Happy little accidents

Sometimes shortcuts lead to accidents. And sometimes accidents lead to great success.

The accident? The rice got burned. (Yes, this is another story about burned food, but with a different outcome!) For New Year’s Eve at my parents, my girlfriend wanted to make Ketan unti, an Indonesian treat made of sticky rice (ketan) and a sweet coconut topping (unti).

She has made it many times before, but this time, we were in a bit of a hurry. So she tried boiling the rice rather than steaming it (which takes longer). Turns out there are no shortcuts in Indonesian cooking and the rice got burned. Most of it was edible, but it had a slight burn flavor to it.

With no more glutinous rice in the house, and no time, it was bye bye Ketan unti. But my girlfriend already made the sweet coconut topping. What to do? We really wanted to celebrate New Year’s with something special besides oliebollen.

Luckily there is another Indonesian treat made with unti, which I find even tastier. Dadar gulung: green pandan pancakes filled with – you guessed it – a sweet coconut filling.

For that we had all the ingredients in the house! So we packed everything and drove to my parents. And on the last night of 2021, just before midnight, we made some very tasty Dadar gulung. In fact, we had so much coconut filling, we had to make many more pancakes on the following days. It was a delicious start of 2022.

So what’s the creative lesson here? Well, first of all, there are no shortcuts to quality! But that shouldn’t stop you from trying things out. What’s the worst that could happen? All great things in the world were created by people who were not afraid to try out something new, not sure if it would work. As Bob Ross always said:

“We don’t make mistakes, just happy little accidents.”