Questions about rice powder

[Weoochaun]

Is the purpose of rice or rice powder mainly as a binder or a filler?

What % of rice powder should I use for a fresh sausage and how much extra water should I add to it?

Has anyone had problems with rice going rancid either in a fresh sausage or a fermented one?

Thanks for any help you can give me.

[yotmon]

Hi Weoochaun, I use 'scalded rice as a filler in Cambridge type sausage at about 20% (including water) the weight of pork plus some breadcrumbs. I cook it slowly with 3.5 times water by volume until done. (I've never used it in powder form and now wondering if you would cook it like the grains or be allowed to add it 'raw' after mixing with water ? ) When ready its supposed to have the same moisture content as fresh meat so blends well.
I either cook them for immediate use the following day after being refrigerated, or freeze them straight away, so I don't have any problems with it turning the sausage rancid.

Hope this helps. Ste.

[Weoochaun]

Very helpful and timely - I shall be mixing up a new batch of beef breakfast sausages and a batch of fast pepperoni in the next few hours.

I'm going to try the rice powder in both.

The last time I made a batch I had the boiled rice (scalded rice according to Phil's website) ready to put into the beef breakfast sausages but forgot it!
So I thought, 'lets try it in the fast ferment pepperoni'. The quantity was very small (about 1%) in relation to the amount of pepperoni I was making so I took the chance. Three days later and I'm amazed at the way the pepperoni is cutting, nice thin slices, no tearing, smooth. I can hardly believe the improvement it's made to the binding. Everything was just right when I made these, meat just teetering on the edge of being frozen, fat was frozen solid and about a 10 minute mix (6 with the salt and then another 4 with the spice). However I have done these things before and the difference was elating so its a good chance its due to the binding properties of the rice.
The fresh beef sausages are better with the rice!

Thanks for your help and wish me luck!

[wheels]

...So I thought, 'lets try it in the fast ferment pepperoni'. The quantity was very small (about 1%) in relation to the amount of pepperoni I was making so I took the chance. Three days later and I'm amazed at the way the pepperoni is cutting, nice thin slices, no tearing, smooth. I can hardly believe the improvement it's made to the binding. ...

Wow, thanks for posting that, it's really useful to know.

Please keep us informed regarding your trials with rice in powder form.

Phil

[Weoochaun]

Some time and several trials later....

I had read somewhere that up to 30% of the weight of a fresh sausage was reasonable as a filler so I added about 7% of dry rice powder and an extra 21% of water to my batch. Aargg!! They were really mushy and couldn't hold together.

I thought I was over doing it (too much of a good thing!) so reduced the amount of rice powder to about half 4%, I also reduced the extra water from 3 X rice to 2.5 X rice, so about 10%. This time they were able to bind but there was still a very distinguishable slushy feeling to them.

Finally I made a batch with 1.5% rice and 4% water. They were great. However I'm still looking for some way to get away from the close knitting meat texture (if you know what I mean) and get a more homogenous sausage feel. I had tried boiled rice before and that was pretty good (the rice didn't turn to sludge and still had some texture). However people didn't like seeing rice grains in their sausage.

The pepperoni I tried again with 1% rice powder and 3% water. This time it didn't bind so well but I suspect that I added too much yogurt to start with. Still pretty good but next time I will be more vigilant on the temperature of all the ingredients and the quantity of yogurt I add.

Rice powder seems useful but isn't the ultimate ingredient. Damn!

[yotmon]

Hi Weoochaum and thanks for the update. Do you 'cook' the rice flour in the water to form a paste or do you just mix them together in their raw state ?

When adding boiled rice to the mix, this can be hidden by a thorough mixing and also by adding a tiny amount of red food colour to give a pink tinge to the rice.

I have recipes from the 1940's (wartime rationing) that advocate using 50% meat - (35% lean beef, 15% beef fat. 20% rusk, 27.5% water, 2.5% seasoning ) a far greater percentage than your recipe so it can be done.

[Weoochaun]

Hi Yotmon. There's no need to cook the flour, it's so fine that it quickly soaks up the water. Simplicity is one of my main reasons for wanting to use it. If you fry a patty immediately after mixing it tastes a little powdery however after a few hours the flour has absorbed enough water and its indiscernible.

I have tried the boiled rice twice, the 1st time without any colour and the 2nd time after having mixed it with a little paprika. I must admit that the comments about grains of rice stem from the 1st batch. Maybe I'm writing it off too hastily. I will probably try it again. It does add a few more steps to making the sausage that I would rather do without though. I'm sure adding 50% filling (water and rusk) can be done successfully just not with powder alone! If there was an easy supply of rusk hereabouts I would use that in an instant. The filling part needs to have some texture of its own and I wonder if the irregular shape of rusk is better suited to binding than the smooth oval shape of rice.

[Dogfish]

Interesting thread.

What about running the cooked rice through your meat grinder on coarse? It would likely get rid of the rice shape.

Also what about rice noodle? Here rice noodles are very cheap and I can't imagine them costing much more in Myanmar.

[wheels]

I'm not sure that the rice shape should still be very defined by the time you use it. From my recipe:

...Frank Gerrard, in his book 'Sausage and Small Goods', advises that "...the chief consideration is the swelling of the rice granules before the mass coagulates". He says to boil rice in 3½ times its volume of water stirring vigorously during cooking, and after the mass has thickened, continue cooking for about 25 minutes. He advises to cool it in shallow trays and then refrigerate. I followed his instructions adding a little paprika in lieu of the food colouring that he says to add. I cooled the rice quickly by spreading it around the perimeter of a bowl that I then placed in another bowl containing iced water.

Reading this, I think that it should almost be a paste.

Phil

[Wunderdave]

Yeah when I cook rice in 3.5x boiling water for immediate consumption it's done cooking in about 8 minutes. 25 minutes will break it down.

[Weoochaun]

FWIW, 'Several sausages down the line' I have decided that rice powder is not ssuch a great binder/filler. I have made sausages with breadcrumbs since and they worked much better at binding water aswell as making the meat into a homogenous sausage texture.
I think my first impressions were due to the fact that the meat was really, really cold. Since keeping the meat cold I no longer have issues with binding.

[wheels]

Many thanks for reporting back on this.

Have you tried the rusk recipe here:

viewtopic.php?f=1&t=339&p=2173#p2173

I find it very good after I've dried it for a couple of days or so.

Phil

[yotmon]

Hi Phil, I've made this rusk a couple of times using plain flour and its turned out okay. I see parson Snows lists 3 types of flour that can be used. If using strong bread flour would you knead the dough to develop the gluten or utilise it similar to a Soda bread by just adding the bi-carb and mixing it quickly.

Cheers. Yotmon.

[wheels]

I just do a quick mix.

I dry it further after grinding to ensure that it's really dry.

Phil

[yotmon]

Cheers Phil, the last time I did it I put it back in the oven on a low light to dry further - reminded me of a bag of Winalot dog biscuits when it was finished prior to grinding it down.