vendredi 5 septembre 2008

Dorm Cooking: Rice Cookers

I refuse to go to dining halls. Therefore I've been cooking in my room. Or using my meal plan at Taco Bell (rarely) and that store in Bragaw (or whatever that building in front of Lee is). So what have I learned so far?

The rice cooker is very VERY versatile. I've made mashed potatoes, steamed vegetables, cooked rice, and cooked meat in it. And attempted to make HK-style milk tea (which involves boiling the life out of a mixture of black tea leaves, contrary to the 'rules' of tea brewing). All with a rice cooker. And I'm not talking about a fancy and costly Zojirushi either. I'm talking about some cheap rice cooker with two functions: 'cook' and 'warm.' An 'off' button would be pretty nice too but you could always unplug that appliance after each use (saves a bit of energy too!) Granted, mine is a bit fancier, having these buttons: off, warm, white rice, brown rice, steam cook, and delay timer. Let's break it down even further:

OFF: I like this button. I really do. I'd rather not bend over and touch that dusty plug every time I finished. I'm lazy like that (however, pickiness in food > laziness). Though not necessary if you're going to unplug it anyways.

WARM: Incredibly useful. See, earlier I made mashed potatoes and then left for class. When I came back, the mashed potatoes were still warm but NOT burnt. If I left it at one of the cooking functions, I think I'd return to a crusty bottom. I think this is a must.

WHITE RICE: Rice. I live on this stuff. Not a fan of brown rice at all, so all I eat is white rice. Sometimes black rice but that's for dessert. And I don't make it. My brother knows how to though. I think the dessert I'm thinking about is Thai. Also a must (two-functioners simply call this 'cook').

BROWN RICE: Uh. No idea what this does. I never used it. All I know is that brown rice requires a longer cooking time. And that it just has a nasty texture. Sure, it's healthier and college students should be eating well. But no. No brown rice for me. No. No. NO. By the way, ever tried sushi made from brown rice? It's the nastiest thing ever.

STEAM COOK: I don't steam things often. I could though. But I just don't have foods that need to be steamed. Yet. But I've steamed some vegetables before. But I'm a vegetable boiler. Sure, it's 'unhealthier' or something. But I don't care. You think I care? I just want good food. Anyways, this function has been incredibly useful for me. But it isn't necessary. Why? You could do the same thing with a two-function rice cooker. How? Just fill the container with a lot of water and press cook. However, don't completely close the lid. You can "close" the lid but not allowing it to completely close, which can be done by either propping it open by jamming/obstructing it with a semi-sacrificial chopstick or something [preferably] clean. Or you can leave it wide open like a game of Hungry Hungry Hippos where the hippos have a case of lock-jaw. Though you're going to lose a lot more water that way, resulting in you having to return every so often to refill the reservoir. But the methods I mentioned cause the dual-functioned rice cookers to not stop cooking. Now back to my rice cooker. Why do I like this function? Because I lose less water that way! And less of the water dripping everywhere (yay for condensation). And despite the name, I can do more than just steam: I can BOIL stuff! Yes, the dual-functioners can do this too with the unclosed-lid methods. And yes, they would do that too if you completely closed the lid, but... I don't think it'll stay on 'cook' mode as long before jumping to the warming mode.

DELAY TIMER: Uh, never used that button. But I'm thinking it's like those sleeper functions on music players, only backwards. I don't think you would want to soak white rice before cooking it though. Unless you want what I think would result in a congee-like rice. Eew. But if it didn't aversely affect rice, I guess it would be pretty useful to use this function so that you'd get freshly cooked rice right when you wake up without having to wake up approximately thirty minutes earlier to prepare it. Eh, I'd rather cook what I want and then keep it on the warming mode.


For some reason though, after a while on warming mode, my rice cooker makes my rice overly soggy on one part and chew-resistant on another part. I know probably all rice cookers do this but the one I have at home takes a good while before that happens. But mine here does it much faster. And the one at home is a dualist. Therefore, more buttons does NOT necessarily equal better cooker.

And I just made mashed potatoes. They're surprisingly good. Yum.

Oh, and rice cookers have a significantly less chance of setting off sprinklers. But don't put a rice cooker right under one as a precaution. I'm sure it would actually set it off if you did anyways.

But to give the Zojirushi rice cookers some credit, you can cook bread in it. Deliciously incredible bread. I have yet to do that in my own rice cookers (which are of the Aroma brand). What's this bread, you ask? Watch some 'Yakitate!! Japan.' HAHAHAHAHAHA...or look it up online somewhere.

-TW

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