Up in the highlands of Sarawak lies the small town of Bario, unspoilt by development and surrounded by nature at its best. There, the ethnic inhabitants grow their own hill rice which is popularly known here as Bario rice…
It is very fragrant and very very nice…slightly on the sticky side but it is not pulut or glutinous rice and for this reason, it is advisable not to add too much water when cooking it.
The trouble is it is not very easy to buy the genuine unadulterated Bario rice. What you see in the supermarkets and grocery stores packed in plastic bags of 5 kg each is not so nice as they probably have mixed it with ordinary rice or it is not fresh from the hills and will pale in comparison. Even when those selling the rice in towns like Miri or Bintulu insist that it is the original authentic Bario rice, when you buy some and cook, you may find that you have been hoodwinked.
My missus bought some from her colleague who hails from that place over the hills and far away, so we are very sure that this is the real thing and true enough, when we cook it, it is simply out of this world…
I used to buy the imported fragrant rice but I noticed that once I had opened the bag, the rice would be fragrant the first few times I cooked it but after a while, the fragrance would be gone and it would be just like any other ordinary type of rice despite having to pay more for it. I don’t know how true it is but I’ve heard some people saying that I should stop eating those fragrant rice as they add some chemical to it to make it smell nice.
This Bario rice is served in some of the better restaurants in town with fish head curry and they really go well together; it certainly compliments the taste of the curry. My missus fried some leftover Bario rice the other day…
…and needless to say, it was absolutely delicious, a whole lot better than the same thing with other types of rice.
I bet this would be perfect for cooking my nasi kuning (yellow rice) or nasi kunyit (tumeric rice) or nasi minyak (ghee rice) or whatever one may choose to call it. I usually use ordinary rice but I know some people use pulut (glutinous rice) which is nice but a tad too sticky. I think I will give it a try one of these days with Bario rice…
...STILL CRAZY AFTER ALL THESE YEARS! 