The Glory of the Rice Cooker
by Jeff Landauer
Going out to a nice restaurant every once in a while for a great meal is definitely part of living the good life. But for every day calorie consumption there is little to rival the glory of a rice cooker. My standard of value for a good home cooked meal is that it's easy to cook, fast, cheap, tastes good, and easy to clean up. And the rice cooker is one appliance that enables meals that fulfill all those standards at once.
First, for those unfamiliar, a rice cooker is an appliance that cooks rice. It consists of an aluminum pot into which you put rice and water, a heating element, and an internal temperature switch. You press "cook" and it cooks. As long as there's water left, the temperature stays around the boiling point of water because all the heat energy is spent turning water into steam. Once all the water has been absorbed into the rice, the temperature starts to rise and the cooker automatically goes into warm mode so that your rice won't get overcooked. You can leave it in warm mode for however long you want. Nothing could be easier.
The rice cooker is fast. The aluminum pot has a very low specific heat so it heats up quickly. In terms of labor time -- the real measure of cooking ease -- cooking rice with the rice cooker consists only of putting in a cup of rice, a cup of water, (multiply by number of people) and pressing "cook". It's also fast to clean because the aluminum pot fits in the dishwasher.
The rice cooker is cheap. I got mine for $30 at Costco, and a 10-pound bag of Basmati rice that lasts for months is a mere $10. Basically free. Sure you could buy regular long grain rice for half as much in a 20-pound bag, but we are talking about living the good life here.
The rice from the rice cooker tastes good. It comes out perfect every time, and Basmati rice tastes way better than rice that you would get with Chinese takeout, for example. So when I get Chinese food, I make my own rice, resulting in a better meal at a lower cost.
But the real glory of the rice cooker is its versatility. First, there are a lot of things that, together with rice, make a good meal. There are chicken nuggets (by the 5-pound bag at Costco, garnished with Peanut sauce), TastyBite Indian and Thai food that takes 2 minutes in the microwave, or as I mentioned Chinese take-out. You can also throw the rice into the Wok with eggs and other ingredients to make fried rice. But that is just scratching the surface. You can pitch all kinds of things into a rice cooker besides water and rice, most importantly Italian sausages, but also bacon bits, Teriyaki sauce, Oregano, eggs, or whatever fun ingredient you think will result in a particularly fun and wicked concoction. You can cook a complete meal in the rice cooker that only takes the time to put the ingredients in and to put the bowl in the dishwasher when you're done.
Unless there is something within a person's nature or nurture that compels them to slave over a hot stove, possessing a rice cooker is a moral imperative!
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