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What Is The Best Rice For Cooking Jollof Rice?

Jollof rice is one of the popular meals in West Africa, and sometimes there’s a debate about who has the best jollof rice among the West African countries.

Jollof rice has a very interesting history and can be traced far back to the ancient Wolof Empire in the 14th century.

How the Ingredients; including onions, spices and tomatoes are combined may be the major difference among the different recipes of jollof rice.

The type of rice used in making jollof could also be another defining factor that determines the way the jollof rice recipe turns out after being cooked. It is often the most significant difference among jollof rice recipies.

It could get really complicated when you consider that there are so many varieties of rice and you might not know the best type of rice to use for your jollof rice.

Most people tend to go for the long grain parboiled rice variety, to them it happens to be the best variety to use, perhaps, it is also because it is easily available and straight forward to use. However there are a couple of other varieties of rice, and if you are to try them out for your jollof rice, then maybe you could also become a fan.

In this post, we are going to look a few of the favourite varieties of rice used to cook jollof rice and how the different jollof rice recipes turn out with each variety.

TYPES OF RICE

You might only been familiar with only a few varieties of rice, but there are quite a lot of rice varieties out there. Each variety of rice is better suited for particular meals.

Rice varieties have several characteristics; their aroma, color, or texture. They could also be characterized based on their size (short grain or long grain rice), where they are grown, how sticky they are when cooked which is attributed to their amylopectin content.

Several varieties of rice are non sticky when cooked while some are sticky.

It may also be parboiled.

These characteristic could make them perfect for a particular meal, and because of these characteristics, each would produce slightly different results when used to prepare jollof rice.

VARIETIES OF RICE FOR JOLLOF RICE

PARBOILED LONG GRAIN RICE

Most of the Jollof rice recipes you may come across may be made with parboiled long grain rice.

Parboiled rice simple means rice that has gone through the processes of parboiling. Parboiling occurs before the inedible husk is removed.

Together with its husk, the rice to be parboiled is first soaked, then steamed and dried.

This process makes the rice to absorb more nutrients from the bran before it is removed.

When parboiled rice is used, jollof rice is not sticky.

Using parboiled rice for your recipe, it may take longer to cook compared to some of the other varieties of rice.

BASMATI RICE

Basmati rice is a type of long grain rice; it is also a favourite among those who eat jollof.

This particular variety of rice is grown in india.

The grains of basmati rice are long and very slender, and when cooked these grains swell up to become even longer.

Basmati rice is not sticky. When cooked well, basmati rice would give you jollof rice that appears so appealing and fluffy.

JASMINE RICE

Jasmine rice is also another type of long grain white rice. When cooked with jasmine rice, the jollof rice tends to be a bit sticky, and they can be moulded into shapes.

BROWN RICE

Brown rice is also another wonderful option for you especially if you are really concerned about the nutrients.

This particular rice happens to be one of most nutritious options of rice.

When compared to white rice, brown rice has more nutrients because white loses some of its nutrients during the refining process

Since they still have the bran intact, brown rice is also richer in fibres.

OFADA RICE

This type of rice is also known as unpolished rice. They are short grain rice and tend to be very sticky.

Since ofada rice is difficult to mill, you can still see some of the bran intact, and this makes them very nutritious

The ofada rice is an African variety of white rice, which is usually eaten with the popular ofada stew.

However, if you fancy this local rice, you can also get creative by using this rice to make jollof rice.