Food Science Sunday

Food science Sunday will be it's own category from now on instead of a tip.  Tonight I made a recipe I saw in an Everyday Food magazine.  I just happened to have most of the ingredients.  HERE is the recipe.  Arugula, Chicken and Rice salad.  Well, I don't usually have arugula lying around, so for that I subbed in romaine lettuce.  Arugula has the texture of spinach (to me) and is described as tasting "peppery".  I think it's good on a pizza, for the base of a main dish salad that I am feeding to kids- I opt for romaine.  For the rice I had some leftover cooked quinoa, but it had turned out a bit mushy.  I knew this recipe needed a grain that was fluffy and separated nicely so that the dressing could coat each grain (and that is probably the reason they called for long grain.  Long grain rice cooks up and separates much more than short grain rice which sticks together).  Put dressing on a ball of sticky rice and you can imagine the results.  So I cooked up a cup of rice, carefully measuring the water.  When I want stickier rice for an Asian dish, I am more liberal with my water and cooking times (also rinsing your rice before cooking makes it much stickier).  When it was cooked, I fluffed the rice with a fork, covered the pot with a dishtowel and let it cool.  The towel absorbs excess moisture and I knew that pouring the dressing on hot rice would also make the texture and flavor less appealing.  Hot rice would soak up the dressing too much and heat would alter the fresh herbs that made up the dressing.  I mixed some of my quinoa, some rice and the chicken for that part of the salad, it was delicious.  I added orange bell pepper and cucumber along with the tomatoes for more nutrition and color.  Coming up:  my favorite granola recipe per request.
~Here's to Healthy Eating