
Rice Cooker Hacks - The Ebert Way - rohin
http://priceonomics.com/rice-cookers/
======
patio11
_Rice Cooker Bread (we think?) for a Snack_

I'll take the liberty of reading the screen for you: Yes, it is bread. Bread
in Japanese is a loanword from Portuguese: pan. Japanese bread? Ja-pan. _Get
it?_ (This comes from the genre of puns called oyaji gyagu -- "jokes only
considered funny by crusty old men.")

~~~
lhorie
Minor nitpick: bread in portuguese = pão, bread in spanish = pan

~~~
patio11
While you're correct, it is historically a loanword from Portuguese, not from
Spanish. You can verify this in your favorite 国語辞典 if you want to. Like many
loanwords, the pronunciation got corrupted a bit. (An example in the other
direction: Godzilla, which you'd have to take several stabs at before a
Japanese person guessed you meant _gojira_.)

~~~
lhorie
sorry, I don't have japanese installed. What's the romaji for the word you
used after "favorite"?

~~~
patio11
_kokugo jiten_ \-- a Japanese language dictionary

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mattmaroon
Posts like this take the unfortunate (and very American) view of food as fuel,
an absolute necessity that you have to get out of the way as cheaply and
efficiently as possible. Good food, in that view, is anything where the taste
isn't painful.

As a foodie, this pains me to see. You cannot cook anything good in a rice
maker anymore than you can a microwave except, of course, rice. You cannot
cook anything good with a bouillon cube (at bare minimum, buy some decent
frozen stock from your local soup store) regardless of technique. Good food to
me is worth the time it takes to make.

On the other hand, I can understand why people choose to optimize other parts
of their life in this way. I constantly remind myself that not everyone wants
to spend their Sunday making a quiche and an heirloom bean soup to eat for
breakfast and lunch all week. Not everyone wants to roast a chicken every
week, save the carcasses, then make a stock once a month. That's fine.

But I think everyone should experience it before settling for a life of rice-
cooker meals.

~~~
polyfractal
Besides, I'd rather "cook" in a crockpot than a rice cooker. More versatile,
same style of "dump everything in" recipe. You can also make a mean bbq pulled
pork with just a crockpot and a hunk of meat.

I think everyone should save chicken bones for stock. They keep in the freezer
forever, so even if you don't roast chicken often there's really no excuse not
to save it. Homemade stock is so much better than the stuff in cans.

~~~
ssharp
> Homemade stock is so much better than the stuff in cans.

I think it took about three books (Kitchen Confidential and two cookbooks)
telling me how much stock from scratch can effect your recipes before it sunk
in enough for me to actually do it.

Even if I'm in a pinch and have to used canned or boxed stock, I still try to
keep some frozen bones and fresh mirepoix veggies around to infuse some extra
flavor.

~~~
mattmaroon
Out of curiosity, which cookbooks?

I used to make a soup every time my parents came over because they loved it
that used a lot of chicken stock. Eventually I gave them the recipe and they'd
make it at home with bouillon cubes and then call me and ask me why it wasn't
as good. To this day they still haven't tried just making their own stock, but
I did eventually get them to try the liquid stuff that comes from the store,
which is a tad too salty usually but still much better than cubes.

~~~
cdcarter
It's also good practice to always buy unsalted or low salt stock (same with
butter!) so you can control the salt intake yourself. And you'll look
healthier at the check out!

~~~
Afton
The scientific consensus on salt seems to be changing. I think that current
thinking is that salt is unlikely to be a major influence on health, all other
factors being equal.

~~~
dingfeng_quek
It's not changing.

There's a lot of evidence that ordinary healthy humans need a particular
amount of salt each day (adjusted for activity, age, etc), with not much
variation. There's some epidemiological studies that show that most humans do
end up consuming that amount of salt - i.e. the physiological->psychological
feedback loop that triggers the impulse to eat salty things is well-
controlled.

Eating both too little and too much salt can lead to very major health
problems.

Popular fads on salt in diet changes all the time though; luckily that can't
stop our bodies (unlike problems with anorexics; junk food; sugars; etc)

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deerpig
It would seem that everyone here has ignored how many different ways that rice
cookers are used in the far east.

It's very common to put a whole chicken or salted duck egg (in the shell) in
with the rice when it cooks, by the time the rice is done you have a hard
boiled egg.

Then, you put a wire stand on top of the rice and a shallow metal dish on the
stand, and put in some meat, and some vegetables and you have a whole meal.

If you don't have access to any other way, rice cookers are not half bad at
popping popcorn (though if I have a choice I do it in a wok).

I have recently moved from Thailand to Cambodia and am still waiting (four
months now) to move my things to Cambodia, but I have a rice cooker.

So I still use the rice cooker every morning to make ramen every morning. I
buy some ground pork and bean sprouts in the wet market down the street, first
boil the water, then add the meat, and then add the soup mix and bean sprouts.

Many cheap rice cookers include a steaming rack which you fit above the bowl.
I use this all the time to cook frozen dim sum -- or a steamed version of the
fritata that was mentioned in the article.

As some of the other posts mentioned, it would be nice if there was a low heat
setting so it could double as a crock pot, but then, there is a reason that
rice cooker pots are made from aluminium and crock pots are a thick ceramic.

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ssharp
What are the benefits of cooking stuff in a rice cooker versus a crock pot?
Crock pots are also cheap and (I'm guessing) have a larger capacity, further
"optimizing" your time. They usually have two heat settings as well and you
can stick the lid on the food and stick the crock right in the fridge for
leftovers. I'm sure they both produce equally boring food. Is the rice cooker
faster or something?

~~~
rizzom5000
I think it's because many people who have a rice cooker don't have or want a
crockpot. Ebert's rice cooker recipes are probably directed primarily toward
this group.

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tptacek
_The downside is that cooking in a rice cooker is a low fidelity way of
cooking._

If you invest in a PID controller (Auber Instruments sells a particularly
well-known line of them), you can make your rice cooker the highest-fidelity
cooking appliance in your kitchen. The PID controller reads the temperature in
the cooker with a thermocouple probe and strobes the power to the cooker to
maintain a precise temperature, resulting in a temperature-controlled water
bath.

Temperature-controlled water bath cooking ("low temp" cooking, or,
inaccurately, "sous vide" cooking) is the future of the modern kitchen. Most
proteins, most starches, and many vegetables benefit from it, it's almost as
easy to execute as Ebert's rice cooker meals, and has the huge advantage of
taking precise timing out of the equation; most low-temp preparations can be
started in the morning and plated when you get back from work, like slow-
cooker meals.

If you're remotely interested in cooking, low-temp cooking is about the
nerdiest way you can go about it, and the results really are pretty
spectacular: you can get perfect custard-texture egg yolks (not to mention
reliably perfect custards of all sorts), an absolutely perfect end-to-end
medium rare steak, reliably perfect pork chops, a week's worth of perfect
chicken breasts for cold prep (sandwiches and salads) or last-minute pasta
dishes, perfect glazed root vegetables --- I keep using the word "perfect"
because when you have a small computer making sure your food never goes over
or under its ideal target finish temperature by more than a degree or so,
that's what you end up with.

I have a Polyscience circulator now, but I used to use a Black & Decker rice
cooker and an Auber PID controller, and while there are benefits to the
professional circulator (I'm pretty sure I can circulate a bathtub and cook a
whole pig in it if I really wanted to), pretty much any DIY plan you find on
the Internet will do just fine; you can even try what Serious Eats recommends
and do your first couple of experiments with a beer cooler.

Also, regarding this particular meal: try chicken thighs instead of chicken
breasts. Chicken breasts are particularly expensive (everyone wants them), but
chicken thighs are more delicious, more forgiving of time/temperature
variation, and in long-cooking applications like this, all the downsides
(fattiness and toughness) are mitigated by the cook time.

If you're just now thinking about starting to cook instead of going out every
night, and you don't want to go too nuts with it, I'd recommend a crock pot /
slow cooker. They're not sexy, but wow are they ever useful. You can buy a
Costco block of chicken thighs and chuck them in your freezer, and then each
morning just open one package of them into your slow cooker with an onion and
some garlic, salt, and pepper. Run on "slow" all day. Done. Same thing with
any cheap chuck cut of beef, or with pork shoulder. Everyone I talk to that
"discovers" the slow cooker falls in love with it.

~~~
dxbydt
Curious - what are the energy costs for running this rice cooker for a whole
hour...or this crockpot sous vide stuff for hours at a time, whole day
even...is that a concern at all ? Personally I've never cooked anything beyond
10-15 minutes. I don't eat rice, so never looked into these things. Maybe I'm
missing out on a whole parallel universe of foodies.

~~~
rogerbinns
I have an Aroma 10 "cup" model that is about a decade old. Plugged it into a
Kill-a-Watt.

It consumes 27W in warming mode and 619W in cooking mode.

I also have a 4 year old Crockpot slow cooker (8 "quart" IIRC) which consumes
47W in warm, 160W in low and 206W in high.

Edit: I just made something as substantially similar as their chicken & rice
dish as I could and it also took 45 minutes and 0.4kWh. That works out at 5c
in electricity costs (or 9c when taking into account my California marginal
kWh costs). Not counted are the costs in water and electricity to wash the
container after use which are pretty negligible as it is non-stick and just
needs a mild clean/wipe. I can also confirm that power use did not change
during the whole cooking process.

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guylhem
A rice cooker is nice, but perfecting the art of microwaving is more
efficient.

With my small microwave :

Frozen raw broccoli in the microwave for 2 minutes (then let it cool down and
melt the remaining ice for 3 minutes) = crispy broccoli at room temperature.

Put rice in a bowl, with more water than rice, microwave for 4 minutes and let
it cool down for 2 minutes = rice the way I love it (not over cooked). Goes
fine with mustard tuna or other canned fish if you love sauce : open the can,
add the rice- you're done.

Put cheap frozen minced meat (I insist on cheap - because it usually has more
fat, and meat without enough fat won't do good in a microwave) for 3 minutes
and a half : it will roast in its own grease, leaving the inside red (I love
that- if you dont, let the frozen meat unfreeze and cook for less time).
Discard the excess grease.

It now usually takes me 10 to prepare a meal. Can't beat that efficiency,
except by adding milk to cornflakes!

~~~
Luyt
A quick meal (10 minutes preparation time) I eat about three times a week.
It's highly parallelized:

\- chop up mixed vegetables and put in bowl, cover with lid, place in
microwave, set it for 4 minutes.

\- put a pan on the stove with some olive oil in it

\- pour sweet soy sauce over some fish filet, rub it in, cut in pieces,
sprinkle ginger powder over it

\- place fish pieces in pan

\- chop some parsley or cilantro

\- microwave should be finished by now - let the veggies rest for two minutes
(lid still on)

\- turn the fish pieces

\- fill a glass of wine ;-)

\- put fish on top of veggies, put parsley/cilantro on top of that

\- have a nice meal!

~~~
guylhem
I am not really a big fan of stoves, but it looks great- I might try it next
week!

Thanks :-)

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pm90
I just read a comment about not being able to make "anything but rice" on a
rice cooker. That is certainly true, but this variety is _extremely_ large.
Just google 'biryani', an Indian dish that is made of an aromatic combination
of rice and veggies/meat.

Since most HN readers are likely to be non-Indians, I would just like to point
out: its incredibly easy to make delicious Indian food, and its incredibly
easy to make biryani on a rice cooker. The spices are what make Indian food
delicious, and these come packaged in small packets at any Indian store (Some
even have recipes on the back). Look at a few recipes, try them out and
surprise your gf with your amazing cooking skills :)

~~~
dingfeng_quek
Must point out that the rice is different too. Bryani is not as nice with
other rice shapes and textures.

~~~
pm90
Yes, that's true! It does goes best with the 'Basmati' type of rice

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cocoflunchy
I am trying this right now.

A few potatoes + one onion + some chicken + spices + 1 and 1/2 cup of water
are cooking in the rice cooker.

I'll let you know how it was! (My only concern is with the amount of water)

~~~
cocoflunchy
Ok, it was good! Not amazing, but very eatable. A little too dry, I will add
more water next time. The potatoes were perfectly cooked.

Overall positive experience, all I had to do is cut everything into little
bits and throw them in the cooker.

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geargrinder
I can't get past the misspelled "Rogert" in all the call-outs.

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greenmountin
I have a Zojirushi that I use from time to time to make rice, and have been
experimenting with more complete one-pot meals. I can steam several types of
vegetables in the last 13 minutes of operation [snow peas, asparagus,
broccoli, brussels sprouts, etc] in addition to the easiest "sous vide"-style
eggs you'll ever have [trick: cook it whole]. I think fish is possible too,
but only have 13 minutes' warning is a little rough.

The kicker is that it's a breeze to clean up, I don't even have to use soap
and water. It makes a great meal as long as you can go without meat for a day.
It also cooks quinoa and can be programmed to have steel cut oats ready for
you when you wake up. It would be fascinating to hack it to see if I could
recover its cooking rules, or get an early signal about projected time
remaining, and I am surprise no one has put this info on the web yet.

~~~
jseliger
>I have a Zojirushi that I use from time to time to make rice, and have been
experimenting with more complete one-pot meals.

That's funny, I just got one in order to replace a random $15 rice cooker.
Have you written more extensively about your experience elsewhere? And when
you say, "steam several types of vegetables in the last 13 minutes," does that
mean you cook rice, then add the vegetables with 13 minutes to go? Or does it
mean something else?

~~~
greenmountin
Yes, that's correct. I have the ZCC55 Neurofuzzy. Cooking with "1" cup of rice
(roughly for one person), I put in vegetables and eggs at roughly the 13
minute warning, when it knows how long it will take to finish. I have logged
in a spreadsheet about 15 meals, where I weigh the eggs and veggies, note how
cooked they are etc, but it's not quite presentable.

Basic recipe: 2 uncracked large eggs (130g), cut asparagus (130g). Both washed
and placed in with minimal steam loss at 13m. Remove immediately at finish
(move eggs directly to cold water, or they will scald you as you try to open
them).

Eggs are cheap! You can afford to experiment with them like this. Open the
first ones onto an empty plate; cook a little more in the skillet if you
undercook. 2 Jumbos are just about at the limit of the 13m warning. I aim for
liquid yellow and 85% "solid" white. Hard-boiled eggs aren't as fun. Scrape
your meal out of the cooker, turn it off, and LEAVE THE LID OPEN. It dries out
the remnants so they just slide off the teflon.

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bravura
I love this recipe for a one-dish-meal in a rice-cooker:

White Chicken Chili

[http://www.food.com/recipe/crock-pot-white-chicken-
chili-114...](http://www.food.com/recipe/crock-pot-white-chicken-chili-114789)

It's like someone decided that chili was too colorful, and stripped it of all
tones. It's also delicious.

Beware of leaving your rice cooker on for hours or days. Although it's sealed
and hot (and presumably thus impenetrable to bacteria), some rice cookers are
not suited for being left on for too long, and the heating unit will burn.
This is regrettable, because I'd love to constantly have a continuous pot of
this dish available at a moment's notice.

I am still looking for that magic multi-day rice cooker.

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mamoswined
I learned about cooking with a rice cooker from living in crappy grad student
housing, where real cooking appliances were forbidden and no one had a
kitchen. I thought I was stuck with a microwave. Thank goodness for the Asian
grad students I met who showed me how they made delicious tasty meals with
their rice cookers. I would note that please do buy one with an attached
steamer because it's a really nice bonus for steaming meat/fish/vegetables.

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keeptrying
Whats the difference between a rice cooker and slow cooker?

~~~
ChuckMcM
I don't know if there is a generally accepted definition of 'rice cooker' and
'slow cooker', I have one of each in my house and the difference in those two
units is that the slow cooker uses a timer and low heat, the rice cooker
always heats to 100 C until the pot temperature starts going up above 100C and
then switches to 50C.

~~~
keeptrying
It sounds to me (cooking noob) that I can cook things faster in hte rice
cooker? Instead of 4 hours of cooking in the slow cooker ... I could just cook
it in 45 minutes with the rice cookers?

Is this right?

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callmeed
Technically, how different is a rice cooker from a slow cooker (aka crock
pot)?

I have a rice cooker but I use my slow cooker[1] a lot more. It's especially
awesome for cooking steel cut oatmeal. Start it the night before and wake up
to oatmeal with all sorts of fruit in it.

I personally think a slow cooker is more useful–and they're not really more
expensive. But maybe they're just the same.

~~~
dingfeng_quek
Temperature:

\- Rice cooker: Cooks until water evaporates/absorbs, then warms \- Crock pot:
Cooks at a steady temperature, usually for items immersed in a liquid (for
water, that's generally around boiling temperature), without evaporating the
liquid. In general, more convenient to keep the liquid at a fixed temperature.
\- Crock pot (Expensive ones): Can set specific temperature (instead of just
boiling or low/high)

Evaporation:

\- Crock pot: Tends to minimize it, for long periods of cooking items in
liquid

\- Rice cooker: Minimizing evaporation not a concern/engineering-constraint

Insulation (insulation of heat in total; not about ergonomics):

\- Crock pot: Generally better insulation/less-heat-loss, as it is used for
long periods of cooking

\- Rice cooker: Insulation a much lesser concern as expected period of use is
smaller

\- Insulation affects energy consumption

Pot material:

\- Crock pot: offers a variety of pot material

\- Rice cooker: generally metal (sometimes with coating)

\- Affects what leeches into the food

\- Insulation characteristics can be better or worse (energy consumption)

\- Cleaning costs (weight, handling, sticking)

\- Heat distribution across the food (fine detail that isn't relevant to
someone who asks this)

\- Retention of flavours/substances on pot surface and in pot (probably fine
detail as well)

\- Reactions with food (fine detail)

Cost:

\- About the same cost for the same size and quality (similar components:
thermostat + feedback circuit + heating element + pot + insulation)

\- Rice cookers are a bit simpler because it has only 1 temperature setting
(something set a bit above boiling point of water) => simpler = cheaper

\- Rice cookers are simpler because they do not need to minimize evaporation
=> simpler = cheaper

\- Rice cookers are simpler because they have lower priorities on insulation
=> simpler = cheaper

If you cook soup/stew overnight with a rice cooker, you'll need to start with
a lot of excess water, and end up with much higher electricity bills.

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mscarborough
Get a pressure cooker, you don't have to 'hack' a rice cooker. And the bonus
is, you have more predictable cook times.

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johnwatson11218
I just got into this a few months ago and it is amazing. my favorite is steel
cut oats. I spray the inside with Pam skip any butter or oil. steamed veggies
in the tray with brown rice is so healthy. The oats cook much faster this way
and clean up is a breeze.

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jjm
I've been doing this for years, I'm glad that the word is out. For soup the
cooker is great, of which I make large amounts of it that I freeze for later
in the week.

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joshchan
But Soylent Green is people!

