I Got A Rice Cooker. Its Awesome! So what do I do with it?
Well, my hunt for a good rice cooker has finally ended. A friend bought me a Sanyo 5.5 cup cooker that you can also slow cook and make tofu in. It's pretty neat. It's got a timer and many nifty settings. That said, this is my first rice cooker other than that dreadful Wolfgang Puck thing I bought a year or so ago. It makes rice and steel cut oats beautifully.
I know one can make actual meals in it, but for all my cooking experience, I'm unsure about how to do that. I tried rice and beans which was a disaster (I'm pretty sure it's my fault and not the cooker). Does anyone here make actual meals in the cooker? Any tips?
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11 Comments:
Cook rice -- delicious, hearty, staple-of-hundreds-of-millions-of-people steamed rice that has been rinsed by hand many times before it goes in the cooker. :)
Eat it alone at first, just so you remind yourself of what good rice should taste like.
Then, move on to putting some soy sauce on it; then try just raw tuna on it; then, put just cabbage kimchi on it!
If those haven't sent you to the couch to sleep it off, how about making
basmati rice; or a nice pilaf?
I've read some people try risotto in a rice cooker, but I'm not that brave. My rice cooker plays a nice song when I start it up, and I don't want to ruin that song by breaking the cooker; but the recipe book that came with the cooker does have "porridge" style recipes, so why not risotto?
TikiPundit at 1:07PM on 01/01/09
We got one this year, and i am loving it! We ordered this book, The Rice Cooker Cookbook, and it covers everything. We've made risotto, spanish and mexican rice, cous cous, and oh, rice! Maybe not risotto-for-fancy-company, but better than passable for a weeknight, no-stir version.
Be sure to read the introduction/education part of the book, and be prepared to experiment a little...
Haven't tried fish, etc...but we are looking forward to trying it soon.
Cary at 4:41PM on 01/01/09
Hey, I got that rice cooker's cousin. The one that's slightly pressurized.
Scoff if you must, but since I moved to high altitude, rice has been my nemesis. I can't count how many times I've made rice and it's too al dente. Like al concrete in the center. So I add more water, and it's al mushee.
Rice cooker fixes that problem, and it frees up a burner, and I can start it early and it can be ready when I need it. AND...I can make steel-cut oatmeal and set the timer so it's done when I wake up. Now, that's a good thing.
dbcurrie at 6:47PM on 01/01/09
I don't have a rice cooker, but a friend of mine with a Thai husband does. She told me that whenever they travel they always bring the rice cooker with them and where ever they stay, they have KFC and their own rice. She's a big fan of jasmine rice now, thanks to her MIL. I was just so tickled to think about a rice cooker traveling all over the United States and also the fact that good rice is such a part of their family meals.
dhorst at 6:56PM on 01/01/09
You can cook all sorts of chicken and rice dishes. Add different vegetables, seasonings, sauces.
I really like chicken leg pieces, broccoli, mushrooms, cream of mushroom soup, black pepper, rice, water. Comfort food at it's best.
ag3208 at 11:20AM on 01/02/09
I just used the slow cooker feature on mine to take care of part of a chicken carcass. This thing is much smaller than my regular slow cooker, so it was the perfect size for the leftover bones and bits from a chicken I had roasted. I don't think this will replace the big slow cooker, but this is perfect for smaller amounts, and I do like the timer feature, so I can set it for x number of hours and then it goes to the "stay warm" setting.
I can imagine that I'm going to get a lot more use out of this thing than the old rice cooker that it replaced.
dbcurrie at 2:57PM on 01/02/09
@Cary, I amazoned the book you recommended. Nothing I like better than another excuse to buy another cookbook!
@dbcurrie, I'm gonna try that. My crockpot is also considerably larger than my rice cooker and this seems like a really good use for its size. How long do you do the chicken?
chisai at 12:59AM on 01/03/09
i make other rice dishes in it... rice with black beans, rice and veggie sausages, yellow rice and corn (arroz con maiz), rice and spinach, etc.
I start the sofrito in the insert on the stove top and then bring it to the rice cooker and add the rice to fisnich cooking. Let the insert lower in temperature first so the rice cooks well... if not, it may end up a bit underdone.
Good luck...
MadelynRodriguez at 9:48AM on 01/03/09
Are you talking about the pressure cooker or the usual electric rice cooker? If it's pressure cooker, you can cook brown rice perfectly in no time. I used 2 and 1/4 cups of water for every 1 cup of washed and soaked brown rice and leave it for 6 whistles. Perfect textured brown rice is ready in no time and I make frie rice using it.
Madhuram
(www.egglesscooking.com)
Madhurams at 1:29PM on 01/05/09
@chisai, the timer on the cooker goes for 8 hours, max, but what I did was start the bones cooking in the evening, after dinner, and before I went to bed, I reset it for 8 hours again. So it was probably 11 or 12 hours, total. Eight would have been fine, I'm sure, but I figured that cooking it longer when I was sleeping was fine.
dbcurrie at 1:49PM on 01/05/09
I have a really basic rice cooker (the kind with one button) and use it for all kinds of things. I hard cook eggs, poach chicken, cook rice (duh) make and serve fondue (I'm pretty casual, my dishes don't even match) keep food warm for people getting home late, cook oatmeal...
I really like that it doesn't heat the house as much as the stove and doesn't use a burner. Also, I've never cooked rice without a rice cooker (which was really embarrassing when I was a cooking TA in college)
sarahj at 10:53PM on 01/23/09