Government agronomists on Tuesday unveiled the nation’s first locally developed risotto rice, a hybrid produced by crossing a domestic variety with Vialone Nano, an Italian medium-grain rice.
“Hualien No. 26” was presented at a news conference after seven years of development by the Hualien District Agricultural Research and Extension Station.
Station head Yang Ta-chi (楊大吉) said his office had been working for a decade to develop new rice varieties that can be grown organically, with improved resistance to high temperatures and disease.
Photo: CNA
As one of the products of this research, Hualien No. 26 is notable as a local alternative to costly imported risotto rice varieties and has the potential to be exported to other nations in the region, Yang said.
Huang Chia-hsing (黃佳興), a researcher at the station, said Hualien No. 26 has a number of characteristics that make it ideal for cooking risotto, including a large, starchy core that makes the grains more absorbent.
The variety is relatively heavy and large, allowing the grains to maintain a firm texture when cooked, and has a high amylose content, which keeps the rice from becoming overly sticky or gluey, Huang said.
In environmental terms, the 278km it takes to transport the rice from Hualien to Taipei also has a much smaller carbon footprint than that of imported risotto rice from Italy, he said.
Aside from risotto, Hualien No. 26 is also suited to making arancini (stuffed Italian rice balls), golden fried rice, rice pudding, Japanese ochazuke (tea over rice), and can even be ground into rice flour and added to pizza dough, Huang said.
Hualien farmers working with the station grew between 2 and 3 tonnes of the new rice variety over two seasons last year, all of which was purchased by restaurants.
This year, the station plans to have about 30 hectares of the variety cultivated, with the goal of eventually pushing its price down to about NT$200 per kilogram and making it competitive with imported rice, he said.
Hsieyi and Lian Cai — two companies that signed a technology transfer agreement for the variety — said that Hualien No. 26 is already being used by restaurants, including Taipei’s Restaurant Page (頁小館), Taitung’s Sinasera 24, and Your (嶼耳) and PalioPizza in Taichung.
The rice is also being sold on e-commerce platform Taste Italy at Home (義大利廚房), Hsieyi said, though a search of the Web site on Tuesday evening showed that it was not yet available.
Considering that most countries issue more than five denominations of banknotes, the central bank has decided to redesign all five denominations, the bank said as it prepares for the first major overhaul of the banknotes in more than 24 years. Central bank Governor Yang Chin-lung (楊金龍) is expected to report to the Legislative Yuan today on the bank’s operations and the redesign’s progress. The bank in a report sent to the legislature ahead of today’s meeting said it had commissioned a survey on the public’s preferences. Survey results showed that NT$100 and NT$1,000 banknotes are the most commonly used, while NT$200 and NT$2,000
The Centers for Disease Control (CDC) yesterday reported the first case of a new COVID-19 subvariant — BA.3.2 — in a 10-year-old Singaporean girl who had a fever upon arrival in Taiwan and tested positive for the disease. The girl left Taiwan on March 20 and the case did not have a direct impact on the local community, it said. The WHO added the BA.3.2 strain to its list of Variants Under Monitoring in December last year, but this was the first imported case of the COVID-19 variant in Taiwan, CDC Deputy Director-General Lin Ming-cheng (林明誠) said. The girl arrived in Taiwan on
ANNUAL EVENT: Two massive Pokemon balloons are to be set up in Daan Park, with an event zone operating from 10am to 6pm This year’s Taipei Floral Picnic is to be held at Daan Park today and tomorrow, featuring an exclusive Pokemon Go event, a themed food market, a coffee rave picnic area and stage performances, the Taipei Department of Information and Tourism said yesterday. Two massive Pokemon balloons are to be set up in the park as attractions, with an exclusive event zone operating from 10am to 6pm, it said. Participants who complete designated tasks on-site would have a chance to receive limited-edition souvenirs, it added. People could also try the newly launched game Pokemon Pokopia in the trial area, the department said. Three PokeStops are
South Korea is planning to revise its controversial electronic arrival card, a step Taiwanese officials said prompted them to hold off on planned retaliatory measures, a South Korean media report said yesterday. A Yonhap News Agency report said that the South Korean Ministry of Foreign Affairs is planning to remove the “previous departure place” and “next destination” fields from its e-arrival card system. The plan, reached after interagency consultations, is under review and aims to simplify entry procedures and align the electronic form with the paper version, a South Korean ministry official said. The fields — which appeared only on the electronic form
RSS