WHAT’S THE DIFFERENCE BETWEEN POPCORN AND PUFFED RICE?
POPCORN
You can pop corn with any heat source, but to puff rice you also need a pressure chamber. Popcorn is the only grain that can be ‘puffed’ at home because it has the right moisture content – 14 per cent – and a fragile hull. When the temperature of the kernel reaches 100 degrees Celsius, water starts to boil inside the starchy cells of the endosperm, causing them to expand. At 175 degrees Celsius, the superheated starchy material explodes through the hull of the kernel and instantly cools to form a chewy bubble. Grains of rice don’t contain enough moisture to pop under normal conditions. Instead, the rice must be heated in a pressure chamber at up to 14 kilograms per square centimetre. When the chamber is opened, the sudden change in pressure and volume causes the hot starch cells in the rice to expand rapidly, bursting through and puffing up like popcorn.
PUFFED RICE
