Boil in Bag rice

[Will Webster]

I've got some Uncle Ben's boil-in-bag brown rice I bought for car camping. Has anyone successfully used this for freezer bag cooking?

I was thinking I'd try putting the package into a gallon bag with a quart of sub-boiling water, letting it sit 10 minutes (the package boiling time) in a cozy, then removing the boil-in bag and adding my home-dried spiced lentil dish to the starchy water. After I've kneaded the lentils to an even consistency I'd empty the rice into the lentils and pop it all back into the cozy for a few more minutes. This would be a recipe for two.

Any thoughts?

[Joe Clement]

That would be cool if it would. I think Minute Rice will work. Maybe Sarbar will get a moment away from diapers, and pop in.

[John Elbare]

I use Success brand boil-in-bag brown rice. It actually cooks pretty well in 5-6 minutes, if you don't mind it just a little crunchy. I prefer it that way. The boil-in-bag rice is already largely pre-cooked. If you let it go the full 10 minutes, the boil water gets pretty starchy, although it should still be fine for your lentils.

[Sarah Kirkconnell]

Mr. Diapers is loitering next to me staring at his toes ;-)

As embarrassing as this is….I have actually never used boil-in-bag rice! I have always been so frugal I buy the king kong sized boxes of Minute Rice at Costco instead ;-)

[Denis Hazlewood]

I too have used the Success brand boil-in-the-bag rice. It works just fine to just soak the rice in boiling water. No need to actually boil the bag. I let it soak for 10 minutes and it's fine. I stress "boiling" water. The hotter the water the better "soaking" works. Also I cut the bag open and only use as much as I really need for a given meal. I found a single bag too much rice for a single serving.

My favorite dish for this product is curried chicken with rice. Use freeze-dried chicken, curry powder, raisins, dry-roasted peanuts, powered ginger, and a little finely chopped, crystallized ginger. I then add just a dollop of my Mom's home-made prickly pear chutney. Yum.

[Will Webster]

I ran a kitchen counter test with the Uncle Ben's: Poured 2 C near-boiling water over the pouch in a pot, and let it sit covered to simulate FBC. After 10 minutes it was still unacceptably crunchy. After another 20 it was still crunchy but tolerable (and bland). I poured off the water and it measured 1.5 C, so the rice had absorbed 1/2 cup of water.

This weekend I tried it for real – 4th of July dinner on the 3rd night of a Black Forest Trail circuit hike. I filled a 0.9L Evernew pot a little over half full with water, added a little salt and the rice packet, and set it on the Caldera Cone with about 3/4 oz of Everclear in the stove. The water boiled for almost 4 1/2 minutes before the stove burned out, whereapon I slipped the FBC cozy over the top of the pot (still on the cone) and left it until 10 minutes had passed since start of boiling. I then poured the water into the freezer bag of home-dried spiced lentils and kale, mixed, cut open the rice bag and added it, mixed again, and popped it into the cozy for another 5 minutes. An excellent dinner for two.

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