As food scientists, it is our duty to get the public educated at least to the extent of scratching the surface of better understanding about food. Because what we eat, and how it is processed is actually a really fascinating phenomenon to ponder upon. All of the changes occurred in our food had a lot to do with chemistry and its changes.
Now, let's get into why do people use leftover rice? Aren't anything freshly cooked technically synonymous to "best"?
Well, not exactly
The keyword here:
Gelatinization
This is the nature of every starch having 2 main components: Amylose and Amylopectin. Amylose with its gelling ability, and Amylopectin with its thickening ability. These two are the reason why starches have been used for sauce thickening and batter depending on its ratio.
We're not going into detail in this but Gelatinization are events of rupture in starch structure when exposed to heat with presence of water, and occurs quicker when aided with physical force; like stirring; turning it into gel like substance.
2 main factors: heat and water
In general, people want their rice in Nasi Goreng to be separated and scattered to an extent while maintaining its rice grain shape, instead of sticking together and mushed; like a porridge. The key here is to lower rice temperature and release all steam contained inside cooked rice before proceeding to frying.
People used to leave it overnight because there was no refrigeration back then, but now you can simply toss it in the fridge or freezer if you're in a hurry.
In terms of its stickiness, different rice varieties have different ratio and gelatinization temperatures. Rice with more amylopectin like Glutinous Rice, and Japanese rice tend to be more sticky, while low to no amylopectin varieties like Basmati, Beras Pera, and Bareh solok having that scattering nature; by that means not sticky; making them more ideal for Nasi Goreng. They usually have higher gelatinization temperatures too; which means that it takes higher temperature to break their structure.
This simple act of leaving rice overnight was something that we mentioned in our early posts as 'taken for granted', while in fact there are some pretty sophisticated science going on behind this act. The choice of rice variety, and simply leaving it overnight was a product of thousands of years of trial and error, done by our ancestors. Showing a little gratitude in that should be normalized.
To conclude:
- Low temperature
- Low water/steam content
- High amylose ratio
- High gelatinization temperature, are keys to a perfect Nasi Goreng
Source:
Ramli, N. S. (2018). Starch physicochemical properties
https://rouxbe.com/tips-techniques/374-what-makes-rice-sticky#:~:text=Long%20grain%20rice%20typically%20has,varieties%2C%20Basmati%20and%20Jasmine).&text=They%20typically%20contain%20about%2015,-style%20types%20of%20rice
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