Cooking rice with a Ninja

Our Ninja didn’t actually come with sword and robes.
It is the OL750UK. I won’t go into details, there’s plenty of info online. If you have one of these devices you will find that they can be put to many uses (the ‘prove’ function is making me think seriously about doing sourdough again).

We’ve just bulk cooked a bunch of rice to go in the freezer for future use.
It was a painless operation and gives us a good stock of cooked rice for quick future meals.

The doings

800g rice (we had Basmati)
1250ml water
1 tsp salt
½ tsp black pepper
½ tsp turmeric
2 chicken stock cubes
1 tbs sunflower oil

Wash the rice thoroughly in cold water
Put it in the Ninja pot.
Stir in the remaining ingredients

Pressure cook on Hi for 3 min
Leave it for 10 min natural pressure release
Spread the cooked rice on grease proof paper on a couple of trays.
Break up any lumps and leave to cool.
Divide into four portions.
Bag the portions, then put these into one or two zip lock bags.
Gently flatten so they go neatly into the freezer.

Take out a bag when you need rice, stir it into hot pre-cooked food, or stir fry adding vegetables, an egg and other goodies. This makes quick, easy, nourishing food. You could add sauces, spices and so on to bump up the flavour.

This is what our Ninja actually looks like, btw.

IC20742-0074-00-front-615x461

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Wonder what outs rice pud is like!
And if its able to do strawberry jam :slight_smile:
Then you’d have dessert to

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We have got one of these too, not sure I am coming to grips with it entirely. My first disaster was being locked out with the pressure cooker. :woozy_face: I tend to do a lot of air frying, I also have a Salter air fryer, my bugbear with the Ninja is the lack of easy grasp handles when air frying, you have to pick up the basket with both hands to shake or pour out the contents. The lid also seems to be quite sensitive, and I have found that it sometimes slowly rises and the cooking stops if it isn’t held down firmly. Have even put a mortar on top to hold it down. The other issue I have come across recently is when preparing slow cooked meals. I caramelise my onions and sauté garlic, to get the aromatics released, before adding to a stew or hot pot, so I end up doing this over the hob and adding it to the Ninja. This doesn’t seem practical to me, but anyway, I am still figuring out it’s merits. Haven’t tried it with rice yet, good idea.

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To be perfectly honest Hilary is the major user of the Ninja in this house. I tend to just play about with it occasionally.
When we first got it there wasn’t much in the way of instructions that were any use. There were loads of American recipes, but whether it was difference in ingredients, or whether it was American taste we didn’t seem to be able to make a success of it.
Anyway we look for UK based info and Hilary goes on one or two Facebook sites, we are getting better results now. She does like using it.
The bulk rice thing is one of mine, as is a recipe and method for marmalade, which I will put up here, though it will horrify some due to its high sugar content. I have one or two other things all of which I can write up. I lost a load of data off my laptop when I attempted to resize a partition, slowly slowly I’m trying to rebuild what I lost.

You could saute onion and garlic in the Ninja pot as you would on the hob, but we do a lot of the cooking as a pressure cook with natural release. You can cook potatoes, root veg, whatever under pressure, then air fry to crisp up and brown.

I haven’t tried this but intend to.
Pressure cook chicken thighs, carrots celery, bell peppers, then air fry to crisp. Remove all, chop and put into a bowl.
Saute onion and garlic in butter in the Ninja pot add mushrooms, an egg and peas until cooked. Then add some of my pre-cooked rice, the chicken and veg from the bowl, some chilli sauce, soy sauce, salt, pepper, heat through and serve.
Wish me luck :stuck_out_tongue_winking_eye:,

I used to use a wok, but post stroke it is too heavy for me.

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@Bobbi i’ve always been a bit wary of freezing rice but you’ve just encouraged me to do it.

I don’t havexan air fryer but my sister swears by her ninja. I might have to look into it a bit more.

Keep cooking :grin::grin:

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@Mrs5K
The one we have has all the whistles and bells, I would recommend it. We got ours from QVC I think, it was on a good offer price. These offers do come around now and then.

As far as freezing rice is concerned, I researched a bit. I know opinions do vary but, firstly after cooking try to cool it quickly, then split into batches and get it straight into the freezer. Secondly never refreeze, so only pull out what you need, batching makes that easy.

Hilary cooks enough stew for example for around three days. It keeps in the fridge and is economical and quick to serve up.

Talking of reheating cooked rice, look at this from Morrisons,
draw your own conclusions.

What do you think, start a thread about food safety?

These suppliers quite possibly know what they are doing.

I’ve always been wary about reheating rice for reasons Loraine has said.

But you make a good point Bob. I have often had curry & rice ready meals where its already cooked & reheated. Never connected the two before.

If you follow my recipe all should be well, and Hilary has promised that if we die she will tell you all.

The NHS says

Symptoms of food poisoning

If you eat rice that contains Bacillus cereus bacteria, you may be sick and experience vomiting or diarrhoea about 1 to 5 hours afterwards. Symptoms are relatively mild and usually last about 24 hours.

Tips on serving rice safely

  • Ideally, serve rice as soon as it has been cooked.
  • If that is not possible, cool the rice as quickly as possible (ideally within 1 hour).
  • Keep rice in the fridge for no more than 1 day until reheating.
  • When you reheat rice, always check that it’s steaming hot all the way through.
  • Do not reheat rice more than once.

Bob says, do what you feel comfortable with, keep safe and enjoy your food.

Keep on keepin’ on
:smiley: :+1: :parrot:

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It’s the mistake people make with rice that gives them food poisoning. Like the time my brother and his fellow student buddies cooked an Indian meal, shoved the left over rice in the oven out of the way where it was allowed to warm a time or 3 from the heat of a smaller top oven. The proceeded to use up the leftovers next day and all 6 of them suffered from a good dose of food poisoning.

I do rice based means about twice a week and I usually make extra so there are at 2 lunch worth’s left over which I store in the fridge for hubby and daughter next day. Just zap it the microwave Sometimes they have sat there for 2 days before eaten and they’ve never had food poising from it yet. But, you can only reheat rice once and it needs to be piping hot…otherwise just eat it cold! And for cold rice dishes its always best to make the rice the night before its needed anyway.

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@Loshy Your food poisoning could have been dirty utensils or the waiter having dirty hands when touching your plate.

More toxins, possibly, food from the supermarkets ! ??

You could even feed it to your baby ! ??

But the Independent says

Three quarters of rice products sold as baby food found to contain illegal levels of arsenic

srsly don’t give your baby any food, and stop eating yourself, it is far too risky :crazy_face:

** Bob says**, the recipe for rice offered in this thread has been researched in depth, and Bob is happy to recommend it as safe.
However, you must in no way go against any gut instinct you might have.
Do what makes you feel comfortable.
Enjoy your food.
Stay safe.
Have fun, even.

Keep on keepin’ on
:smiley: :+1:

bob will probably post more Ninja recipes, but not in this thread.

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Thing about badly handled rice isn’t that you can get food poisoning but that it can produce a deadly toxin

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Sorry to pick you up on that @SimonInEdinburgh

If you do some homework and check out the NHS site on the subject of cooked rice and the bacterium it could contain you will discover that the rice does not produce a deadly toxin. Any sickness appears within 1-5 hours, the symptoms though unpleasant are mild and the whole thing clears up within 24 hours.
Any other toxin will have a source other than the rice. There are deadly toxins, but they are not those associated with rice.

As I said elsewhere, do what you feel comfortable with, stay safe, enjoy your food and if you have a Ninja please try this recipe, it has been researched and contains no unfounded assertions.

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Oh interesting

I’m know I’ve read stuff that contradicts that

Its “received wisdom” so no idea which assertion is true or of both can be true in parallel

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:stuck_out_tongue_winking_eye:
@SimonInEdinburgh
I think in scientific circles the toxicity of a given bacterium is not just a matter of opinion formed from discussion and debate. Generally scientific information comes out of extensive experimentation, comparison of results and publishing of those results.
Whether you then try and turn hard fact into nebulous discussion is up to you. It can be nice to live in a world where ignorance is bliss. I would never tell another how they should live their life. Choices are there you deal with them as you will.

If anyone else wants to post in the Forum on the subject of food poisoning, deadly toxins, advice about which food is unsafe could they please, please start a new thread.
I’m sure that is a very valid subject worthy of discussion and of interest to a number of forum members but could you have this debate, discussion, outline of opinions, elsewhere.

I put up this thread to share recipes using a Ninja Maxi in the hope it would be useful. It looks like I will have to start a new thread if I am to get back to my original theme, subject, intention.
If you don’t like the Ninja, my methods or the way I write or my subject matter, please feel free to ignore or report if it really distresses.

Please, please allow me to keep to my subject. I do not appreciate having my suggestions rubbished and my subject matter diverted. At the very least, it is impolite.

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I wouldn’t worry about it too much @Bobbi, I’ve had many posts diverge into different topics, it’s the nature of conversation. I would just post a “Rice in the Ninja take two”. Looking back, we must have bought one at around the same time, as I posted about the Ninja in January, and a few days later you did too :grinning: All grist for the mill.

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Admin can most likely split this post from just below your original post and make into a separate subject of it. Can you put in a request?

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@EmeraldEyes
I’ll possibly simply start a new thread.
Probably I just need to man up and expect some opposition if I choose to speak in public. Everybody isn’t going to always agree with what I have to say and I should be prepared for that.
I do prefer to live in a world where we can all say how we feel, even if it is controversial.
I value your comment, EmeraldEyes, thank you.

I think it is okay to differ occasionally.

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