How to puff your own rice?

[Jenni]

I miss puffed rice. My grandmother used to purchase large bags of them. She'll put some in a bowl with toasted sesame, a pinch of salt, some cilantro and then add hot tea. I was a great snack. I am not sure why but I think the ones she got was cooked in sand.

This sounds interesting and I would like to try. What kind of tea? Also, can you give a rough ratio of rice to tea?

[annachan]

We usually have pu-erh tea at home, but jasmine, oolong and such will probably work. It's meant to be a causal snack, I imagine people just use what they have on hand. As for rice to tea, I say more rice than tea. It's not meant to be soupy. Just to wet the ingredients and a little extra.

[dcarch]

They also roast chestnuts in sand.

I would consider this if I was going to use sand for food:

Using a sieve to filter out all the smaller grains of sand, and then have a jeweler’s tumbler with very fine grades of silicone carbide powder to tumble the larger grains of sand.

The sand will be polished smooth and all sharp points rounded off.

We don’t have gizzards and have no use for sand in our system.

dcarch

[annachan]

So, I saw puffed rice at a local Indian store and couldn't help but get a bag. Not sure how they were puffed but looked like the ones grandma used to buy.

Seeing Chinese celery at the market today, I suddenly remembered that my grandma used to put that in the puff rice as well. I got some and made myself a snack. Puffed rice, toasted sesame, salt, chopped celery and then tea. Toward the end of the bowl, I said something familiar - a small amount of fine sand. My guess is that the rice I got may have been puffed with sand as I couldn't think of anything else that it could have come from (I washed the celery very well!). I really brought me back to my childhood.

[HowardLi]

Playground sand (safe for kids) would be sold at your local home improvement store. I bet you could cook with it, as long as you rinsed it first.