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Rice cooker recommendations?

Trouble Maker

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Any recommendations, what tech is worth it and not, what brands to look at?

Should we just buy the most expensive Zojirushi we can? Are the better features/tech even worth it or will any of them cook rice well enough?
Their 'best' one at $750 is too expensive if some of their models at about 1/3 of the price do just about the same thing.

We usually eat white jasmine, basmati or brown long grain rice, if that matters at all. Occasionally we'll cook (Japanese) short or sushi rice, but that's less frequent.
 

BolusOfDoom

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Every Asian old lady I know has the Zojirushi model with the purple flowers on it.
 

Keith_W

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I will give you a quick rundown on rice cookers. All non-computerized rice cookers work by boiling the water in the pot and monitoring the temperature. It should be 100C / 212F. Once all the water is gone, the temperature in the pot will start to go up. At this point, the rice cooker turns itself off (or goes into keep warm mode) and your rice is done. The problem with this approach is that it often leaves a thin layer of overcooked or burnt rice at the bottom which you have to soak off. More expensive rice cookers of this type may feature larger capacity, larger heat elements for faster cooking, non-stick coatings, etc. but they all still work on the same basic principle and will deliver the same results.

Then there are some "high tech" rice cookers made by Zojirushi (Japanese), Cuckoo (Korean), Tiger (Chinese), and some other companies. They may have the following features:

- Induction cooking. Instead of a heating element at the bottom, induction coils surround the pot and deliver more even heating. This is a VERY worthwhile feature and will generally avoid getting burnt rice at the bottom.
- Different modes for different types of rice. Some types of rice (e.g. sushi rice) needs to be soaked before cooking. Others (e.g. brown rice) need longer cooking times. You set the mode on the rice cooker, and it automatically does it for you.
- Water compensation. If you make a mistake in a traditional cooker and add too little / too much water, you might get dry undercooked rice or mushy rice. Make the same mistake in microprocessor controlled rice cooker, and it somehow "knows" whether to vent more steam or shut off the steam and cook for longer to deliver a more consistent result. (Don't ask me how it knows).
- Pressure cooking. This is by far the most important feature and it WILL make a noticeable difference to your result (all of the above features can be compensated for by being more careful). Because the grains are cooked under pressure, there is more starch conversion to sugar so you get a more tender grain with more sweetness, but the grains also remain separate and fluffy. However, like all pressure cooking appliances, the seals will eventually fail and therefore it is important to buy from a brand with good after-sales support in your country. For example, Zojirushi is not available in Australia and although they are the best, I decided to go for Cuckoo and not bother importing a Zojirushi.

Unfortunately, ALL "advanced" rice cookers on the market are overcomplicated because the designers are all East Asians. East Asian designers have a tendency to overload products with unnecessary features which get in the way. Think Canon/Nikon/Sony vs. the simplicity of Leica, the button-laden and mode heavy Nissan GTR vs. a Porsche, Japanese hi-fi of the 90's which were festooned with buttons, overcomplicated Japanese microwaves, and Japanese bidets. You WILL have to consult the manual and perform complicated button presses to get rid of features which were turned on by default, e.g. that stupid and irritating welcome chime my Cuckoo rice cooker makes every time you turn it on, when it finishes cooking, and when you turn it off.

In short: the first thing you need to decide is your budget, and then your required cooking capacity. If your budget stretches to buying one of those fancy induction + microprocessor controlled + pressure cooker rice cookers, then I would advise you to go for it because those extra features make a noticeable difference. That last feature (pressure cooking) adds a lot of extra cost but it does produce rice like you have never tasted before.

You do not NEED any of the features offered by high end rice cookers but they are nice to have. For example, you could compensate for lack of automated modes with any rice you cook by pre-soaking sushi rice yourself, being careful about how much water you add, and so on. I ALWAYS measure out my water and pre-soak my rice even though I have a fancy Cuckoo with pressure mode because it is my habit.
 

MAB

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Any recommendations, what tech is worth it and not, what brands to look at?

Should we just buy the most expensive Zojirushi we can? Are the better features/tech even worth it or will any of them cook rice well enough?
Their 'best' one at $750 is too expensive if some of their models at about 1/3 of the price do just about the same thing.

We usually eat white jasmine, basmati or brown long grain rice, if that matters at all. Occasionally we'll cook (Japanese) short or sushi rice, but that's less frequent.
My version of a rice cooker is a microwave and a covered glass bowl. 3 minutes on high, 15 minutes on 30%.
 

abdo123

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I really like instant pot, I feel like it's worth the litte extra money considering how much you can do it with it.
 
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JustJones

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This is the one I use.

1677431824300.png
 
OP
T

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Thanks @Keith_W that's exactly the kind of info I was looking for! I'm still trying to justify the price jump to the pressure cookers to myself, but I'm half way there. :)
 
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I really like instant pot, I feel like it's worth the litte extra money considering how much you can do it with it.
I half forgot we had one in the basement. We should try rice in it. There's no reason for another appliance if we already have one that will work. I've heard pretty mixed things about rice in them though. And I'm feeling some pre-FOMO about how good rice in a good rice cooker might be.
 

delta76

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Every Asian old lady I know has the Zojirushi model with the purple flowers on it.
the right answer. Zojirushi is the gold standard. Also great: Tiger and cuokoo

I really like instant pot, I feel like it's worth the litte extra money considering how much you can do it with it.
if you are serious about rice, then instant pot is the "barely acceptable" option. it is fine, but a proper rice cooker is much better.
 

abdo123

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the right answer. Zojirushi is the gold standard. Also great: Tiger and cuokoo


if you are serious about rice, then instant pot is the "barely acceptable" option. it is fine, but a proper rice cooker is much better.

What do you mean a proper option? It’s an induction cooker that stops cooking when most of the water evaporated what’s more there is to it?
 
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I am pretty attracted to the idea that a good rice cooker can compensate for water levels that are a bit off. This seems to be the hardest thing for us to get right making rice on the stove top.
 

JustJones

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America's test kitchen top pick was the

The Zojirushi 5.5-Cup Neuro Fuzzy Rice Cooker & Warmer

Close second

Toshiba 6-Cup Rice Cooker with Fuzzy Logic

 

Keith_W

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You do not NEED a fancy rice cooker that I described in my post above. I am East Asian myself, rice is my staple, and I eat rice every day. I also sometimes cook for large dinner parties. So investing in a good rice cooker for me was a no-brainer. Your situation might be different.

You CAN of course cook rice the traditional way - wash your rice in cloth, place it on muslin cloth and set it atop a bamboo steamer, and steam it. I have tried wrapping rice in lotus leaves and steaming it and I can tell you that the results are to die for. NOT having the rice soaked in water as it cooks and infused with lotus leaf aroma produces really, really good rice. But it is also troublesome and I only do it on special occasions, like Chinese New Year. Incidentally, my CNY guests do not ask me for any of my traditional CNY dishes, all they want to know is whether I will be preparing steamed lotus rice :D This year I prepared an excess of rice, anticipating making fried rice with the leftovers. It was all polished off.

I recommend against an Instant Pot for cooking rice. In fact I recommend against buying an Instant Pot, or any electric pressure cooker in general for any type of cooking (the exception is a rice pressure cooker). Instant Pots are general cookers. While it does have a "rice" mode, it is not versatile and you are unable to input what type of rice you are using or the result that you want. Newer models might have rectified this, I don't know.

Why do I not recommend Instant Pots for general pressure cooking? Because conventional stovetop pressure cookers are so much better for two important reasons. (1) they reach higher pressure, and (2) you can cool them down in a sink to lower the pressure quickly without having to vent steam. They are also more compact for the same capacity making it easier to store, have fewer points of failure (important feature in a pressure cooker!), you can adjust the heat to your liking, and you can use the pressure cooking pot for other things, like deep frying. My Silit pressure cooker is narrow and tall which is ideal for deep fries because you get a higher oil level for the same volume of oil, and the higher sides prevent kitchen splatter. The downside is that stovetop pressure cookers are manual, meaning you have to lower the heat when it reaches full pressure, and then set a timer to turn it off when you are done. But these pressure cookers are simple and I do not like those automatic pre-programmed modes on electric pressure cookers. It's a bit like a microwave that gives you buttons for chicken, eggs, rice, defrost, but does not give you buttons to control time or power. Well, electric pressure cookers are like that. All I want is to control time, pressure, and heat ... and none of them let me do that.
 

delta76

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You do not NEED a fancy rice cooker that I described in my post above. I am East Asian myself, rice is my staple, and I eat rice every day. I also sometimes cook for large dinner parties. So investing in a good rice cooker for me was a no-brainer. Your situation might be different.

You CAN of course cook rice the traditional way - wash your rice in cloth, place it on muslin cloth and set it atop a bamboo steamer, and steam it. I have tried wrapping rice in lotus leaves and steaming it and I can tell you that the results are to die for. NOT having the rice soaked in water as it cooks and infused with lotus leaf aroma produces really, really good rice. But it is also troublesome and I only do it on special occasions, like Chinese New Year. Incidentally, my CNY guests do not ask me for any of my traditional CNY dishes, all they want to know is whether I will be preparing steamed lotus rice :D This year I prepared an excess of rice, anticipating making fried rice with the leftovers. It was all polished off.

I recommend against an Instant Pot for cooking rice. In fact I recommend against buying an Instant Pot, or any electric pressure cooker in general for any type of cooking (the exception is a rice pressure cooker). Instant Pots are general cookers. While it does have a "rice" mode, it is not versatile and you are unable to input what type of rice you are using or the result that you want. Newer models might have rectified this, I don't know.

Why do I not recommend Instant Pots for general pressure cooking? Because conventional stovetop pressure cookers are so much better for two important reasons. (1) they reach higher pressure, and (2) you can cool them down in a sink to lower the pressure quickly without having to vent steam. They are also more compact for the same capacity making it easier to store, have fewer points of failure (important feature in a pressure cooker!), you can adjust the heat to your liking, and you can use the pressure cooking pot for other things, like deep frying. My Silit pressure cooker is narrow and tall which is ideal for deep fries because you get a higher oil level for the same volume of oil, and the higher sides prevent kitchen splatter. The downside is that stovetop pressure cookers are manual, meaning you have to lower the heat when it reaches full pressure, and then set a timer to turn it off when you are done. But these pressure cookers are simple and I do not like those automatic pre-programmed modes on electric pressure cookers. It's a bit like a microwave that gives you buttons for chicken, eggs, rice, defrost, but does not give you buttons to control time or power. Well, electric pressure cookers are like that. All I want is to control time, pressure, and heat ... and none of them let me do that.
I mostly agree. when it comes to rice, the rice itself plays the most important part. a decent rice cooker gets you to 90%. the remaining 10% is always the hardest.
it's not far off to say Zojirushi is the Genelec of rice cooker. they will cook wonderful rice, they will last a long time.

and they weighs a ton, too, especially for IH models
 

Keith_W

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I am pretty attracted to the idea that a good rice cooker can compensate for water levels that are a bit off. This seems to be the hardest thing for us to get right making rice on the stove top.

If you are making Jasmine rice in a covered saucepan on a stovetop (with the added evaporation), the recommended ratio is 1 cup of rice : 1.2 cups of water for al dente, or 1:1.3 for a softer result.

If making rice in a rice cooker, use 1 cup of rice : 1.1 cups of water. Or you can use the Chinese finger method, dip your index finger into the rice and it should reach the first knuckle (as per that Uncle Roger video). But I do not like this method because the water : rice ratio is critical, and all of us have different finger lengths. So I prefer volumetric measurements instead.

THE most consistent method I have discovered is to pre-soak your rice for 30 minutes, and then use a 1:1 volume ratio in a rice cooker. It produces a dryer grain of rice which is al dente, which is the way I like it. If you don't like it al dente, then 1.05:1 or 1.1:1.

Don't ask me how to cook rice in a microwave. I have never done it and I think it is an abomination. The grains on top are inevitably dried out and the grains in the middle are undercooked while everything else is mushy. It might vary depending on your microwave and cooking container so it MIGHT work for you.

I sometimes make flavoured steamed rice (e.g. Malaysian Yam rice, Hainanese Chicken Rice, etc). To do this, pre-soak your rice for 30 minutes then toast the rice in lard or rendered chicken fat and add flavourings and other ingredients (e.g. yam, diced shiitake mushrooms, dried prawns, pandan leaves). Then back into the rice cooker with a 1:1 ratio and cook as normal.
 
OP
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I sometimes make flavoured steamed rice (e.g. Malaysian Yam rice, Hainanese Chicken Rice, etc). To do this, pre-soak your rice for 30 minutes then toast the rice in lard or rendered chicken fat and add flavourings and other ingredients (e.g. yam, diced shiitake mushrooms, dried prawns, pandan leaves). Then back into the rice cooker with a 1:1 ratio and cook as normal.
This sounds delicious, definitely something I want to try to do. What type of rice do you usually use for this?
 
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