The brown rice that is golden! Thuyamalli unpolished rice or kai kuthal/hand pound rice

Do you want a delicious, healthy, organic brown rice?

One that doesn't make you feels that you are eating cardboard?

One that goes with your gravies?

One that is an attractive golden yellow in colour?

Your search ends here… Meet the new addition in our granary :Thuyamalli , parboiled, organically grown, small batch processed, unpolished, 100% bran brown  rice,  colloquially called Thuyamalli kai kuthal arisi or hand pound rice!

Thuyamalli is a rice that we have been carrying since the very beginning, one of our top varieties. The name Thuya- white, malli- jasmine derives its name from its white grain. The bran is light coloured thereby making the brown rice also a mellow yellow colour and the texture of which is quite soft unlike many brown rice varieties that come across as chewy and not very tasty.

However, regarding this unpolished rice being called Kai kuthal/hand pounded etc, let me clarify, all ( or almost all) unpolished rices today ( organic or inorganic) in the market are shelled by machines in mills, none are actually pounded by hand. It is a good thing that we now have machines available to give us healthy, whole rice without causing hardship to rural women. There might be hand pound rice available in remote communities in small quantities which would be mostly for own use.

Unlike our idyllic vision of unpolished hand pounded rices, the actual hand pound rice would come with a lot of brokens, husk, grit and stones. This happens as hand pounding can’t give even, unbroken grains and to remove all grit and stones and husks without cleaning and grading machines like those available in mills is almost impossible.

Coming back to Thuyamalli rice, I have been trying various brown rice varieties to be able to recommend a good brown table rice to many who ask me for recommendations. Most leave me unsatisfied and I have been trying mostly brown raw rices. That's when we decided to explore brown parboiled brown rice and zeroed in on the Thuyamalli. And we were right in choosing this.

The rice cooks well without being too sticky, it looks an appetising cream colour when cooked, it is un-sticky, and it goes well with our gravies and sides. It is high fibre and satiating (thereby allowing us to have portion control). And it is fairly easy to digest and pleasant to eat even for the new convert to brown rice.

Cooking: Presoak for 2 hours, pressure cook with 1:3 water for three whistles on high flame and about 7 minutes on low flame. Drain out excess water, if any. Try this Thuyamalli, you will love it!  Let us know your feedback