Rice pasta disaster, averted.
If you're ever cooking rice pasta, and it comes at as a gummy mess, here’s what you can do to turn it into delicious green onion pancake-y bites.
So, my mom and I had this gummy rice pasta mess left over from last night that just... was not even pasta anymore. It had dried out a bit from yesterday, but it was still so starchy and sticky and gummy that when I tossed it into the cast iron pan to fry it, it mushed up into one big sticky ball.
I hate wasting food, so I was determined to conquer this ball of uncooperative flour, whether it wanted to be or not.
Basically, I split it up into four pancakes and lightly fried those (to a light brown, not heavy) on both sides. After they’d been fried a bit and gained a little bit of structure, I began to knead at them with the spatula, forming and re-forming them into a lumpy mess. Basically, I was trying to get as many sides as possible exposed to the heat so that they would brown over and stop sticking together.
Repeat this process a lot. Eventually, the flour had been brown just about everywhere, and was sticking together a lot less. Also, by this time, the cast iron pan had heated up very nicely and was really cooking.
Then I tossed in a green onion, and briefly fried it in a mix of sesame seed oil and vegetable oil, before squashing it into the rice flour. After that, I added in some already caramelized white onions left over from last night, as well, and the oil in those further helped separate the rice flour, er, balls, I guess, for lack of a better descriptor.
Finally, I dumped on a bunch of soy sauce, and that finished off separating them. Now the rice flour balls are somewhere along the texture and shape of gnocchi, and I let the soy sauce cook for a few minutes to get that great browned soy sauce taste.
Voila. Disaster averted. Of course, I wouldn’t recommend going out and buying brown rice pasta just to try this, but if you do end up with a mess on your hands, it’s worth a shot. My mom and I really can’t stop eating the result. It would probably also work starting from scratch with some brown rice flour.
So, my mom and I had this gummy rice pasta mess left over from last night that just... was not even pasta anymore. It had dried out a bit from yesterday, but it was still so starchy and sticky and gummy that when I tossed it into the cast iron pan to fry it, it mushed up into one big sticky ball.
I hate wasting food, so I was determined to conquer this ball of uncooperative flour, whether it wanted to be or not.
Basically, I split it up into four pancakes and lightly fried those (to a light brown, not heavy) on both sides. After they’d been fried a bit and gained a little bit of structure, I began to knead at them with the spatula, forming and re-forming them into a lumpy mess. Basically, I was trying to get as many sides as possible exposed to the heat so that they would brown over and stop sticking together.
Repeat this process a lot. Eventually, the flour had been brown just about everywhere, and was sticking together a lot less. Also, by this time, the cast iron pan had heated up very nicely and was really cooking.
Then I tossed in a green onion, and briefly fried it in a mix of sesame seed oil and vegetable oil, before squashing it into the rice flour. After that, I added in some already caramelized white onions left over from last night, as well, and the oil in those further helped separate the rice flour, er, balls, I guess, for lack of a better descriptor.
Finally, I dumped on a bunch of soy sauce, and that finished off separating them. Now the rice flour balls are somewhere along the texture and shape of gnocchi, and I let the soy sauce cook for a few minutes to get that great browned soy sauce taste.
Voila. Disaster averted. Of course, I wouldn’t recommend going out and buying brown rice pasta just to try this, but if you do end up with a mess on your hands, it’s worth a shot. My mom and I really can’t stop eating the result. It would probably also work starting from scratch with some brown rice flour.