I didn't have a kitchen scale until about 3 years ago. Not sure what I did before I had it! With recipes on the internet being so easily accessible now, and with people from around the world sharing them, its often nice to have a scale for measuring ingredients if not following "U.S. style" measurements. But for me, living overseas, I use it all the time for other various things. For example, I often buy a 5-10 kilo block of cheese or a 2kg block of cream cheese because it saves me a ton of money. Its really handy to have the scales for weighing the pieces out into smaller chunks that I can sell to my friends or neighbors who are willing to take some of the massive block of cheese! The guy I get my ground beef from is in a different part of town. Every few months I send Brian to get 10 pounds or so. When he comes home, me and the scales get to work dividing it into one pound portions, bagging it up, and freezing it. When I puree pumpkin, I use my scale to divide it out into 15oz portions so they are in the same amount as a typical can called for in recipes. I do the same with dried beans I have cooked in bulk. Another way its really handy is when I'm substituting fresh tomatoes for canned tomatoes in recipes--if the recipe says use a 28 oz can, I just weight out 28 oz of fresh or stewed tomatoes. I also have been buying butter in 500g packages. Since its not as easy as the 227g ones that I know equal 1 cup, I often use my scale to weigh the butter for my baking. I love my scales. You can get them usually in the $10-20 range in the States in most kitchen stores or online (
Ozeri Pronto Digital Multifunction Kitchen and Food Scale, Elegant Black
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. Ikea in China carries a digital one (Y199) and a non-digital one (Y49). I'm sure they are readily available on Taobao as well. The one I have easily tares the weight if you want to put a bowl on it first and then zero it out. It also switches between grams and ounces with one click. What do you use your scales for?
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Sheila--
ReplyDeleteI buy beef from a guy over on Yulin Nan Jie (just near the Sultan). If you are in the parking lot by the Sultan, you'd come out to the road and walk right. There is a little hole in the wall beef seller (he often does skewers at night) just before you come to a flower shop on the corner. I've been fairly pleased with his ground beef and roasts (still need to crock pot). But his keeps going up too--I think its like 28/jin now. Not sure what Carrefour is--I don't really shop there anymore.
I also recently tried a "beef" guy in the local wet market. A cut called "yaoliu" was very tender--I sliced it into a stroganoff. But it was yak, not beef, he said. And it was still like 25/jin I think.
Hope that helps.