Does Spanish rice age?

[muichoi]

I just found some bags of Bomba rice with a sell by date of 2005. Other rices improve with age. I wondered if this applies to Spanish varieties.

[muichoi]

Well, I used it . Certainly no degradation.

[aprilmei]

Oh, thanks for checking - I have some Bomba rice purchased a couple years ago and was wondering if it would still be good to use for tonight's paella.

But I seem to recall a thread about old arborio or carnaroli and how it made the risotto taste bad or it didn't cook up right.

[insomniac]

Oh, thanks for checking - I have some Bomba rice purchased a couple years ago and was wondering if it would still be good to use for tonight's paella.

But I seem to recall a thread about old arborio or carnaroli and how it made the risotto taste bad or it didn't cook up right.

←

we had a power cut last winter so I cooked carnaroli in stock on the top of our wood burner and had to redo it with a more recent batch of rice as the bag I had grabbed in the dark had an expiration date of 2005 and it just crumbled away to the touch when I finally had a good look at it.....

edited to add not that carnaroli is Spanish rice

Edited June 8, 2008 by insomniac (log)

[piazzola]

Very much depends what you call age (time). My guess is all rice types age (there are more than three hundred types) but should be properly stored on an air tight container with no much ambient humidity around. I would use the left over rice no longer than a year. Or left in their original plastic bag until time to use.

[Kaitenzushi]

I just found some bags of Bomba rice with a sell by date of 2005. Other rices improve with age. I wondered if this applies to Spanish varieties.

If you look in the Japanese forum, you will find that Japanese rice does NOT improve with age. Actually I would be surprised if any rice improves with age.

[djyee100]

I recently found some bomba rice in my cabinet that had been purchased more than 2 yrs ago. I asked the manager of the Spanish Table store if I could still use it. He said yes, just take into account that the rice is drier and thus may need more liquid. Then he said (this gets complicated) that most recipes for bomba rice say add liquid to rice in a ratio of 3:1. He typically finds that bomba requires less liquid than that to cook well. But for my rice, which is older and drier, he said to use the 3:1 ratio. Got that?

[lesliec]

Hi all.

It's not true to say NO rice ages well. Sometime over the past year I learned of an Indian (as in the subcontinent) ingredient called 'vintage rice'. I asked an Indian guy I was working with about it and he confirmed it's what it sounds like - rice which has been kept to mature. He said when he was young his parents would always buy bags of rice well before they were needed, so they could get (if I remember correctly) 12-18 months of age on them.

Never tasted it, but I'm willing ...