Monday, September 12, 2005

How Do You Measure Rice ?

I had an interesting experience the other day in a grocery store which evoked memories of my childhood. I was looking for some black sticky rice. The sales clerk asked if I needed any help. She was Asian in a non-Asian grocey store and we were in the Asian section. She found it for me and I asked her what the ratio was between rice and water for cooking. She looked at me perplexed and shrugged, "I don't know, I've always just used my finger up to the first line". Immediately we connected. My parents did that all the time when they cooked rice and for some reason, it's kind of faded away from me over the years.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

Hi Bianca,
That is exactly how I measure rice and water from my childhood (I started to cook from when I was 9)! I'm 52, born in the former Dutch East Indies, moved to The Netherlands in 1956. Six years ago I moved to England UK.
My Yorkshire friend measures it like this as well now, and so do my ex, my sons, my sister and the rest of our family. Even pure Dutch friends (with Indonesian friends though) cook rice using their index finger, adding water to its first line. And despite the amount of rice or the size of the pan, it always works. Funny, isn't it?
I've written about the Dutch East Indies as well on www.yorkshiremixture.co.uk. My weblog (Dutch) is here: http://aandachts.punt.nl.
Best wishes,
Astrid

Anonymous said...

I use the same system, but I learned it from an American friend who had a Filippino stepfather.