8 ms·

An Ode to the Rice Cooker

74 points by szx 11y ago

kris-s 11y ago
Stuff like this always reminds me how much room there is for making a product that makes an inconspicuous everyday activity better, but also how much staying power "good enough" has.
IvyMike 11y ago
Also see Roger Ebert's blog post (eventually turned into a book), The Pot and How to Use It. http://www.rogerebert.com/rogers-journal/the-pot-and-how-to-use-it http://www.rogerebert.com/rogers-journal/the-pot-and-how-to-...
sitkack 11y ago
I have nailed making rice by hand with no measuring, the nice thing about cooking it manually is that one can modify the parameters, soggy, fluffy, al dente, all easily achievable and the rice is done in 12-15 minutes. 1. Fill sauce pan at most half way with water 2. Create perfect cone from bottom of pan to the center, just pierce the surface 3. Boil in this config for 1 minute 4. stire rice thoroughly, breaking apart clumps, add smidge of olive oil 5. turn down to low heat for 12-15 minutes To get drier rice, add more above water line, to get more al dente, don't cook for as long.
- IvyMike 11y ago
  Also see the "One Knuckle" method, which has never failed me yet, despite using different pots and varying quantities of rice. http://www.thekitchn.com/cooking-rice-do-you-use-the-first-knuckle-method-176988 http://www.thekitchn.com/cooking-rice-do-you-use-the-first-k...
  - goelakash 11y ago
    It basically boils down to a 2:1 ratio for general case, the same as my mother told me to do a few years go.
- cortesoft 11y ago
  The main benefit of rice cookers is that it does its own thing, while you can cook the rest of the meal. This requires interaction.
- maloney 11y ago
  I've been cooking rice like this for the last 15 years. I recently bought a Zojirushi rice cooker and I now regret not getting one sooner. The Zojirushi makes far superior rice than I ever managed and it makes it perfect every time. Not to mention it also cooks mixed/brown/sushi/grits/steel cut oats perfectly as well. Throw in the fact that I can use the timer to have steel cut oats ready when I wake up in the morning make it worth every penny.
  - sitkack 11y ago
    I get that, I used to own a couple rice cookers, both a super low end $20 version and a higher end version from japan that required a transformer (very old, like from the mid 90s I think). I might go back someday, but I have new found love for portable skills, no machine necessary. If I ate more rice, I'd probably get one again.
jessaustin 11y ago
I've used several different rice cookers over the course of years, but finally I just don't see the point. I eyeball the rice I pour into my pot, I eyeball the water I pour in next (without washing!), I crank up the stove until the water starts to boil, and then I turn it down, cover, and set a timer for 20 minutes. When that's up I turn off the stove and look at the clock so I know when five or ten more minutes have elapsed so I can uncover and give the whole mess a stir to prevent sticking to the pot. If I'm cooking rice, I'm also cooking something else, so it isn't a hardship to be in the kitchen to notice the timer. This technique never fails to produce tasty rice. If one has a stove, why does one need a rice cooker? I've also cooked tasty rice over a coleman propane single-burner before, so you don't actually need a stove either.
- NDizzle 11y ago
  Do you have kids or a large family? Are you cooking for more than yourself? How much rice do you cook per day? Do you cook rice every single time you want it? Have you ever wanted to cook enough rice to last 4 days, at once, and have it kept perfectly for the entire 4 days? If so, you should get a rice cooker!!!
  - taude 11y ago
    I'd also comment on how consistent does the rice taste? When I made rice on the stove, it was really easy to cook too long and have it be mushier than I like.
    - jessaustin 11y ago
      I think self-timing shutoff will soon be a normal feature of new stoves. There are already some specialty heating elements that incorporate that.
  - jessaustin 11y ago
    I cook for more than myself, but it isn't a "large" family. I don't cook rice every day, but it is probably 90% of the days on which I cook. (Other household members typically prefer to cook other starches.) I often store rice in the fridge. I find that pouring some water with refrigerated rice into a glass bowl, covering, and nuking for two minutes restores it to an edible and tasty state. I have never cared to eat rice on four consecutive days, although when I lived in Asia and in Hawai'i that was often the case. I think we have a rice cooker in the back of some cupboard, and I certainly have at least one more in storage. I rarely need more than four burners on the stove at one time, so it's just easier to use the pot that's already hanging next to it rather than taking up valuable counter space and electric outlets with a single-purpose appliance. YMMV.
yborg 11y ago
I swear by my Zojirushi cooker. There will be a host of comments here on how it is possible to cook excellent rice without the gadget. These people are all correct. What the cooker brings to the counter is it is fully fire and forget ... until it plays its jaunty tune on completion, and then maintains the rice at serving temperature for hours if desired without requiring me to do anything but walk over to it with a rice bowl. All hail the elephant!
- taude 11y ago
  I also like that on the Zoji there's an hot cereal setting, and unlike my prior rice cooker, where cooking steel-cut oats made a big mess with it boiling over, the Zoji gets it perfect, no fuss.
  - c0nsumer 11y ago
    Which one do you have? There's so many different ones I'm not sure which to start considering...
    - acdha 11y ago
      We've used this one for years — great results, zero problems: http://www.amazon.com/Zojirushi-NS-TGC10-Cooker-Warmer-Stainless/dp/B000MAERM0 http://www.amazon.com/Zojirushi-NS-TGC10-Cooker-Warmer-Stain...
      - hga 11y ago
        If you're not cooking for so many people, this model which I got 8 years ago is great: http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B000G30ESY http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B000G30ESY It'll do 1/2 to 3 "cups" of rice, the cup specified in their ratings is an old Japanese measure. As I recall, that'll get the minimum serving down to 300 calories from 600 for a full cup.
  - LanceH 11y ago
    And the absolute winner of a function of telling it what time you want the rice or oatmeal to be ready -- it will figure it out from there. Have oatmeal ready in the morning or rice ready in the evening when I walk in the door, it's incredible.
personjerry 11y ago
So fuzzy logic is just a bunch of if statements? That seems pretty traditional logic to me.
- mayank 11y ago
  The trick is putting the right stuff in the if conditions.
  - personjerry 11y ago
    Isn't that what you want in traditional logic? Could you elaborate?
    - cortesoft 11y ago
      Yeah, isn't logic where you put the correct conditions defined as "sound" logic? Where does the fuzziness come in?
    - belltaco 11y ago
      If you nest a whole lot of them deep enough, the logic becomes fuzzy and hard to figure out. http://teaching.idallen.com/dat2330/04f/notes/deep_nesting.txt http://teaching.idallen.com/dat2330/04f/notes/deep_nesting.t...
- VMG 11y ago
  It isn't. I remember it being sort of an interesting way to describe linear relationships.
  - deleted 11y ago
    [deleted]
- giardini 11y ago
  Fuzzy logic is not a "bunch of if statements". Fuzzy logic differs from classical logic. In fuzzy logic one can model arbitrary (linear or nonlinear) functions. In particular, in fuzzy logic the law of the excluded middle does not hold. So truth values can be true, false or something in-between. Typically the categorical (true, false) is replaced by the the closed interval [0, 1], with 0 meaning "absolutely false", 1 meaning "absolutely true", and an infinity of possible valid values in between, each to some degree true and to some degree false. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fuzzy_logic#Overview https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fuzzy_logic#Overview
Sakiina_ 11y ago
I bought this microwave rice cooker at TJ Maxx, that was marketed by Jamie Oliver for awhile. Love the thing. It has ridges in the ceramic to mark the measurements. I put in the rice, fill to the line with water, microwave for 5 minutes, let stand for 10, and boom, perfect rice. I tend to use that thing more than my rice cooker, it's easier to clean.
- r00fus 11y ago
  While the ridges and 5/10m cook/stand time sounds perfect, we are often using the microwave for reheating takeout or leftovers (or bringing milk up to room temps for the kiddos). And we have rice (or quinoa) almost every day. Any other gadget should aim to be as useful, fault-tolerant and straightforward as a rice cooker (microwave is close 2nd).
srcreigh 11y ago
The author talks about fuzzy logic as being probabilistic and having to do with natural language, and that fuzzy logic is "the kind of logic we most often use here at FiveThirtyEight." However, the rice cooker is not probabilistic at all, and takes discrete input (not natural language): > In my current fuzzy-logic [sic.] cooker, however, I tell the machine what kind of rice I’m using [white or brown] and how long it has been soaking [a decimal value]. It takes that [discrete] information and decides what temperature it should reach, and for how long. Generally using what are essentially if/then statements, [emphasis mine] it can fine-tune the process. Anna, what is your reader supposed to think when your only example doesn't meet the requirements you set out for it yourself? It is especially alarming here since the thing you're trying to illustrate is the way your organization thinks. > “Fuzzy theory is wrong — wrong and pernicious,” Kahan said. “The danger of fuzzy theory is that it will encourage the sort of imprecise thinking that brought us to so much trouble.”
- emodendroket 11y ago
  Your "sic" is gratuitous; it's being hyphenated because it's being used attributively/as an adjective. I guess you could describe the rice cooker as "taking a much larger number of inputs than a traditional rice cooker" but that doesn't seem to work as a marketing slogan as well as "fuzzy logic."
  - dave2000 11y ago
    The "sic" is fine if it really is just being used as a marketing term.
  - srcreigh 11y ago
    It's not a fuzzy logic rice cooker. I've used [sic] because it's an incorrect characterization of the item. I agree with your marketing observation. Maybe they could have called it sophisticated logic (or something like that)? The history of fuzzy logic (which was cool) could be replaced with stories of sophisticated problem solving.
    - 11y ago
nkurz 11y ago
Fuzzy-logic rice cookers are a luxury (online they range in price from $50 to more than $700), but the awe mine inspires nearly matches the quality of the rice. Is there any inherent reason that "fuzzy-logic" rice cookers are a luxury item? I'd think that the increased cost of manufacture over a simple mechanical rice cooker would be minimal. Is it more difficult than it seems? Is the market for cheap smart rice cookers too small for anyone to bother?
- emodendroket 11y ago
  I mean, Zojirushi isn't passing the code out for free to anyone who wants to manufacture a rice cooker, right?
  - nkurz 11y ago
    Maybe I'm underestimating, but the code seems trivial. There's lots of examples of PID control for Arduino that one could use as a staring point: https://learn.adafruit.com/sous-vide-powered-by-arduino-the-sous-viduino/time-proportional-output https://learn.adafruit.com/sous-vide-powered-by-arduino-the-... Someone who knows what they are doing could probably write rice cooking logic that works pretty well in a couple days, and a beginner (like me) could almost certainly get something working in a couple weeks. There'd always be room for refinement after that, but I can't see that the code would be a limiting factor. But likely you've hit on the real reason there isn't much competition on the low end: making an inexpensive fuzzy logic rice cooker is easy, but if it started selling well you'd probably be sued out of business for patent infringement. I now feel silly for overlooking this obvious explanation.
    - mywittyname 11y ago
      If you dissect any low-end appliance, you'll notice that they are almost always have very simple mechanics that work by mechanical physics in lieu of computing where possible. Sensors and electronics are expensive in the context of an appliance that needs to be produced for less than $3. You can make a coffee maker that can deliver water at a precise and adjustable temperature, but it's going to be a lot more complicated (thus expensive) than a cheap one that relies on a tube, a one-way valve, and the behavior of boiling water.
unicornporn 11y ago
Hasn't the arsenic in rice news been a big thing in the US? Here in Sweden the FDA equivalent discourages people to eat rice too often (the recommendations are a bit vague).
- ghaff 11y ago
  I found it online now that you mentioned it. But, no, this hasn't been a big thing in the US and I for one had never even heard about it.
julie1 11y ago
Fuzzy logic is back again? It used to make the headlines in the 90s for being the next revolution in industrial control (of furnaces). I use rice cookers since 35 years (I am 43) I don't care about brown rice or whatever the fuzzy logic. I just adapt according to my own experience. But I guess people don't want to have experience any more and prefer to be assisted as a hero of Wall-e?
smelterdemon 11y ago
Rice cookers would impress me more if they had some kind of built in stirring mechanism, and even more if they dispensed liquid at a certain rate- then they could crank out perfectly consistent, effortless risotto. As it stands they don't meet the right utility/space ratio to find a place in my smallish kitchen.
lisivka 11y ago
I use microwave oven to cook Rice and Buckwheat. Half of cup rice, then cup of water. Wait at least 15 minutes for rice and about 3 minutes for Buckwheat for water to soak in (important step). Then I program oven to cook 4:10-4:50 at full power (800W), then 11-15 minutes at 40% power. Piece of chicken, or one or two eggs (at then end of cooking) are welcome.
wagglycocks 11y ago
I have a rice cooker from Amazon that was less than $100 and works perfectly. I don't know if it uses fuzzy logic or not. Is there an easy way to tell?

74 points by szx 11y ago

Stuff like this always reminds me how much room there is for making a product that makes an inconspicuous everyday activity better, but also how much staying power "good enough" has.

IvyMike 11y ago

Also see Roger Ebert's blog post (eventually turned into a book), The Pot and How to Use It. http://www.rogerebert.com/rogers-journal/the-pot-and-how-to-use-it http://www.rogerebert.com/rogers-journal/the-pot-and-how-to-...

sitkack 11y ago

I have nailed making rice by hand with no measuring, the nice thing about cooking it manually is that one can modify the parameters, soggy, fluffy, al dente, all easily achievable and the rice is done in 12-15 minutes. 1. Fill sauce pan at most half way with water 2. Create perfect cone from bottom of pan to the center, just pierce the surface 3. Boil in this config for 1 minute 4. stire rice thoroughly, breaking apart clumps, add smidge of olive oil 5. turn down to low heat for 12-15 minutes To get drier rice, add more above water line, to get more al dente, don't cook for as long.

IvyMike 11y ago
Also see the "One Knuckle" method, which has never failed me yet, despite using different pots and varying quantities of rice. http://www.thekitchn.com/cooking-rice-do-you-use-the-first-knuckle-method-176988 http://www.thekitchn.com/cooking-rice-do-you-use-the-first-k...
- goelakash 11y ago
  It basically boils down to a 2:1 ratio for general case, the same as my mother told me to do a few years go.
cortesoft 11y ago
The main benefit of rice cookers is that it does its own thing, while you can cook the rest of the meal. This requires interaction.
maloney 11y ago
I've been cooking rice like this for the last 15 years. I recently bought a Zojirushi rice cooker and I now regret not getting one sooner. The Zojirushi makes far superior rice than I ever managed and it makes it perfect every time. Not to mention it also cooks mixed/brown/sushi/grits/steel cut oats perfectly as well. Throw in the fact that I can use the timer to have steel cut oats ready when I wake up in the morning make it worth every penny.
- sitkack 11y ago
  I get that, I used to own a couple rice cookers, both a super low end $20 version and a higher end version from japan that required a transformer (very old, like from the mid 90s I think). I might go back someday, but I have new found love for portable skills, no machine necessary. If I ate more rice, I'd probably get one again.

jessaustin 11y ago

I've used several different rice cookers over the course of years, but finally I just don't see the point. I eyeball the rice I pour into my pot, I eyeball the water I pour in next (without washing!), I crank up the stove until the water starts to boil, and then I turn it down, cover, and set a timer for 20 minutes. When that's up I turn off the stove and look at the clock so I know when five or ten more minutes have elapsed so I can uncover and give the whole mess a stir to prevent sticking to the pot. If I'm cooking rice, I'm also cooking something else, so it isn't a hardship to be in the kitchen to notice the timer. This technique never fails to produce tasty rice. If one has a stove, why does one need a rice cooker? I've also cooked tasty rice over a coleman propane single-burner before, so you don't actually need a stove either.

NDizzle 11y ago
Do you have kids or a large family? Are you cooking for more than yourself? How much rice do you cook per day? Do you cook rice every single time you want it? Have you ever wanted to cook enough rice to last 4 days, at once, and have it kept perfectly for the entire 4 days? If so, you should get a rice cooker!!!
- taude 11y ago
  I'd also comment on how consistent does the rice taste? When I made rice on the stove, it was really easy to cook too long and have it be mushier than I like.
  - jessaustin 11y ago
    I think self-timing shutoff will soon be a normal feature of new stoves. There are already some specialty heating elements that incorporate that.
- jessaustin 11y ago
  I cook for more than myself, but it isn't a "large" family. I don't cook rice every day, but it is probably 90% of the days on which I cook. (Other household members typically prefer to cook other starches.) I often store rice in the fridge. I find that pouring some water with refrigerated rice into a glass bowl, covering, and nuking for two minutes restores it to an edible and tasty state. I have never cared to eat rice on four consecutive days, although when I lived in Asia and in Hawai'i that was often the case. I think we have a rice cooker in the back of some cupboard, and I certainly have at least one more in storage. I rarely need more than four burners on the stove at one time, so it's just easier to use the pot that's already hanging next to it rather than taking up valuable counter space and electric outlets with a single-purpose appliance. YMMV.

yborg 11y ago

I swear by my Zojirushi cooker. There will be a host of comments here on how it is possible to cook excellent rice without the gadget. These people are all correct. What the cooker brings to the counter is it is fully fire and forget ... until it plays its jaunty tune on completion, and then maintains the rice at serving temperature for hours if desired without requiring me to do anything but walk over to it with a rice bowl. All hail the elephant!

taude 11y ago
I also like that on the Zoji there's an hot cereal setting, and unlike my prior rice cooker, where cooking steel-cut oats made a big mess with it boiling over, the Zoji gets it perfect, no fuss.
- c0nsumer 11y ago
  Which one do you have? There's so many different ones I'm not sure which to start considering...
  - acdha 11y ago
    We've used this one for years — great results, zero problems: http://www.amazon.com/Zojirushi-NS-TGC10-Cooker-Warmer-Stainless/dp/B000MAERM0 http://www.amazon.com/Zojirushi-NS-TGC10-Cooker-Warmer-Stain...
    - hga 11y ago
      If you're not cooking for so many people, this model which I got 8 years ago is great: http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B000G30ESY http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B000G30ESY It'll do 1/2 to 3 "cups" of rice, the cup specified in their ratings is an old Japanese measure. As I recall, that'll get the minimum serving down to 300 calories from 600 for a full cup.
- LanceH 11y ago
  And the absolute winner of a function of telling it what time you want the rice or oatmeal to be ready -- it will figure it out from there. Have oatmeal ready in the morning or rice ready in the evening when I walk in the door, it's incredible.

personjerry 11y ago

So fuzzy logic is just a bunch of if statements? That seems pretty traditional logic to me.

mayank 11y ago
The trick is putting the right stuff in the if conditions.
- personjerry 11y ago
  Isn't that what you want in traditional logic? Could you elaborate?
  - cortesoft 11y ago
    Yeah, isn't logic where you put the correct conditions defined as "sound" logic? Where does the fuzziness come in?
  - belltaco 11y ago
    If you nest a whole lot of them deep enough, the logic becomes fuzzy and hard to figure out. http://teaching.idallen.com/dat2330/04f/notes/deep_nesting.txt http://teaching.idallen.com/dat2330/04f/notes/deep_nesting.t...
VMG 11y ago
It isn't. I remember it being sort of an interesting way to describe linear relationships.
- deleted 11y ago
  [deleted]
giardini 11y ago
Fuzzy logic is not a "bunch of if statements". Fuzzy logic differs from classical logic. In fuzzy logic one can model arbitrary (linear or nonlinear) functions. In particular, in fuzzy logic the law of the excluded middle does not hold. So truth values can be true, false or something in-between. Typically the categorical (true, false) is replaced by the the closed interval [0, 1], with 0 meaning "absolutely false", 1 meaning "absolutely true", and an infinity of possible valid values in between, each to some degree true and to some degree false. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fuzzy_logic#Overview https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fuzzy_logic#Overview

Sakiina_ 11y ago

I bought this microwave rice cooker at TJ Maxx, that was marketed by Jamie Oliver for awhile. Love the thing. It has ridges in the ceramic to mark the measurements. I put in the rice, fill to the line with water, microwave for 5 minutes, let stand for 10, and boom, perfect rice. I tend to use that thing more than my rice cooker, it's easier to clean.

r00fus 11y ago
While the ridges and 5/10m cook/stand time sounds perfect, we are often using the microwave for reheating takeout or leftovers (or bringing milk up to room temps for the kiddos). And we have rice (or quinoa) almost every day. Any other gadget should aim to be as useful, fault-tolerant and straightforward as a rice cooker (microwave is close 2nd).

srcreigh 11y ago

The author talks about fuzzy logic as being probabilistic and having to do with natural language, and that fuzzy logic is "the kind of logic we most often use here at FiveThirtyEight." However, the rice cooker is not probabilistic at all, and takes discrete input (not natural language): > In my current fuzzy-logic [sic.] cooker, however, I tell the machine what kind of rice I’m using [white or brown] and how long it has been soaking [a decimal value]. It takes that [discrete] information and decides what temperature it should reach, and for how long. Generally using what are essentially if/then statements, [emphasis mine] it can fine-tune the process. Anna, what is your reader supposed to think when your only example doesn't meet the requirements you set out for it yourself? It is especially alarming here since the thing you're trying to illustrate is the way your organization thinks. > “Fuzzy theory is wrong — wrong and pernicious,” Kahan said. “The danger of fuzzy theory is that it will encourage the sort of imprecise thinking that brought us to so much trouble.”

emodendroket 11y ago
Your "sic" is gratuitous; it's being hyphenated because it's being used attributively/as an adjective. I guess you could describe the rice cooker as "taking a much larger number of inputs than a traditional rice cooker" but that doesn't seem to work as a marketing slogan as well as "fuzzy logic."
- dave2000 11y ago
  The "sic" is fine if it really is just being used as a marketing term.
- srcreigh 11y ago
  It's not a fuzzy logic rice cooker. I've used [sic] because it's an incorrect characterization of the item. I agree with your marketing observation. Maybe they could have called it sophisticated logic (or something like that)? The history of fuzzy logic (which was cool) could be replaced with stories of sophisticated problem solving.
  - 11y ago

nkurz 11y ago

Fuzzy-logic rice cookers are a luxury (online they range in price from $50 to more than $700), but the awe mine inspires nearly matches the quality of the rice. Is there any inherent reason that "fuzzy-logic" rice cookers are a luxury item? I'd think that the increased cost of manufacture over a simple mechanical rice cooker would be minimal. Is it more difficult than it seems? Is the market for cheap smart rice cookers too small for anyone to bother?

emodendroket 11y ago
I mean, Zojirushi isn't passing the code out for free to anyone who wants to manufacture a rice cooker, right?
- nkurz 11y ago
  Maybe I'm underestimating, but the code seems trivial. There's lots of examples of PID control for Arduino that one could use as a staring point: https://learn.adafruit.com/sous-vide-powered-by-arduino-the-sous-viduino/time-proportional-output https://learn.adafruit.com/sous-vide-powered-by-arduino-the-... Someone who knows what they are doing could probably write rice cooking logic that works pretty well in a couple days, and a beginner (like me) could almost certainly get something working in a couple weeks. There'd always be room for refinement after that, but I can't see that the code would be a limiting factor. But likely you've hit on the real reason there isn't much competition on the low end: making an inexpensive fuzzy logic rice cooker is easy, but if it started selling well you'd probably be sued out of business for patent infringement. I now feel silly for overlooking this obvious explanation.
  - mywittyname 11y ago
    If you dissect any low-end appliance, you'll notice that they are almost always have very simple mechanics that work by mechanical physics in lieu of computing where possible. Sensors and electronics are expensive in the context of an appliance that needs to be produced for less than $3. You can make a coffee maker that can deliver water at a precise and adjustable temperature, but it's going to be a lot more complicated (thus expensive) than a cheap one that relies on a tube, a one-way valve, and the behavior of boiling water.

unicornporn 11y ago

Hasn't the arsenic in rice news been a big thing in the US? Here in Sweden the FDA equivalent discourages people to eat rice too often (the recommendations are a bit vague).

ghaff 11y ago
I found it online now that you mentioned it. But, no, this hasn't been a big thing in the US and I for one had never even heard about it.

julie1 11y ago

Fuzzy logic is back again? It used to make the headlines in the 90s for being the next revolution in industrial control (of furnaces). I use rice cookers since 35 years (I am 43) I don't care about brown rice or whatever the fuzzy logic. I just adapt according to my own experience. But I guess people don't want to have experience any more and prefer to be assisted as a hero of Wall-e?

smelterdemon 11y ago

Rice cookers would impress me more if they had some kind of built in stirring mechanism, and even more if they dispensed liquid at a certain rate- then they could crank out perfectly consistent, effortless risotto. As it stands they don't meet the right utility/space ratio to find a place in my smallish kitchen.

lisivka 11y ago

I use microwave oven to cook Rice and Buckwheat. Half of cup rice, then cup of water. Wait at least 15 minutes for rice and about 3 minutes for Buckwheat for water to soak in (important step). Then I program oven to cook 4:10-4:50 at full power (800W), then 11-15 minutes at 40% power. Piece of chicken, or one or two eggs (at then end of cooking) are welcome.

wagglycocks 11y ago

I have a rice cooker from Amazon that was less than $100 and works perfectly. I don't know if it uses fuzzy logic or not. Is there an easy way to tell?