Some of the handiest kitchen appliances available today are rice cookers and steamers. These little electric pots can do so much that they are going to get used regularly in your home. They are easy to use and to clean up. In addition to cooking rice, they can be used to steam vegetables and to boil pasta or soups.
Rice cookers were initially designed to cook rice and they do it perfectly every time. The rice cooker is equipped with a thermostat in the bottom of the cooker that senses when the rice is perfectly cooked. This thermostat causes a switch to turn the pot from high heat to warm at exactly the correct time to give perfect rice without burning or scorching your food. You can have real rice ready to serve your family almost as fast as you could have served them instant rice with its inferior flavor and texture.
Rice is a staple around much of the world. It is much easier to prepare, using the rice steamer and cooker, than potatoes. It requires no pealing, washing or dicing like potatoes. You just measure out the desired amount of rice into the cooker, add water to the mark and press the button for great rice every time.
The rice cooker can do more than just rice however. It also makes a great steamer. With your rice in the bottom, add your vegetables to the top in the steamer basket just before you press the cook button. When the rice is ready, the vegetables will be ready also. For a hot dog just like those at the ballpark, try steaming the dogs in the basket. In addition, fish also does very well steamed.
If your husband insists that he must have potatoes at every meal, dice a couple of red potatoes and put in the steamer while you cook rice for the rest of the family. For mashed potato nights, the cooker will boil the potatoes and free the other heating elements on the stove.
The rice cooker is described as a perfect tool for cooking any food that needs to boil like crazy. It will not work well for creamy soups that need to simmer, but it is excellent for broth based soups. This makes it great for many Asian soups including egg drop soup or sweet and sour soup. It even works to cook inexpensive packages of Ramon Noodles as well as other pasta.
For easy clean up, choose a cooker that has a nonstick pan. This pan allows you to dump the rice out of the cooker with virtually no grains sticking to the pot. Any of the starch that may have cooked out of the rice can be removed by wiping with a paper towel. Rinse the pot and it is ready to cook your next batch of rice.
Japan makes the best rice cookers and steamers. These cookers have the longest life and often do the best job at cooking rice and other foods. Cookers from other countries just cannot meet the exacting standards required by the manufacturers from Japan.
Shopping for the best rice cookers and steamers for your kitchen can seem like a real chore, but it does not have to be that way. If you are stuck for what to purchase, it’s hard to do better than a Zojirushi rice cooker.