The Steamy Way to Dinner

[randomness]

From http://www.nytimes.com/2008/10/01/dining/01rice.html:

SHIRLEY CHAN, a Chinese-American Web site designer, was born in Hong Kong, lives in Brooklyn, and has never cooked a pot of rice in her life. “One billion Chinese people cannot be wrong about rice,” she said: virtually every household has at least a basic rice cooker. As a child, it was her chore before each meal to wash the rice, measure it into the machine, and press the button. “It always, always comes out perfect,” she said. “Until I came here, I never even knew rice could burn.”

How does the machine know when the rice is done? A built-in thermostat tracks the temperature of the bubbling mixture of rice and water. When the water boils and turns to steam, the temperature in the pot begins to rise, which signals the cooker to switch to warm.

But it’s easy to override the machine’s small brain. Press the “cook” button, melt butter in the bowl, and sweat a finely diced shallot in it until soft — then add rice, broth and saffron strands, and start the machine again to make a daffodil-yellow pilaf. Cook some short-grain rice, then drizzle in some sesame oil and switch back to “cook,” mix in some kimchi and break eggs on top for a simple bibimbap, the Korean-American staple of rice “and whatever is in the refrigerator,” Mr. Park said.

Make grits, risotto or any grain cooked by the absorption method simply by adding extra liquid and stirring often. The machine has plenty of built-in cushions for the cook: the temperature never gets very high, the surface is nonstick, and everything happens in a kind of slow-motion.

The new-model rice cookers, with digital menus and “fuzzy logic” operation, are actually less flexible than their one-button ancestors. The machines have their own ideas about brown rice, porridge, sushi rice and sometimes more.

It's true. My rice cooker is an old-fashioned one, and I really prefer its versatility.

Comments

[xse99.livejournal.com]

My college roommate/suitemate from Hong Kong had a rice cooker, used it every night. BTW, I'd heard they don't work for brown rice--is that true? Because if they do, I'd seriously consider investing in one.

[r-ness.livejournal.com]

I've never cooked brown rice in my cooker, but once you tweaked the time and perhaps the water proportion a bit, I can't see why it wouldn't work.

This review appears to recommend a specific cooker for brown rice. I have no idea whether that particularly cooker is necessary for cooking or not, but it seems like someone's had success with brown rice.

[xse99.livejournal.com]

Thanks! A bit rich for my blood, but maybe there's something else out there like it.

[sarakate.livejournal.com]

I think you can definitely get a brown-rice-capable rice cooker for less than that, if you're then willing to do some experimentation to find the right ratio of rice to water for your particular cooker. I can make quite decent brown rice (albeit only about 1 cooked cup at a time) in this dinky microwave rice cooker, so I just don't believe it's as challenging as it's sometimes made out to be.

Brown rice needs more water and a longer cook time than white, and it also benefits from some soaking before you start the cooking process, so that the water can penetrate the hull. The last factor is easy to control -- you just let the rice sit in the cooking water for a bit before you actually turn on the machine. How much control you get over the second factor is going to depend on the machine, and the simple ones may actually be better for this, because there the cook time is controlled by the water -- the way they work is that the heating element goes all the way on, and because there's water in the pot, the temperature can't rise above the boiling point of water (more heat energy just goes into making the water boil faster) until the water is exhausted; at that point, the internal temperature starts to rise and a simple thermostat kicks things over to the next setting (either "keep it warm" or "off" depending on features). You can see, then, that with this type of machine the length of the cooking cycle is a direct function of the amount of water -- if you have too little, it'll reach the end while the rice is still underdone, and if you have too much, it'll keep cooking after the rice is finished and turn it into mush, but if you get it just right, it ought to click off just as the rice is perfect. Fancier "fuzzy logic" cookers don't do this all-the-way-on-till-finished thing, but keep constantly adjusting the temperature and moisture -- some of them are reportedly awesome at this, like the Zojirushi 'ness mentioned, and there's a Sanyo that's supposed to be really good also -- but others, not so much. I think if you're not going to be eating rice as an everyday staple, and especially if you don't need fancy timers and so on, going with a simple cooker, and then doing the experimentation to learn exactly the right ratio of water for it, will do you just fine.

As for other features you might look for, let me refer you up the page to the conversation 'ness and I had about the cooker he's got -- as we noted, his has a separate chamber with water in it, outside the cooking chamber with water and rice, and this keeps the bottom of the pan from being in direct contact with the heating element, so the rice at the very bottom of the pan doesn't scorch. With the longer cook time that brown rice needs already, I think this feature becomes even more desirable. Also, I've read a bunch of reviews (and this really nice review-of-reviews) that gripe about glass lids, and I note that the cooker 'ness has and likes doesn't have one. Watching rice cook isn't exciting, and if you've got your water ratio right, you don't need to watch it to see whether it's done, so I'd forgo the glass lid.

Just in case you're curious, here's what I change to cook brown rice versus white in my dinky cooker: it's got internal markings for white rice and water, and the cook time is 5.5 minutes for my microwave's power level with white; for brown, I fill it 1/4" less full with brown rice, and then add water to 1/2" above the water mark (as much as I can get away with without making it boil over -- this is why I reduce the rice, to give more margin). I do this the night before, and set the cooker with the rice and water into the microwave, so I've got a nice long soak time, and then when my alarm goes off, I wander out to the kitchen and start it cooking for 8 minutes, and go have my shower. By the time I'm done, it's cooked and rested and ready to go into bento boxes or be eaten for breakfast.

[xse99.livejournal.com]

wow, thanks for the detail!

[xse99.livejournal.com]

THanks! That's good to know.