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

[r-ness.livejournal.com]

Also, the motherlode of Pocky -- I now have flavors I can't even identify

Isn't that amazing? "Men's Pocky" is the one that really makes bedfull_o_books laugh.

I've never even heard of Tiger-brand rice cookers.

$50 isn't bad, particularly including shipping. We got ours for around $30, if memory serves, but that was years ago. That model of Tatung is dead-simple, and should last forever. Make sure you either keep the little measuring cup or carefully figure out what the volume measures are (on both the cup and the rice pot), because I personally am sunk for proportions if I can't find the thing. Fortunately we have two, so we can usually find at least one of the measuring cups.

I also find that perforated steamer platform very useful for steam-heating dumplings and buns.

[sarakate.livejournal.com]

Yeah, you have to laugh at that one. The one that stumped me for a long time was Gokuboso, until I figured out that just meant "skinny." The new ones I found this time which I hadn't found before were blueberry and marron, which apparently means "chestnut" -- both yum -- and then everything I've ever seen before anywhere, all in one spot. Handy! Also, the Lotte versions (I like the mini almond crunch ones of these -- they're about half as long, so they pack into lunches nicely), and Pretz. I noted that they have beer-flavored Pretz, which strikes me as remarkably efficient.

I just looked up more info about Tiger; apparently they're big in Japan. The H Mart carries a bunch of lunch jars and stuff from them also.

Thanks so much for your advice on this! It's good to know that's a reasonable price; it seemed in the right ballpark to me, but it's always good to sanity-check these things! And yeah, I'll take the warning about the measuring cup to heart -- if I'm smart, I'll actually WRITE DOWN the information, in the manual or something, so that when I both lose the cup and forget what the measurement was, I won't be doomed.