liuzhou

Understandable, but when you eat rice at least twice a day as most people do here, the rice cooker will always win. Indeed. I've never seen such an environmentally irresponsible, idiotic method in my life. To say nothing of the expense.

Pig Blood Soup. As featured in the Soup Topic with more info.

I bought this bundle of congealed pig blood with garlic chives and chilli. Here it is spread out to separate the components. Then cooked it in a garlicky, chicken stock with a little MSG. Delicious.

In my experience, even different batches of the same brand of rice can require different amounts of water. The age of the rice is also a factor. Literally many thousands of years ago, the Chinese worked out how to cook rice reliably without scales, ovens or faffing about like that. Today, almost everyone, at least in cities, uses a rice cooker which gives reliable results every time. My current batch of Thai Hom Mali rice is perfect with a 1:1.5 ratio of rice:water, by weight. Not that I ever normally weigh it. I can eyeball it after decades of cooking rice almost every day - as can most of my friends and neighbours. There is certainly not one magic ratio which applies to all rices.

Here's a rice washer machine for you. This lives in the kitchens of the state banqueting room in the Independence Palace (ex-Presidential Palace in Ho chi Minh City / Saigon, Vietnam.

Adding another bit of kit to the process sounds like an unnecessary complication to me. I've managed all these years without a glorified sieve!

Another thrown together dinner after a busy day dealing with nonsense. Deliberately left-over chicken leg meat with asparagus and garlic (lots) served over linguine. I'll get back to proper cooking soon.

I have this stainless steel cup hanging on the kitchen wall, near the rice cooker on the counter. It holds exactly how much rice I want to cook at any one time. If I have guests I add extra cupfuls. Like most people here, I wash the rice thoroughly in the rice cooker bowl, pouring the starchy, dusty, insecty water away until it is clear. So, I'm effectively washing the rice and the bowl at the same time.

I was talking about hard boiled eggs. They don't take 15 minutes in my world.

Now I'm confused (as usual) I regularly make "perfect" boiled eggs and eat them them in under 15 minutes. Where's the time saving? I never steam vegetables either, but that's a Chinese thing I've picked up.

That's not wine, you know?

and dust and bits of dead insects. If you've ever been in a rice packing station, you'd wash that rice to death as do most Asians

"Penguin on a Stick! - Monty Python.

Yeah, that's common here, too. I do it when I am finished cooking all the dishes. Between dishes I usually use the bamboo brush. It kinda depends on what I am cooking, though.

Of course, the fish being live tells you nothing about its provenance, but at least it's fresh!

Hmm. I don't think I want to know your sponge habits. I get through a bamboo brush about every two weeks, but I do use my woks at least once a day; usually more.

I had to look up 'scrubbie'. Never seen one in my life! China don't have! I agree the bamboo brushes need constant replacing, but are cheap and environmentally friendly. You had one for many years⁈⁈

My traditional bamboo wok brush arrived today. They are becoming more difficult to find in the city. I ordered this one online after my usual store didn't have any.

Supermarkets in China are mostly the same. Even if veg etc isn't pre-wrapped, the weighing station staff are going to seal it in a plastic bag, 99% of the time. In wet markets, nothing is pre-wrapped and you can refuse the offered bags more easily.

Yeah, but the restaurant supplied it! I sometimes ask for things which are not listed on the menu. Sometimes I get it; sometimes I get a polite apology. Smaller and less formal Chinese restaurants are usually quite open to that.

Interesting. I don't recall ever seeing it on a restaurant menu here, but it is a common dish for home cooks. It is probably my favourite way to do clams.

Do you mean Chinese-style fermented, salted black soy beans? Or something else? Clams with fermented beans is something I cook regularly.

Yes. Probably sausages (pork) and fried eggs, too. I haven't had one in decades!

A few of the dishes would still appear on some menus in London. The sort of places working people use for lunch, rather than a night out kind of venue. Is grilled cheese on that menu? I can't see it. And the grilled bacon accompanies kidneys, so that would still apppear in London, too. P.S. Of course, they are using the British English meaning of 'grilled'. What you may call 'broiled'.

Liverpool cafe finds menu from 1913 during refurb Nice to see them using "entrée" correctly, as everyone did back then. It is still never used to refer to a main dish in the UK, except in places that have "concepts" and "themes" and think they are trendy and therefore should never be eaten in anyway! ⛔