For most of my life, I didn't think much of rice cookers. At home I used whatever we had. In France, I didn't even use one. My Korean roomie taught me to cook rice on the stove. If you didn't watch it, it tended to spew all over the splace and leave sticky residue everywhere, but at the time it didn't seem too bad.
My senior year, I had one of these guys:
I think I got it for $20 at Walgreens. It has one button ("on"), and it made pretty decent rice. Or so I thought.
My mom and I walk into my new apartment and there's one of these guys sitting on the counter:
Have you ever seen such a decked out rice cooker before? I was only bemused by the multitude of buttons, and mind you, my laptop could probably eat your laptop (I'm not averse to technology). My mother, on the other hand, only recently learned how to text on a cellphone, but she somehow got the thing to work, and now she's completely in love with this thing. I guess she speaks fluent rice cooker. According to her, "the rice tastes different! It's amazing!"
Keep in mind, we're the family that has a separate refrigerator just for kimche. Quite like a wine cooker, yes. The two are comparable.
I've been making lunches all year now, and I had been asking her about bringing one of the rice cookers from home with me, but she figured why not just buy a nice one while I'm here. So I went to store and found one that's even better (mainly because it's made in Korea):
Rice is cooking now! Stay tuned for my delicious rice stories.
Okay, rice cookers confused me so much when I first saw one...kind of like hot water heaters...why not just use the stove or microwave? Maybe basmati cooks easier than East Asian rices? So what else can a fancy rice cooker do beside cook rice and steam stuff?
ReplyDeleteWith that, you will fail to make cajun style rice. Like mine. That's a good thing.
ReplyDeletePriya: it's the texture! It doesn't get soggy and stays chewy. I think Korean rice is a bit tougher than basmati too. Also, it doesn't overflow like stovetop.
ReplyDeleteRobin: agreeeeed.