Re: sticky rice and [CH] Rice Cooker
Brent Thompson (brent@hplbct.hpl.hp.com)
Wed, 24 Nov 1999 09:26:05 -0800
"BURTON NEIL ALEXANDER, ITID" <ATTBNA1@hq.psa.com.sg> wrote:
> This makes it impossible to use in most asian dishes, as these require a
> stickier rice that:
>
> A: can soak up plenty of gravy
> B: can actually be eaten with chopsticks
1) In total, the residents of the Asian countries India, Bangladesh,
Pakistan, Thailand, Philippines, Indonesia, and Myanmar ("Burma") account
for an awful lot of people, eating an awful lot of rice, and they don't use
chopsticks (except for any Chinese residing therein). The (doubtfully, but
possibly) slightly larger total numbers of Chinese and Japanese (and
probably Koreans?) with their chopsticks may perhaps account for somewhat
more "Asian dishes" being eaten with chopsticks than without, but it is
certainly misleading to think that most asian dishes require "stickier
rice".
2) In my observation, sticky rice soaks up considerably _less_ gravy than
non-sticky rice, and this would seem to make sense. To retain the
cohesiveness desired by chopstick users, sticky rice must determinedly
adhere to itself here-and-there, and everywhere it does so adhere it
necessarily excludes gravy from occupying the same place. On the contrary,
separate grains of rice allow gravy to surround everywhere; a result too
soupy for chopsticks is precisely because it contains so much gravy.
peter gaffney <peter.g@telus.net> wrote:
> <<...pre seasoned type, like jasmine or thai etc....>>
> this is ( i believe ) a western european, or north american
> preparation for rice. it's really like cooking pasta.
1) jasmine rice is not pre-seasoned, it is simply an especially fragrant,
(naturally fragrant) type of rice; Basmati is the other pre-eminently
famous type of fragrant rice.
2) This is not just a W.Europe/N.America method; plenty of traditional rice
preparation recipes outside W.Europe/N.America involve boiling the rice
then draining, e.g. India and Persia (Iran).
--- Brent