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Do grains need to be rinsed before cooking? Like brown rice, quinoa, sprouted barley, etc...

Be the Change Through Plant-Based Diets

Dan Marek - Be the Change Through Plant-Based Diets

Recorded

This event was on October 26, 2022

In this ACTE/Rouxbe presentation, Chef Dan Marek will talk about Plant-Based Diets and how they can lead to a healthier lifestyle by simply eating more plants. He will show a few techniques to help even the most seasoned chefs think differently about how they cook and small changes that can make a big difference. Afterwards we will open up the discussion on any questions the audience might have on plant-based trends in the industry.

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Question

Shelley Reynolds

Do grains need to be rinsed before cooking? Like brown rice, quinoa, sprouted barley, etc...

Answer

That's a huge debate right there and I would say I don't know. No, I'm I actually do rinse my brown rice. I like it to be where every grain is very separated out and you know, so it's really, you know, I get a lot of the starch out. So I'll actually my typical recipe for rice is I will soak it for 15 minutes and then drain it off and then just rinse it a couple more times. For quinoa, it's good to be able to do that as well same as sprouted barley, but there are some exceptions like sushi rice, right you want the sushi rice to be real sticky and sticky rice. So it's good not to be able to rinse that off. Now, of course, that's my way of thinking for it. There are a lot of different chefs that would say different things and that's okay. There's just a little bit of experimentation. I'll show you a little bit but just by you know, I love to soak it and then rinse it off a little bit but these the exception is sushi rice a little bit.

Dan Marek

Director of Plant-Based Culinary & Dev

*Dan Marek* is a chef educator who has been teaching vegan and vegetarian cooking for over 15 years. At Rouxbe, he is our Director of Plant-Based Culinary and Development where he helps develop content, classes and builds courses for many of our partners. Dan is a board member of Slow Food Austin, the Institute of Child Nutrition, and Conscious Capitalism. He has earned his BA in Journalism from the Walter Cronkite School of Journalism at Arizona State University and holds certificates in Nutrition from Cornell University. Prior to his role with Rouxbe, Dan worked with Whole Kids Foundation training teachers and food service at schools across the country on nutrition and culinary best practices. He also worked as a Healthy Eating Educator at Whole Foods Market’s flagship store in Austin, TX, was a personal chef for some of Austin’s elite business people, taught classes in culinary techniques at Austin Community College, The Natural Epicurean, and Le Cordon Bleu. Dan also regularly volunteers cooking or speaking about nutrition for the Michael & Susan Dell Foundation, Marathon Kids, Health Alliance for Austin Musicians, and the Ronald McDonald House Charities of Austin and Central Texas.