Project News

My name is Florence Nyandoro, I am Technical Research Assistant from Zambia Agriculture Research Institute (ZARI) and working as a member of MOReDeP project team. I would like to share one of my trial activities on exploring alternative usages of broken rice grains.

Rice is mostly consumed as cooked grains in Zambia as a sweet or savoury dish, and broken rice grains are not preferred by the consumer in general. However, as a result of poor harvest and post-harvest handling methods, a considerable amount of rice grains ends up being broken during the milling process, which lowers the farm gate price. While our project supports farmers to reduce the amount of broken rice grains by improving the rice cultivation techniques and harvest/post-harvest handling methods, I am exploring potential alternative usages of broken rice grains out of our curiosity. This time, I tried to bake biscuits and bread with rice flour made of the broken rice grains.

Broken rice can be milled into flour and used to make shortbread biscuits or breads. Since rice flour is gluten free and does not absorb liquid as effectively as wheat flour, it would make breads hard and dry if rice flour breads are baked in the same way as wheat flour breads. It would be a little softer and less dry if the rice flour is mixed with wheat flour. I would recommend making shortbread biscuits from rice flour. They are delicious, light and ideal for particularly those who are gluten intolerant. A recipe for rice biscuits is in the inset below.

Rice Shortbread Biscuits Recipe

Ingredients

• 2 eggs
• 250 grams rice flour
• 80 grams sugar
• 1 teaspoon baking powder
• 100 grams softened butter

Method

1. In a bowl, whisk the eggs with the sugar and the softened butter.
2. Add the flour, and stir with a fork.
3. Knead quickly until you get a compact ball.
4. Roll out the dough, and cut it with a pastry cutter or a upside cup.
5. Bake at 180 degrees for 10 minutes until they are golden.

Florence Nyandoro, Technical Research Assistant, ZARI