Features of cooking rice porridge with pumpkin
Rice porridge with pumpkin is an unusually tasty dish that has great benefits for children and adults. Over a thousand-year history, many recipes have been created that fully reveal the amazing taste of these products. Favorite rice porridge is cooked in every home, and a skilled housewife will find a way to surprise her family by serving different versions of this dish on the table.
Benefit
Dietitians claim that Rice porridge with pumpkin is an unusually healthy, indispensable dish in the human diet:
- high digestibility of such food allows you not to overload the digestive system;
- high content of vitamins and minerals favorably affects the state of health;
- a serving of porridge contains the daily protein requirement;
- helps to lower cholesterol due to the absence of high-grade fats in the composition;
- the low calorie content of porridge allows people who adhere to a healthy diet or want to lose weight to eat it.
Pumpkin porridge is not only tasty, but also healthy. Cooking rice porridge with frozen pumpkin is not difficult at all, given all our recommendations.
It is desirable that the dish turned out viscous.
Which rice to choose?
Before cooking rice and pumpkin porridge, you need to choose quality products. There are small subtleties, but a good hostess should be aware of them. It often seems that you can take any rice that comes across, but this is not so. First you need to determine the type of cereal from which porridge will be prepared.Krasnodar rice variety is ideal for making fragrant porridge with milk. First, you can buy it in almost any store. Secondly, when cooking, round grains boil well, and milk porridge turns out to be of a pleasant consistency, and, thirdly, the affordable price makes this product attractive in the eyes of the buyer.
Variety "Jasmine" is imported from Thailand. Its grains are long in shape and can stick together strongly when boiled. From this variety of rice, porridge is best boiled in water. Arborio is a round or medium grain rice grown on Italian soil. It is good to cook this cereal on the water. If desired, other varieties can be used to make cereals, but after cooking they acquire a slightly different consistency than these three varieties of cereals.
How to choose the right cereal in the store?
To pass the day in a good mood, you need a good breakfast, rice porridge with pumpkin will come to the rescue. But in order for the porridge to be especially tasty and fragrant, you need to buy the right rice in the store. When choosing rice, be sure to pay attention to the packaging. The manufacturer most often makes the pack transparent so that the buyer can see the quality of the rice.
The color of rice can say a lot. If yellow grains were noticed, then this indicates improper storage. When preparing porridge from such rice, the taste will be far from ideal. If there are a lot of split grains in rice, then you should also refuse to buy such a product. During cooking, particles of different sizes will be cooked at different times, this will also not affect the taste of the finished dish very well.
In addition, “crushed” is somewhat cheaper than high-quality rice.
How to choose a pumpkin?
A few words need to be said about the choice of pumpkin, which is used in cooking.
- It is worth choosing a fruit of medium size, then it will be soft and with a pleasant sweetish taste.
- Dense, but not too hard pumpkin peel indicates the freshness of the vegetable. On the surface there is no place for dents, cracks, dark spots. These damages indicate that the fruit is susceptible to rotting, which negatively affects the quality of taste.
- A ripe pumpkin has a dry dark tail. If it is not there at all, then this is a signal that the vegetable was removed from the garden unripe.
These are the main criteria that you should pay attention to when buying a pumpkin for cooking any dishes.
How to cook?
Cooking rice porridge is not difficult, the main thing is to have the courage and do everything according to the recipe. Of course, it happens that the first time the porridge does not turn out the way we would like, but experience comes with time. Moreover, a huge selection of recipes gives vent to imagination. Porridge can be cooked in any way that suits you: on the stove, in the oven, in a slow cooker, on an open fire, in the oven. In addition to the main composition, other ingredients can be added to the dish, which will give the food new notes of taste. It can be dried fruits, candied fruits, fresh berries, chocolate pieces and much more. A new dish may take on a rather unusual taste, but your family may even like it.
Food preparation
Before proceeding directly to cooking, it is necessary to sort out the cereal, remove any pebbles or spoiled grains. Then put the rice in a bowl and rinse with water 2-3 times. Then you need to clean the pumpkin. In autumn, fresh vegetables can be cooked along with the skin, as the skin is quite tender in young fruits. During storage, the skin becomes “wooden” and it becomes a little more difficult to peel the vegetable. To do this, wash the vegetable under running water, remove the lid and bottom with a sharp knife.Cut the fruit lengthwise into two halves, remove the seeds and fibers with a spoon. Place the pumpkin on a cutting board and cut off the skin.
The fruit, cleaned in this way, is divided into pieces of the desired size.
Cooking on the stove
To cook rice porridge on a stove or open fire, you need to take suitable dishes for this. The best option is a thick-walled wide frying pan or pan, cauldron.
Rice porridge with pumpkin "Zyuminka"
Rinse and soak 50 g white or black raisins in water. Bring 2 cups of water to a boil, add 1 cup of rice and cook until tender. 350 g pumpkin, cut into pieces, 2/3 should be poured with water and boiled for 10 minutes. Drain excess liquid, mash the pumpkin with a fork or using a blender. Mix all ingredients, add 1 tbsp. milk, 2 tsp. sugar, salt to taste, mix and cook over low heat for another 10 minutes. Put butter in the finished dish and insist in a sealed container for another 15 minutes.
You can cook orange porridge without milk if family members do not consume this product for one reason or another.
Rice porridge with apple "Ryzhik"
Melt 30 g of butter in a frying pan. Grate 250 g pumpkin and 1 apple on a coarse grater. Put them on the oil and simmer with the lid closed for a few minutes. 3⁄4 st. put the washed rice in a saucepan and mix with pumpkin and apple. Pour water 1.5 cm above the rice and cook until tender. If the water evaporates during the cooking process, you can add the required amount of liquid. A few minutes before readiness, add salt, sugar, vanillin to taste. You can add butter.
To diversify the menu, you can cook hearty, very tasty rice and millet porridge for breakfast or dinner. Both adults and children will like this dish, because thanks to the mixture of two cereals of different colors, porridge looks very appetizing.
Rice-millet porridge with pumpkin "Zadira"
Mix 1/3 tbsp. millet and 1/3 tbsp. rice, rinse and pour boiling water for 15 minutes. 200 g pumpkin and 1 tbsp. l. put sugar in a frying pan with melted butter and fry for 5 minutes. on a small fire. Pour in 1 tbsp. water and simmer for 5 minutes. with closed lid. Throw the grits on a sieve and let drain, then put in a stewed pumpkin. Add 1 tbsp. hot milk, salt to taste. Cook the whole mass on low heat for 20 minutes. 10 minutes after cooking, arrange on plates, garnish with pieces of dried apricots and add a spoonful of honey.
Cooking in a multicooker
Homemade food is very tasty and healthy, but a modern woman often does not have enough time for a long fuss in the kitchen. Thanks to the slow cooker, you can cook a hearty meal very quickly and easily.
Rice porridge with pumpkin and meat
Pour a little vegetable oil into the multicooker pan and add 160 g of minced meat. Grate on a coarse grater and put in a saucepan 1 medium carrot and 100 g pumpkin. Cut the onion into cubes and add to the slow cooker. Turn on the "Frying" mode and fry vegetables and meat. To fry add 1 tbsp. washed rice and about 2 tbsp. water, salt to taste.
Close the lid and cook the dish for 20 minutes. on the “Grup” or “Extinguishing” mode.
Cooking in the oven
Traditionally in Russia, food was cooked in an oven in clay pots. Food prepared in this way was especially tasty and fragrant.If you want to try something unusual, then you can cook a delicious dish in clay pots.
Rice porridge with pumpkin in a pot
Put clay pots in cold water for 20 minutes. They will be saturated with moisture, so the heating will be more uniform. 1/2 st. rinse the rice thoroughly and add 200 g of pumpkin, cut into small pieces. Pour the mixture into a pot. Take 500 g of milk and pour rice. Add 2 tsp. Sahara. Put in a preheated oven and cook for 1 hour 30 minutes. Put the porridge on plates, put a piece of butter on top, pour honey and sprinkle with any nuts.
You will learn more about how to cook rice porridge with pumpkin in the following video.