Movie critic Roger Ebert once said famously in a NY Times piece that a rice cooker is the only kitchen gadget you'll ever need. I remember reading this in the Sunday Magazine and being intrigued. I never really got the knack of cooking rice well in a pot, and I had slipped into buying not just the horrible Uncle Ben's but some kind of microwave rice packets; I hope those are no longer sold. And forget brown or wild rice--it just takes forever. So I thought seriously about buying a rice cooker.
When I was at Michigan a group of us got together and hired a sushi chef to come over to one of our apartments and show us how the Japanese householder makes sushi--more on that in a future post. It was eye-opening in many ways, and I remember he cooked Nishiki rice in a Zojirushi rice cooker. It turns out that the Zoji is famous in Japan, they are quite expensive there, and I don't think the company makes anything else but rice cookers. So, when I could afford it, I got a Zojirushi Rice Cooker, model NP-HBC10.
I have to say, I have not been disappointed. It cooks rice of any kind absolutely perfectly, and now we routinely make Texmati Royal Blend brown rice with several meals. But, as Ronco says, that's not all! The machine has a "mixed" function which effectively cooks pretty much anything. One of my favorite tricks on a cold weekend day is to throw in some Zatarain's Dirty Rice mix, some raw ground beef, and some water and set it on "mixed" and go away to do farm chores. When I come back in cold and tired, a perfectly cooked meal is waiting. It's the crock-pot of the 21st century. Better, really, because it keeps the rice hot for days (literally) without burning it or drying it out. This really is one of my favorite appliances.
Ebert may well be right, and I note he has gone on to write at least one rice cooker cookbook. There are numerous rice cooker recipes to be found on the net; one of my favorites is the otherwise quite difficult-to-execute Korean standby Bibim-Bap that was published in the New York Times. If one of you out there has a rice cooker recipe, I'd love to try it.
What kind of footprint is the zojirushi? And if I put rice in in the morning before work (like 6:00 am) will it keep well until dinner time? And how long does the rice typically take? My counter space is at a premium these days! Oh, and does it make any weird sounds that Sax might freak out over?
ReplyDeleteThe footprint is about 8 in x 14 in, but it has a huge permanently attached carry handle, and it is very light, so we keep ours on a pantry shelf and take it out whenever we want rice. You can start rice cooking any time and it will keep it warm, as far as I can tell, forever. My friend Quentin who lives with his Korean family sent me a picture once of his rice maker showing 99 hours of keep-warm time. They make a large quantity of rice and dip into it for pretty much every meal, and they report no drop in quality. I've never taken it past about 36 hours but it's pretty amazing. Lastly the sounds, I wouldn't call them weird, but it does play "Twinkle Twinkle Little Star" when you set it to cook and when it finishes the rice. It uses so-called "fuzzy logic" to cook so it can't give you a time estimate at the beginning, only in the last 10 minutes of cooking does it do a countdown.
DeleteThe Zoji is wonderful! We've kept and eaten rice that stayed more than 100 hours on the "warm" setting, though I was nervous. Certainly good for a day or two. This is the best, and most used, gadget in my kitchen. And Robert's idea with meat and Zatarain's mixed rice in the Zoji is incredible. The kids won't stop eating until it's gone.
ReplyDeleteHey Robert and Mette, I want to say that the zojirushi rice cooker is very costly. But the Best Black and dacker rice cooker. is low price and its service is very good.
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