Who wouldn’t like to eat something nice and crispy that doesn’t have the calories of fried food? Puffed food products, enjoyed all around the world, can provide the crunch without the oil. In the West, puffed products are consumed as breakfast cereals and other ready-to-eat foods. In Asian countries, puffed rice is the main ingredient in some of the most popular snacks.
Puffing rice is similar to popping corn. In an initial pretreatment, the rice grains are soaked in heated salt water, where they absorb moisture; then they are dried. During the puffing stage, the kernels are exposed to intense heat that causes rapid evaporation of the water inside them and creates high internal pressure due to the generated steam. At the same time, the grains, mostly made of starch, soften and expand as pressure builds up. The enlarged grains dry quickly and harden; the result is crispy, puffed rice....
