Will this rice poison me?!

[Missjoebloggs]

I made paella yesterday and there was lots left over. I put it in a Pyrex dish and put the dish in cold water for 1hr 15mins until it was cool and then popped in the fridge. Is this rapid enough cooling? I’m never sure of the “rules” around rice and reheating

seafood??

You'll be fine. I usually just leave it on the side to cool for a while then put it in the fridge. Never harmed me!

Yeah it will be fine, I'd definitely eat it!

^ Yes, I have seafood and chicken in mine. Just make sure you reheat it thoroughly before eating.

I'd be more worried about prawns.

Yeah it’s fine

Although I’ve never understood the drama about rice. I’ll always just nuke anything and be fine.

I only ever just leave it to cool naturally, then fridge. It doesn't take long to cool. I can't see why it would poison you.

I never knew there was a rule with cooling rice quick? I cook a lot of rice dishes frequently and usually just leave it in the crock pot or whatever until it's cool enough to put into the fridge.
Mind you, I don't like the idea of reheating seafood!

I do this all the time, never bother with any of that faffing, aren't particularly thorough with reheating and have never had a problem in about 25 years of having my own house and mostly cooking from scratch.

I let rice cool down naturally over a couple of hours like my ancestors have done before me, and then reheat it to eat the next day (or over several days). Never been an issue.

It's not just rice though, it's paella.
With spare rice I usually run it under the cold tap which stops it sticking and cools it instantly. Then freeze or refrigerate.

The rice thing was to do with bacillus spores in long grain rice.
The spores germinate when they're left at room temp- no amount of nuking would get rid of the toxins produced. Google fried rice syndrome.

If you're cooling & refrigerating quickly , it should be fine. If you're using supermarket bought rice, it will also very likely be fine as they'll do regular testing at the manufacturer for the bacillus bacteria. I think the affected rice badly processed & allowed to get damp IIRC.

Obviously, reheat thoroughly to ensure the additional ingredients are safe!

God, I'm so boring.

It sounds like it’ll be fine to eat. You should aim to cool rice and have it in the fridge within about an hour, and it should be eaten within a day. It also shouldn’t be reheated more than once, which is why you need to be careful if you have leftover rice from a takeaway, as that is often not freshly cooked that day. That isn’t an issue at the time, but if you keep it and reheat it it can cause food poisoning.

The reason you have to be extra careful with rice is that it can contain spores of a certain bacterium, which survives cooking. If the rice is left at room temperature the spores can grow into bacteria and produce toxins that cause food poisoning.

www.nhs.uk/common-health-questions/food-and-diet/can-reheating-rice-cause-food-poisoning/

Wonderful thank you! No seafood (so can I really call it paella?!) just chorizo and some bbq quorn bits, basically whatever was needing used up

Paella doesn't traditionally have seafood in it, but rabbit or chicken and snails(!).

But there's a lot of arguments about what is and isn't paella, and I'm sure many people would have quite a lot to say about chorizo and especially BBQ quorn.