georgebaker wrote:Hi
there is a problem with keeping rice hot enough - some sort of fungus cirrus ? grows on it. Apparently the mold is harmless but it excreets a toxic chemical.
George
Quite complicated. There's a bug called (as if naming it makes it somehow less frightening) Bacillus cereus. It's not a fungus or a mould, but a bacterium. The bacterium, as you say is not dangerous in itself, nor will it survive high temperatures, but like Clostridium Botulinum it can make endospores (seeds for a new generation inside its "body") which can survive quite high temperatures and - also like C.B. gives out a VERY powerful toxin.
As this bug, (Bacillus Cereus) is pretty well distributed, it is often present on rice. The spores survive the temperature of boiling water, so when you cook the rice, although you kill the bugs, you don't kill the seeds. When the rice is kept warm or even at room temperature for a long time, the spores can germinate, and the bugs multiply rapidly, creating their toxin as they do so. There are two variants. Google for Bacillus Cereus for their delightful symptoms.
How to prevent it? If you have left over cooked rice you will want to re-use, don't just leave it hanging around to cool slowly. The best bet is to heat it stinging hot in a microwave (which will kill any "hatched" bugs) and then cool fast - I spread it out on a large tray, where evaporation will cool it down to fridgeable temperatures in about 10 minutes.
If making rice from scratch to re use or to re-heat later, then again, cool it fast by spreading it out thin. I find this better than cooling in cold water, because you aren't wetting it.
Sorry to have highjacked the thread, but the subject came up!