If you’ve got some rice, some water, and a saucepan you can cook rice. There’s no need for measuring cups and no need to measure the rice or water. All you need is your index finger.

I learned this freewheeling finger-in-the-pot method from Grace Young’s cookbook The Breath of a Wok, the current DCCC pick. To be honest, I’d come across the method previously in other Asian cookbooks, but it’s only now, after building my kitchen skills to their current level (due in part to this cookbook club) and with Young’s well-written and assuring book at my side, that I felt confident enough to leave my measuring cups in the cupboard. Once I took the leap of faith and made my first pot of rice this way, I felt liberated.

Besides being freeing, the method is also (more…)