all you need is a smaller size saucepan with a well fitting lid!
for white rice - 1 cup or rice to 1 1/2 cups of water, into pot on medium heat until it comes to the boil, then pop on the lid, turn down the heat to low and set a timer for 15 minutes. Let it sit for 5 minutes without peeking or poking, and then its ready to serve.
For brown rice its just the same, but 25 minutes cooking time.
Please check your weight conversions though, Australian cups differ in size to US and UK cups
NO!
My roomie used to have a rice cooker but since I've moved I've gotten along just fine without one-- I think it's useful if you want to free up burner space (if you have the extra kitchen space, which I certainly do not) and it can be a convenient way to store unused rice (but then, so is a pot with a lid). I've found that a slightly less than 1:2 ratio of rice to water, some salt, and some fat (butter or oil) on the stove is fine and easy. The trick is to leave it alone!
That's so funny, CookOnTheFly, I have Japanese neighbors who don't like my rice, because I don't do the rinsing and soaking, I assume. I lived in a rural area of the Philippines for 1 1/2 years, and never met anyone with a rice cooker! It was always an aluminum pot over the fire.
I guess the big question here, for chardrucks, is how often do you plan on cooking rice?
After living in Japan for a year, spending a number of years there sporadically for work and living in Hawaii for 15 years, I can only use a rice cooker. Any other method of cooking rice to me is blasphemy. I wash the rice in a colander until the water runs clear and then dump the rice into the cooker. Put in 1 1/2 times the amount of water to rice and soak for an hour - minimum. Then all I do is push the cook button and I'm on my way. I can easily make extra for fried rice the next day, or at the end of the process add some frozen baby peas for a colorful addition. You can cook quinoa in the rice cooker, and even though I don't have a brown rice feature on mine it does just fine. I swear by Zojirushi, as its a premier brand. My rice cooker will also keep rice warm and ready to eat for 24 hours. Great if you want to transition from a Sunday dinner to a Monday dinner with limited time.
I owned a tiny rice cooker about 10 years ago, but just found it frustrating. 95% of the rice I make is brown rice, and unless the thing has a setting for that, it doesn't do it right. I use the stovetop (you do have to have the right size of pan for the amount of rice), or the oven, like this recipe from Alton Brown:
Ingredients
1 1/2 cups brown rice, medium or short grain
2 1/2 cups water
1 tablespoon unsalted butter
1 teaspoon kosher salt
Directions
Preheat the oven to 375 degrees F.
Place the rice into an 8-inch square glass baking dish.
Bring the water, butter, and salt just to a boil in a kettle or covered saucepan. Once the water boils, pour it over the rice, stir to combine, and cover the dish tightly with heavy-duty aluminum foil. Bake on the middle rack of the oven for 1 hour.
After 1 hour, remove cover and fluff the rice with a fork. Serve immediately.
@mrslarkin: Momofuku Steamed Pork Belly Buns in it. oh. my. god.
I did a slight variation of that the other week as a mini burger. Using the quick pickle recipe for those.
But I used one chicken breast..ground in a mini-prep for two servings. With lime juice, soy, and green onions.
Served on English Muffin buns. With wasabi mayo.
Better or not, get the rice cooker. i got mine on the cheap for like 3 bucks at the church tag sale. Aroma is the name. it cooks rice AND steams stuff too. i recently did Momofuku Steamed Pork Belly Buns in it. oh. my. god.
I got a rice cooker one year after we'd been spending a lot of time in Japan. I felt a little silly, particularly because I got an expensive fuzzy logic model. Well, I have loved it. In the years that I had a young family and had to drive all over the place to after school activities, I could set up the rice cooker beforehand and know that, whatever else I managed to do for dinner, at least we could anchor it with rice. My model had no special brown rice setting, but I've used it for all types of rice--long-grained, short, brown, red, white, mixes, and also for wild rice, which, of course, isn't really a rice at all. It does not take up counter space, as it only comes out to cook rice, and as Sam1148 said, it frees up burner space on the stove. Even the price doesn't bother me so much anymore. When I think back to all the Revereware pots my mother burned while making rice, I don't think I've done so badly.
Hi, follow-up to my first comment: Cooking something like rice is a joy. Perhaps you've noticed that most of your friends who are overweight do not cook. Doing the work, and preparing what YOU want to eat is the thing. But.of course, it would take a lot of rice to make one overweight.
I find that making one dish is Heaven, but preparing 3 or 4 or 5 or more dishes, all of which need to come to table in an organized way is an exercise in planning and space saving. But you can make rice in the oven, on the stovetop, probably even in the driveway with a few pieces of kindling, wherever there is room. I suggest you try all these methods, AND THE MICROWAVE, before succumbing to a new appliance. Buy yourself a nice suite.
Nope, all it takes is 1 cup of rice to 3 cups of water & 20 min in a microwave!
Yes if you're planning to cook for 10 people in one shot OR eat rice with every meal, then maybe.
I love rice cookers. They free up a burner and are set it and forget it. (not really tho..sometimes you do have to watch them and add more water until you get feel of the cooker and what rice your using).
How much rice to do you make? How many people do you feed?
I find the smaller ones are just fine for 2-4 people.
Cost: I have a fuzzy logic one now. I actually preferred my trusty Panasonic one that finally died after 20 years. Rival Makes good one button ones..cheap. I'm going to replace my fuzzy logic one with that after it gets old.
The one button ones do their job well..and I rarely use the other features. And the fuzzy logic ones (or at least my model) doesn't do steaming for stacking a basket on top for steaming veggies, or dim sum. I miss that.
The biggest mistake I see people making is getting a huge one or an overly fancy one...those tend to get put under the counter and rarely used. Just too big for most households that aren't eating tons of rice each day. A simple one button..4-6 cup one is just the right size for 2 people. (Cups in the rice cooker are smaller than USA cups)
They're a great way to save energy and free up a burner on the stove...there's a reason that most Asians have them in their households.
Rodger Ebert has a nice book: The Pot and How to Use It. That outline simple rice cookers selection and basic uses. It's a great starting point.
I'm with Bugbitten on the idea of not needing another item on the counter. I use Sara Moultan's method that she learned at La Tulipe. Treat rice like pasta. Boil the amount of rice desired in a copious amount of water for 17 minutes or so. Drain well, return to the pot and add salt, pepper and butter. No worries!
Necessary? Rice would never have become the world's most used grain (or nearly) if it wasn't simple to prepare. A pot, a heat source, water, pinch or so of salt: you don't need more. I do use a rice cooker sometimes to make it a mindless process, but just as often cook it stovetop. There's a recent recipe with an oven cooking process which came out well (with black quinoa). So you have options, whatever fits your kitchen and meal -- try them all. If you want the best, I understand that Zorushi (check that name!) is the one. I'd like one someday...
This topic came up a while back, maybe this will help:
http://www.food52.com/foodpickle/970-does-anyone-out-there-use-a-rice-cooker-i-ve-mastered-many-things-in-the-kitchen-but-simple-rice-e
I know it's foodie blasphemy, but I like to do rice in the world's most despised cooker: the microwave. Ruth Reichl puts forth a great basmati example in the Gourmet cookbook. Many rice packages have recipes that work in the microwave. Don't try to halve any of these recipes, because they will fail.
15 Comments
for white rice - 1 cup or rice to 1 1/2 cups of water, into pot on medium heat until it comes to the boil, then pop on the lid, turn down the heat to low and set a timer for 15 minutes. Let it sit for 5 minutes without peeking or poking, and then its ready to serve.
For brown rice its just the same, but 25 minutes cooking time.
Please check your weight conversions though, Australian cups differ in size to US and UK cups
My roomie used to have a rice cooker but since I've moved I've gotten along just fine without one-- I think it's useful if you want to free up burner space (if you have the extra kitchen space, which I certainly do not) and it can be a convenient way to store unused rice (but then, so is a pot with a lid). I've found that a slightly less than 1:2 ratio of rice to water, some salt, and some fat (butter or oil) on the stove is fine and easy. The trick is to leave it alone!
I guess the big question here, for chardrucks, is how often do you plan on cooking rice?
Ingredients
1 1/2 cups brown rice, medium or short grain
2 1/2 cups water
1 tablespoon unsalted butter
1 teaspoon kosher salt
Directions
Preheat the oven to 375 degrees F.
Place the rice into an 8-inch square glass baking dish.
Bring the water, butter, and salt just to a boil in a kettle or covered saucepan. Once the water boils, pour it over the rice, stir to combine, and cover the dish tightly with heavy-duty aluminum foil. Bake on the middle rack of the oven for 1 hour.
After 1 hour, remove cover and fluff the rice with a fork. Serve immediately.
I did a slight variation of that the other week as a mini burger. Using the quick pickle recipe for those.
But I used one chicken breast..ground in a mini-prep for two servings. With lime juice, soy, and green onions.
Served on English Muffin buns. With wasabi mayo.
I find that making one dish is Heaven, but preparing 3 or 4 or 5 or more dishes, all of which need to come to table in an organized way is an exercise in planning and space saving. But you can make rice in the oven, on the stovetop, probably even in the driveway with a few pieces of kindling, wherever there is room. I suggest you try all these methods, AND THE MICROWAVE, before succumbing to a new appliance. Buy yourself a nice suite.
Yes if you're planning to cook for 10 people in one shot OR eat rice with every meal, then maybe.
How much rice to do you make? How many people do you feed?
I find the smaller ones are just fine for 2-4 people.
Cost: I have a fuzzy logic one now. I actually preferred my trusty Panasonic one that finally died after 20 years. Rival Makes good one button ones..cheap. I'm going to replace my fuzzy logic one with that after it gets old.
The one button ones do their job well..and I rarely use the other features. And the fuzzy logic ones (or at least my model) doesn't do steaming for stacking a basket on top for steaming veggies, or dim sum. I miss that.
The biggest mistake I see people making is getting a huge one or an overly fancy one...those tend to get put under the counter and rarely used. Just too big for most households that aren't eating tons of rice each day. A simple one button..4-6 cup one is just the right size for 2 people. (Cups in the rice cooker are smaller than USA cups)
They're a great way to save energy and free up a burner on the stove...there's a reason that most Asians have them in their households.
Rodger Ebert has a nice book: The Pot and How to Use It. That outline simple rice cookers selection and basic uses. It's a great starting point.
http://www.food52.com/foodpickle/970-does-anyone-out-there-use-a-rice-cooker-i-ve-mastered-many-things-in-the-kitchen-but-simple-rice-e
Why buy another counterspace-wasting appliance?