Puffed rice facts for kids
Puffed rice and popped rice are types of light, crispy grains made from rice. They are very popular in traditional foods across Southeast Asia, East Asia, and South Asia. Since 1904, puffed rice has also been made and sold in Western countries. It's often found in breakfast cereals and other snack foods.
Traditionally, people puff or pop rice by frying it in oil or hot salt. In Western countries, puffed rice is usually made by heating rice grains under high pressure with steam. However, the way it's made can be very different. Puffed rice can be eaten as loose grains or pressed into puffed rice cakes.
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What are Puffed and Popped Rice?
Even though "puffed rice" and "popped rice" sound similar, they are made in slightly different ways.
Puffed Rice
Puffed rice is made from rice grains that have been pre-cooked or soaked. When these grains are heated quickly, the steam inside them expands fast, making the rice puff up. Puffed rice usually keeps the shape of the original rice grain but becomes much bigger and lighter.
Popped Rice
Popped rice is made from whole rice grains that still have their outer layer (the hull or bran). When these whole grains are heated, the kernel inside explodes through the hard outer covering. This makes popped rice have an irregular shape, much like popcorn.
There are many ways, both old and new, to make puffed and popped rice.
Traditional Puffed Rice Around the World
Puffed Rice in East Asia
Puffed rice snacks are often sold as street food in countries like China, Taiwan, Korea, and Japan. Street vendors often use a special machine with a rotating steel pressure chamber heated over a flame. The loud "boom" sound when the pressure is released acts as an advertisement!
China
The first mention of puffed rice in Mainland China comes from a book written around 1100 during the Song Dynasty. It was part of the Spring Festival celebrations. People made it in large cooking pots called fǔ over a wood fire. Today, puffed rice, called bào chǎo mǐ huā lou, is still a traditional street food in Shanghai. It's made by frying rice in oil and sugar.
Japan
In Japanese cuisine, traditional puffed rice cakes are known as kaminari-okoshi (雷粔籹). This means 'thunder cakes'. The name okoshi also sounds like a word meaning 'to establish' or 'set up', so it was seen as good luck. These cakes are made by deep-frying sun-dried rice until it pops. Then, it's mixed with syrup and other things like peanuts or sesame seeds. This mixture is pressed into trays, dried, and cut into blocks. Old okoshi boxes often show images of Raijin, the Japanese god of thunder. Modern okoshi are usually made in factories and come in many flavors.
Another Japanese puffed rice snack is ninjin (にんじん). These are loose puffed rice grains sold in a carrot-shaped cone. Its name means "carrot."
Puffed rice is also used in genmaicha (玄米茶), which is 'brown rice tea'. This is a traditional Japanese tea made by mixing green tea with roasted puffed brown rice.
Taiwan
In Taiwan, puffed rice is called Bí-phang or pōng-bí-phang in Taiwanese Hokkien. The word "pōng" sounds like the explosion when the pressure furnace opens. In Taiwanese Mandarin, it's called Mi-hsiang.
Korea
In Korea, puffed rice is known as twibap (튀밥). It's used to make yeot-gangjeong or to coat gangjeong (a type of sweet snack).
Korea also has a tea called hyeonmi-nokcha (현미녹차). This means "brown rice green tea" and is made with green tea and roasted puffed brown rice.
Puffed Rice in Southeast Asia
Philippines
In Filipino cuisine, traditional puffed rice is called ampaw. It's often made from leftover cooked white rice. The rice is dried in the sun for about four hours. Then, it's fried in hot oil until it puffs up. After frying, the oil is drained. A sweet glaze is made separately using muscovado sugar or molasses, salt, butter, and vinegar or calamansi juice. This glaze is poured over the puffed rice and mixed well. The mixture is then cooled and shaped into squares, rectangles, or balls before it becomes hard.
Thailand
In Thai cuisine, a traditional popped rice snack is krayasaat (กระยาสารท). This snack is linked to the Buddhist Saat festival, celebrated in autumn. It can be made with regular rice or sticky rice. The rice is roasted directly in a dry pan, like popcorn, until it pops. It's then mixed with caramelized palm sugar, coconut milk, peanuts, sesame seeds, and khao mao (pounded green rice).
Malaysia
In Malay cuisine, traditional puffed rice is called bepang pulut, especially in Terengganu state. Sticky rice is dried in the sun and cooked with palm sugar. It's different from regular bepang, which uses ground nuts. Bepang pulut is a popular gift from hosts during wedding ceremonies.
Puffed Rice in South Asia
India
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In India, puffed rice is known as muri. It has many other regional names like parmal, puri, mudhi, murmura, borugulu (in Andhra Pradesh and Telangana), and pori (in Tamil Nadu). It's a very common food in Odisha and West Bengal.
It has been made for a very long time using a method called hot salt frying. In this method, parboiled rice (rice that has been steamed and then dried) is puffed by very hot salt. The salt is heated in a pan until it's hot enough to pop the rice in seconds. The rice is added, stirred, and puffs up almost instantly. Then, it's scooped out with a sieve.
Puffed rice is a key ingredient in bhel puri, a popular Indian snack called chaat. It's also offered to Hindu gods and goddesses in all poojas (worship ceremonies) in southern Indian states like Kerala and Tamil Nadu. Pilgrims going to Sabarimala often carry puffed rice with jaggery (a type of sugar) to offer to Lord Ayyappan. Tamil saints say that Lord Ganesh loves pori, so it should always be offered to him. Pori has been mentioned in old Tamil writings as an offering to Hindu gods.
In Gujarati cuisine, it's called 'Mamra'. It's often used to make a dry snack by frying it lightly in oil with spices. It's also made into sweet balls with jaggery and ghee (clarified butter).
In Telangana, puffed rice or borugulu is made into balls with jaggery sugar syrup. This is a common snack for children.
In Karnataka, puffed rice is mixed with carrots, tomatoes, spices, and coriander leaves to make churumuri, a popular evening snack.
The Indian government has chosen muri from Odisha as one of 12 traditional Indian dishes to be promoted globally.
In the Mithila and Bengal areas, puffed rice is eaten with fried potato or onion chops, fried fish, or mutton curry. Jhal-muri and Murhi-Bhuja are also very popular snacks there. In Madhya Pradesh, it's called Parmal and is often eaten with Sev (a crispy noodle snack) or used in Bhel.
Bangladesh
Puffed rice is a very popular snack in Bangladesh. It's mostly used to make Jhalmuri, which is the most common and cheapest snack there. People use the same old methods as in India to prepare it. This snack can be found everywhere in Bangladesh. In Old Dhaka, jhalmuri-walas (sellers) are still often seen dressed in colorful clothes, wearing ankle bells, and calling out to people. Puffed rice is also mixed with jaggery and shaped into a round ball snack called murir moa.
Puffed Rice in Other Countries
Czech Republic and Slovakia
In the 1960s, in what was then Czechoslovakia, a company called Vitana started making 'expanded rice'. It was sold as a plain or sweetened snack. This product became popular under the names burizony (Czech: burisony) or arizonky. They are still made today in Pardubice and Sereď.
How Puffed Rice is Made Today
Puffed rice is made when the starch and moisture inside a rice grain react to heat. Unlike corn, rice grains don't have much natural moisture, so they first need to be treated with steam. Puffed rice can then be made by heating these steamed grains in oil or in an oven. Rice puffed this way is very crispy and is called "crisped rice."
Oven-crisped rice is used to make breakfast cereals like Rice Krispies. It's also found in chocolate bars like Lion Bar, Nestlé Crunch, and Krackel. Even though the change isn't as big as with popcorn, the process and the final result are similar.
Another way to puff rice is called "gun puffing." Here, the rice grain is given the right amount of moisture and then put under high pressure (about 200 psi). When the pressure is suddenly released, the pressure stored inside the grain makes it puff out. This method creates a puffed rice that feels spongy.
Rice can also be puffed by making a rice dough. Small pieces of this dough are then pushed out and heated very quickly. The moisture in the dough turns into steam instantly, making the rice puff up. Some cereals, like Cap'n Crunch, are made this way in a continuous process of being pushed out, cooked, cut, pressurized, puffed, and dried.
The idea for modern industrial puffed rice production came from an American inventor named Alexander P. Anderson. He discovered puffing while trying to figure out how much water was in a single starch grain. He showed his first puffing machine at the World's Fair in Saint Louis, Missouri, in 1904. His eight "guns" that puffed grains for visitors were called "The Eighth Wonder of the World" in an advertisement. After Anderson discovered this method, many companies, like Kellogg's and Quaker Oats, started making puffed breakfast cereals.
In the United States and Europe, puffed rice is often eaten with milk as a breakfast cereal, with Rice Krispies being a famous brand. Some chocolate bars, like the Nestlé Crunch, also contain puffed rice. Puffed rice cakes are sold as light snacks.
See also
In Spanish: Arroz inflado para niños
