When I was newly married and posted to Sibu, I was very eager to copy hundreds of recipes into a recipe book by hand. I would copy pages and pages of recipes from newspapers, magazines, and recipe books. I even got a friend to help me. I completed a thick exercise book of 400 pages, and then started another one.
Interestingly, in my earnestness, I did not cook very much even though I had all the recipes. Instead I depended on the well tested dishes that I learned from my mother, my grandmother and my aunts. Simple homecooked dishes.
Then a friend also told me that the recipes were supposed to be guidelines only. Every one would have his own recipe of the same dish. And even if it is very different from the recipe in the book, once the family likes his or her cooking, it is a good recipe. You do not have to follow the recipe in a book exactly. I took her advice and have been cooking my way most of the time. If people say that I am not following a book recipe, I just shrug my shoulders and say that I am doing it my way and my children and family like it.
Recently I did some research on the 8 treasure rice and lo and behold, I have more than 10 different recipes.
8 treasure rice from Minqing (recent trip to China) |
So recipes are just guidelines and you can be innovative.
So for your own 8 treasure Rice, you can add cherries, winter melon, red dates, black dates, peanuts, walnuts, and two more...or change some of the fruits in the least. It only has to be sweet, colourful and tasty with the glutinous rice...
Happy cooking!!