this as a dessert rice in Thailand and cook half Thai sticky rice with black sticky rice with coconut milk, sugar and salt and top it with fresh sliced Thai mango. It's called Khao Niew Ma Muang (Cow Ne-ow Ma Mung).

I have not used it for a main course, and just as dessert. But try cooking it with 1.5 cups of water to rice instead of the 2. That is too much. If it needs a little less, usually it's cooked with about an inch of water above it in a rice cooker.

All the Thai's I ask never have any idea how many cups of water it is to cook each type of rice. They are taught to stick their finger in the pot and measure water by inches or a point on their knuckle. So they only know visually how much for each type of rice!

The sign says Purple Sticky Rice on the bin at Whole foods, but it may be black sticky rice. I also have some Forbidden Rice which is black, but I haven't cooked it yet so I don't know if it's sticky. Next time I make the sticky rice, I'll try 1.5 cups.

Michael

I starting making low-cal rice snacks with the black glutinous (sticky) sweet rice, and brown sweet rice. The black rice actually has a deep purple pigment. In making the rice snacks, I first tried mixing one part black and two parts brown and cooking together. But this caused the all the cooked rice to turn dark purple. Subsequently, I cooked the two rices separately. Pre-soak the rice a few hours before cooking -- makes it more sticky!

Then I combined the two rices with chopped walnuts or almonds, plus chopped Chinese black or Japanese shitake mushrooms to add flavor and texture. I would add some low-salt soy sauce or oyster sauce to lightly flavor the mixture. Spoon various shape rice cakes onto a stickfree baking pan and flatten to 1/2 to 3/4 inch thickness, and baste the top surface with soy sauce. Bake at 350F for 15 minutes, turn over and baste again, then cook for another 10 minutes. Cook long enough to crisp the surface to free from the pan with a spatula, but not too long to avoid drying too much. Cook up a batch and freeze, separated by pieces of saran wrap so they don't all stick together. Reheat in the toaster oven at 300-325 for 10 minutes for a great snack, no fat, minimal calories, and some fiber to boot. Here's a sample tray after baked.

Lately, I have made them thicker to come out moister upon reheat, with perfect round shape. Delicious.

That recipe sounds great, much better than commercial rice cakes! I've never seen purple sticky rice around here, but will look for it.

Doubt you'll find commerical purple rice cakes, gotta make your own at considerably less cost. Besides, you can customize the recipes to your taste, with different nuts, mushrooms, or even quinoa and pearl barley! Similarly, I add both quinoa and barley to my steel-cut oats recipe. Trader Joe's used to carry a 1 lb package of 8 brown rice cakes, but discontinued last fall -- hence, I decided to make my own, and improve upon the rice cakes in McDougall style.

Dumb question, maybe, but is short grain rice sticky rice? Or should it say on the package sticky or something?

I did find some black rice from Lundberg in the store, as well as short brown , but nothing that indicated stickiness. We don't have a lot of selection around here.

Short grain rice is comparatively (to long and medium grain rice varieties) sticky, but in my experience, it is not as glutinous as the rice labeled sticky rice in the store packages. You could also substitute sticky rice with sushi or glutinous rice, if you find those anywhere. Calrose rice works well for sushi, so it might be an option, as well.

Do you have an Asian market anywhere, or an Asian aisle in a grocery store? The latter is quite common at huge chains.

But in my experience, before rice started giving me problems, medium-grain was my favorite texture. Damn, I miss rice.