Edible paper made from rice is known to all fans of Asian cuisine and sushi lovers. Its thinnest transparent sheets are indispensable in oriental cooking - they wrap various fillings and decorate ready-made dishes with weightless "pieces of paper". The process of making edible rice paper is quite complicated and time consuming - but the result is worth the effort.
Type of edible paper
Edible rice paper is the finest biscuits made from rice flour, water and salt. Sometimes tapioca flour, which is mostly starch, is added to the main ingredients. The most common form of edible paper is circles that are 16, 22 or 33 centimeters in diameter. Japanese chefs fold them in the shape of a square, while chefs from other countries prefer to shape them into a kind of fan, folded in four. By the way - there are practically no calories in rice paper.
Most often, the Japanese use edible paper for wrapping rolls, which are called "spring" rolls.
Edible rice paper is not a stand-alone product, as it tastes quite fresh. However, due to its sweetish taste and melting structure, it is popular with confectioners who add food colors to it and use it to decorate cakes. When dry, such paper is brittle and hard, but when soaked in water, it acquires flexibility, softness and pliability, which allows it to be rolled in different ways. The original packaging, in which the edible paper is placed, allows it to be stored for many months - but if the pack is open, it is better to use the biscuits as soon as possible, before they are saturated with moisture and odors.
Edible paper production
The traditional way of making edible rice paper is a long and complicated process. Most often, Asian women do it - they soak rice in cold clean water for eight hours, then drain the water, and the rice is repeatedly washed and soaked again in a small amount of already salted water.
If desired, a mixture of dried shrimp, black sesame seeds and cassava root flour is sometimes added to the rice grits.
After the rice swells, a kind of pancake dough is prepared from it - the softened rice groats are chopped as quickly as possible with the help of large heavy knives, the resulting mass is poured onto a cloth that is stretched over a saucepan of boiling water, and kept there for a couple of minutes. The resulting rice pancake is carefully transferred to a bamboo wire rack and dried in the fresh air for several hours. Under factory conditions, edible paper is produced in a similar way, only special machines are also involved in the production process, which press and bake almost finished sheets.
