Agar Gel w/ Rice?????

[DeoxyriboNucleicAcid]

Ok, if I boil some rice with water, and take the ricey boiled water, and put it in, oh, say, a petri dish, and I put it (dish w/ rice water) in the refrigerator, will it make a gel??? I have heard it is a great substitute for agar. Also, some rice that i boiled, I left wet, and put it in the refrig to save, the next day, it seemed to be in a gel.

 

Is boiling rice and taking the "juice" a procedure of making gel, will it work, or was my experience just a freak accident, comments will be appreciated?

[Rasori]

Not that it's helpful... but, so you know, I like to think of ALL important discoveries as 'freak accidents'.

 

If they weren't, it makes you wonder how the idea of a suppository came about... *cringe*

[xXxAuroraxXx]

Ok, if I boil some rice with water, and take the ricey boiled water, and put it in, oh, say, a petri dish, and I put it (dish w/ rice water) in the refrigerator, will it make a gel??? I have heard it is a great substitute for agar. Also, some rice that i boiled, I left wet, and put it in the refrig to save, the next day, it seemed to be in a gel.

 

 

Why not just try it?

[Glider]

It will, but you have to over-cook the rice, and even then, once you have strained the 'ricey water' off, you may need to keep it over a low heat for a while until some of the excess water evaporates. What you are left with is starch. Lots of stuff grows in starch.

[Guest Taffimai]

what does agar come from? i've seen it in some exotic food shops but never been sure if it's the stuff of agar plates.

[AntiMagicMan]

It produced from seaweed I believe. It is full of essential stuff that lots of things need to grow and it comes in powder form, naturally has gelatin in so it sets like a jelly. It is a pretty ideal substance for all manner of experiments. It is also used in japanese cooking I believe, so it is probally the very same stuff you saw in a shop.

[YT2095]

the rice idea works well, I`ve done it by accident before. to cheat though, you can buy a bag of rice flour and use that, arrowroot is also good

incidently, if you leave this liquid from the rice to dry on a large tray until it becomes clear and brittle, break it up and put it into very hot vegatable oil, they will expand about 3 times their original size, you`ve just made prawn crackers

 

[edit] have a read here 1`st; http://www.southwark.gov.uk/Business/FoodBusiness/FoodHandling/Rice.html

this is really rather important!

[AntiMagicMan]

http://www.amigadude.pwp.blueyonder.co.uk/emmathechef/rcp000067.html

 

Seems like you are a bit of a prawn cracker expert :|!

[YT2095]

wow! now THERE`S a blast from the past!

how on earth did you manage to find that, what did you type in for the search?

I`m impressed!

[Dave]

I guess just YT2095 into google would probably do it.

[YT2095]

agreed if you could be bothered to sift through all the hits, but what on Earth would posses someone to do a search for ME?

it has to be Prawn Cracker rellated somehow, surely? )

[Sayonara]

agreed if you could be bothered to sift through all the hits

Well you can always narrow down the search...

[YT2095]

this: http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&ie=UTF-8&q=%22prawn+crackers%22+YT2095&spell=1

 

is the only one that gives the correct hit.

it just stikes me as a bizzare thing to search for

[Dave]

To be fair, a google for YT2095 only gives 3 pages of hits, and that site is on the second page of results - not too hard to find out.

[YT2095]

true, but why would anyone bother in the 1`st place, is my point?

[AntiMagicMan]

I actually did a recipee search on the bbc food website. One of the first or second links leads to that.

 

http://www.bbc.co.uk/cgi-bin/search/results.pl?go.x=0&tab=www&go.y=0&go=go&q=prawn%20crackers&scope=all&uri=%2Fhome%2Ftoday%2Findex.live.shtml

 

5th link on "results from the web".

 

Just goes to show, you can find anything on the internet.

[YT2095]

Very cool!

[Dave]

true, but why would anyone bother in the 1`st place, is my point?

 

Stalker?

 

[YT2095]

LOL, PLEASE don`t say that, that would make my 5`th stalker so far over the net! and no, I`m not kidding! I`ve had to get legal with one person from the USA, she was just NON STOP, and yeah, it got a bit scary at one point!

 

there`s another memeber on here JohnN, he`ll know exactly who I`m on about

 

anyway, that aside him looking on there was actualy quite logical, as I don`t know anyone that doesn`t like prawn crackers, so it`s only natural that you`de wanna know/learn how to make them

[AntiMagicMan]

That actually inspired me to make some, so I wanted to look for a proper recipe. And the first one I come across that makes any sense has a credit for YT, how weird is that. The net is a small place.