KennethT

Interesting - in my experience, jasmine and basmati rices need different quantities of water and have different methods of cooking - jasmine rice needs to be steamed, so basically you're only adding enough water to completely hydrate, and then it will steam itself. Even more so, thai sticky rice is only soaked in room temp water (many times overnight) and then only steamed. Basmati is quite different - those grains need to be boiled in order to lengthen and cook properly - I could on go on about a different ratio of starch types than Jasmine but ugghhh... Anyway, the basmati is boiled then steamed, so it needs more water so it doesn't fully absorb all the water before the boiling step is complete. In fact, some basmati rices are cooked in a large quantity of boiling water (like pasta) and then drained and kept covered to finish steaming.

I have a photo just like that! When I saw it, I remarked to myself how much rice one needs to make in 1 batch to make this necessary.

Maybe the cheapest eGullet enabling ever... thanks. I've always thought my strainer method was a bit of a pita because the amount of rice is a bit too much for the strainer I usually use so I've got to be more careful than I'd like when swishing....

I wash mine like 4-5 times also - sometimes it takes that much just to get the water to a point where it stops being more clear than the previous wash. Plus, I don't use that much water for each.

wow. I'm impressed. While I'm usually very scientifically minded, my rice making is more of the "go as fast as you can without having to get out much stuff". I put the raw dry rice in a strainer, and then put that in a bowl of water in the sink. Swish. Take out the strainer, dump the starch water, refill, repeat a few times. The last time, take the strainer out, give it a tap, then dump into rice cooker, spread around evenly, then add water to where it needs to go (for 2 cups jasmine, I add water to just under halfway between and 2 and 3 lines). I'm sure the scale makes yours much more easily repeatable without all the eyeballing I need to do.

How much convenient does it need to be than a small plastic cup that you dip into your rice jar or bag? Plus, you shouldn't pour the raw rice directly into the rice cooker as it usually needs to be rinsed several times first to get rid of the surface starch. So I guess, all in all, I don't really see the point. To me, the most time consuming part of making rice is washing it initially (aside from any inactive soaking or cooking time).

Yeah, in this store (right in the middle of Manhattan) where space is at a premium and it's always crowded, I think they do it to speed things along - both in the produce selection and in the check out. I gather that in the larger stores in northern NJ, they have more that's open to selection.

It seem like the guys in the local takeout joints here use stainless steel scouring pads that they move around with the ladle to swish the water around.

I agree with the sprinkles idea since the chamber is so small - I don't think it could be for cookies, or cake or anything like that.

In the local Hmart (Korean) that I used to frequent before I moved, just about everything was wrapped in plastic and preweighed. It was always a pain because I don't always need a pound of Thai chillies... most time a small handful would do.

Some stores in Chinatown here have live freshwater fish, but they're mostly on ice or like at my small Hmart, on plastic trays in the refrigerated case.

I always wondered what to do with extra crawfish - but doesn't the boil flavor overpower everything you put the leftover tails in?

I used to go to the HMart on 32nd St. once a week - it was where I did my primary shopping - well, that and Fresh Direct. But I get all my veggies at Hmart, and I used to get salmon fillets there once a week too. I like it better than the supermarkets because it is prepackaged in that store, so I can go through all of them (there's lots) and find the perfect size I need. A lot of times, at the counter, they ahve to cut 3 or 4 pieces to finally get me what I asked for.

Are those lime leaves fresh or dried? If fresh, they don't look so good. I've had the success propagating lemongrass by sticking the root end in water until it roots - you need to change out the water every day or so to make sure it doesn't get moldy.

I just saw an add for this on FB.... I think this company is several years too late... https://www.spherificator.com/

I miss him too - he gave me great advice before a trip to Hong Kong. But I find it odd that the recipe doesn't have any doubanjiang, which I always thought was an important ingredient in ma po.

I have a flat bottomed wok. It works fine. From what I understand, flat bottomed woks are pretty common throughout Asia, unless you're a restaurant.

This is what I got: It was about $300 on Amazon. https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B016XY88AA/ref=ppx_yo_dt_b_asin_title_o05_s00?ie=UTF8&psc=1 There's a lot of inexpensive induction units on Amazon - lots of them with really bad reviews, mostly about longevity. This one seemed to have a better ratio of good/bad reviews. Also, once I get the other, more industrial strength, hob, I won't be using this one as often - it's purpose will be bringing pots of water to a boil and lighter duty stuff that doesn't require much finesse.

The Vollrath I'm looking at supposedly has an expanded magnetic field which allows you to lift the pan while staying within the mag field to replicate cooking on gas. It's commercial equipment which I like. That's not the primary reason why I'm looking at it, but it's certainly a nice feature. The primary reasons are the fine power control with knob, temperature probe which can get it to act like a sous vide setup (even though I already have a few DIY ones that work fine) or make deep frying idiot proof (which I need) and also supposedly one of the most accurate pan temp sensors available, which, if true, would be great for my pressure cooker which I use to make stocks as I constantly had to fiddle with my gas range to get it to stay at a stable pressure - a real pita when doing an hour long stock.

I've really enjoyed using this lately (while only briefly each time): It's a relatively inexpensive induction hob - 3500 Watts!!! It brought about 12 quarts of water to a rolling boil in just under 12 minutes. It doesn't really like it when I lift the pan - it beeps at me when I do so, but at least it doesn't shut off. So far, I've only had time to use it to bring the stockpot to a boil (as a test) and to stir fry a few veggies in my carbon steel wok, which was an absolute pleasure - so much easier than when I used to use my crappy underpowered gas stove. One of the things that makes it inexpensive is that you can only choose from about 10 power levels, which has been fine so far for what I've been doing. Sometime soon in the future I'm going to get a Vollrath induction unit (I'm thinking the 2600W since so far I haven't had the need to use this one at 3500W except to boil water - the stir fries haven't gone over 2400W and even that is crazy hot) which you can control the output power in 1% increments, from 0 to 100% and also, rather than cycling the power on and off for the power level, it adjusts the power intensity. Plus, to control the power there is a knob rather than push buttons... but that's for another post.

I've had some birds in SE Asia that could have used a long braise - one in particular was in Indonesia, a kampung chicken (considered a delicacy) - which is basically a yardbird that eats all sorts of grubs and whatever else chickens love to eat, all while seemingly running a marathon every other day. I don't think it was actually that old, but it had tons of flavor, and was quite tough - especially the joints. I couldn't cut through the leg/thigh joint with whatever utensil I could find.

Is it really a braise? No, probably not to the classical definition, but I just called it that because it is meat cooking half in/half out of liquid in a covered pot, so what else would you call it? Simmered chicken half in/half out of liquid in a covered pot is quite a mouthful. Then again, do you really have to braise chicken thighs? Or any piece of chicken that isn't the gizzard or something?

OK - I guess I wasn't clear for what I do though... my braise in the tamarind liquid would be for about 15 minutes tops... I don't know if I'd do a 2 hour braise in the seasoned wok, but most Asian wok braising doesn't take that long. I'm going to attempt it teh next time I make that dish... I'll report back my findings.

Related to our discussion in the wok-cooking thread, how do you cook the orzo? Do you just use a pot on another burner? Also, how many burners (hobs) do normal Chinese kitchen have? I'd think there would be only 1 since everything is usually cooked in the wok anyway...

Interesting.... I guess it doesn't really matter - especially since you don't use that much water anyway, and the wok is already hot - you rinse with hot water regardless of the initial water temp!