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Deleted. Mod, fix this attack on me.

bemmu 6y ago
We often use the timer in our rice cooker such that when you come back home the rice is ready, and it also maintains the temperature after it's done. I wouldn't want to leave a stove at high heat while not at home.
jagged-chisel 6y ago
So measure water and rice, monitor boiling status, modify cooking temperature... Yep, needs more automation and less human thought. We need single-serving-sized pouches of rice, and single-serving-sized bottles of water. Feeding four people? Use four packets and four bottles. The cooking device can monitor its own temperature and sing a ditty when it’s done.
- jrootabega 6y ago
  Ricero!
- claudeganon 6y ago
  Zoujirushi rice cookers already sing you a song when they’ve finished cooking: https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=CMN0jAENzIg https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=CMN0jAENzIg
- damnyou 6y ago
  What you're describing is pretty close to a Zojirushi fuzzy logic cooker, which has a greater tolerance for mismatched rice/water ratios (and most importantly sings a tune when done!)
sa1 6y ago
As the article states, the challenge is already lower for you because you can turn the heat to low, unlike the old days. Rice can vary, high starch to low starch, short-grain to long-grain, sticky, non-sticky, raw to parboiled. They're used as a base for other dishes including sushi, fried rice, pudding, biryani and porridge. All these require different amounts of consistency. While cooking at home, if you just mess it up a little bit, the dish will still serve its purpose. But that's not true if you're cooking an Asian dish with perfectly good rice used just as a base.
- deleted 6y ago
  [deleted]
- AmericanChopper 6y ago
  The other factor that makes cooking rice today quite trivial (even without a rice cooker), is the quality of our rice. A typical bag of rice from the supermarket (even in most developing countries), will be of a much more consistent higher quality than you’d expect to have gotten 70 years ago.
claudeganon 6y ago
I’m not sure how you could read the article and miss the historical context. In postwar Japan, many women were not cooking with saucepans on gas or electric ranges with high-quality, industrially processed rice: >For centuries, most Japanese cooks made rice with a kamado, a box-shaped range topped with a heavy iron pot. It was painfully tricky. Cooking rice this way, says columnist and food writer Makiko Itoh, takes heat modulation: high heat until the water and rice boils, then low heat, then high heat again. “And that, with a wood-burning stove, is very difficult.” Each day, Japanese women rose at dawn and labored for several sweaty hours to make rice. The engineer who made the first, widely successful design relied on his wife’s expertise in this traditional cooking method to perfect it.
- mynameishere 6y ago
  It was painfully tricky "Until now, this was the only way to get cooked rice from rice..." https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=viejY6UZ5Bk&t=42s https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=viejY6UZ5Bk&t=42s Okay, but in that case the best thing to invent would be a non-horrible stove. I've made rice, and even as an incompetent cook, it really is a non-issue.
  - claudeganon 6y ago
    Most Japanese houses postwar were not equipped to have good gas ranges. The article highlights that widespread electrification had occurred, which favored rice cookers, especially because cooking food on electric ranges is anathema for huge swathes of Japanese cuisine. The standard to be measured against was also, again, Kamado rice, which most rice cookers today would struggle to meet and I guarantee few bachelors are measuring up to with their sauce pans.
dec0dedab0de 6y ago
Jo Koy has a bit about cooking rice on his newest special that points out an even easier trick. Put as much rice as you want to cover the bottom of the pot, then put your index finger on the rice and fill the water up to the first knuckle. ...But for the next step I'm using my instapot while I do something else.
- imglorp 6y ago
  I was taught this method also, by a Japanese woman in the 80s. I think it works because the cooker cuts the heat exactly when it's all turned to steam, which is held at a minimum pressure by the lid. So the amount of water is very forgiving because there's those two automatic functions regulating the process.
jasode 6y ago
>Cooking rice is difficult? Hmm .... I didn't downvote your comment but your dismissive snark seems out of place since the _history_ of "tricky/difficult/labored" was explained in the article: >It was painfully tricky. Cooking rice this way, says columnist and food writer Makiko Itoh, takes heat modulation: high heat until the water and rice boils, then low heat, then high heat again. “And that, with a wood-burning stove, is very difficult.” Each day, Japanese women rose at dawn and labored for several sweaty hours to make rice. (A contemporary restaurant in Nara, Japan, offers a kamado-cooking experience that starts with 15 minutes of pumping a bellows to fan the flames.)
- eternalban 6y ago
  The article makes general statements about cooking rice, but it is really about cooking rice Japanese style. In some rice eating countries, automatic rice cookers never really took off because of the 'quality' of the product is obviously East Asia centric, which is considered 'mushy' rice in West Asia. With some rice cooking approaches, the amount of water makes no difference as whatever is left is drained after a fixed period of time, and then it's simmer time. "Burning" of the bottom is also locale dependent. In Persian Cuisine for example, the art of making 'Tah-Deeg' (lit. bottom of the pot) is one of the stepping stones of becoming a serious cook, and generally this is the bit of the rice that family fights over at the table. Bottom line, OP is correct, imho.
  - cangencer 6y ago
    +1, in countries like Turkey, Persia, India, Pakistan rice cookers are pretty uncommon. In my home country of Turkey where rice is eaten very commonly, I've never heard of a single person use it. Further, rice is typically first washed several times, fried with a bit of oil and perhaps some spices before being simmered. I don't know if it's possible to do this with a Japanese style rice-cooker.
    - deleted 6y ago
      [deleted]
    - 6y ago
bobcostas55 6y ago
2:1?! That ratio is crazy and will certainly not produce good rice.
- Icathian 6y ago
  What do you personally recommend instead?
  - pyk 6y ago
    1 cup rice 1.25 cups water is what I use as a ratio for short-to-medium grain white rice (I recommend kokuho rose extra fancy). That also is the one typically inscribed on the side of a rice cooker pot. You can go a little over water-wise for a mushier rice, or under for a chewier/drier rice - white rice is forgiving.
- riahi 6y ago
  That's sort of a typical ratio for Basmati rice. Not good for East Asian varieties though.
smichel17 6y ago
I follow very similar steps. Two changes: - I turn the heat off (but do not open the lid) at 15 minutes - If I'm planning on making extra, sometimes I like to add some oil (usually coconut, sometimes olive or butter), which I find helps it keep better. Oil and rice added before water, to spread it evenly.

We often use the timer in our rice cooker such that when you come back home the rice is ready, and it also maintains the temperature after it's done. I wouldn't want to leave a stove at high heat while not at home.

jagged-chisel 6y ago

So measure water and rice, monitor boiling status, modify cooking temperature... Yep, needs more automation and less human thought. We need single-serving-sized pouches of rice, and single-serving-sized bottles of water. Feeding four people? Use four packets and four bottles. The cooking device can monitor its own temperature and sing a ditty when it’s done.

jrootabega 6y ago
Ricero!
claudeganon 6y ago
Zoujirushi rice cookers already sing you a song when they’ve finished cooking: https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=CMN0jAENzIg https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=CMN0jAENzIg
damnyou 6y ago
What you're describing is pretty close to a Zojirushi fuzzy logic cooker, which has a greater tolerance for mismatched rice/water ratios (and most importantly sings a tune when done!)

sa1 6y ago

As the article states, the challenge is already lower for you because you can turn the heat to low, unlike the old days. Rice can vary, high starch to low starch, short-grain to long-grain, sticky, non-sticky, raw to parboiled. They're used as a base for other dishes including sushi, fried rice, pudding, biryani and porridge. All these require different amounts of consistency. While cooking at home, if you just mess it up a little bit, the dish will still serve its purpose. But that's not true if you're cooking an Asian dish with perfectly good rice used just as a base.

deleted 6y ago
[deleted]
AmericanChopper 6y ago
The other factor that makes cooking rice today quite trivial (even without a rice cooker), is the quality of our rice. A typical bag of rice from the supermarket (even in most developing countries), will be of a much more consistent higher quality than you’d expect to have gotten 70 years ago.

claudeganon 6y ago

I’m not sure how you could read the article and miss the historical context. In postwar Japan, many women were not cooking with saucepans on gas or electric ranges with high-quality, industrially processed rice: >For centuries, most Japanese cooks made rice with a kamado, a box-shaped range topped with a heavy iron pot. It was painfully tricky. Cooking rice this way, says columnist and food writer Makiko Itoh, takes heat modulation: high heat until the water and rice boils, then low heat, then high heat again. “And that, with a wood-burning stove, is very difficult.” Each day, Japanese women rose at dawn and labored for several sweaty hours to make rice. The engineer who made the first, widely successful design relied on his wife’s expertise in this traditional cooking method to perfect it.

mynameishere 6y ago
It was painfully tricky "Until now, this was the only way to get cooked rice from rice..." https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=viejY6UZ5Bk&t=42s https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=viejY6UZ5Bk&t=42s Okay, but in that case the best thing to invent would be a non-horrible stove. I've made rice, and even as an incompetent cook, it really is a non-issue.
- claudeganon 6y ago
  Most Japanese houses postwar were not equipped to have good gas ranges. The article highlights that widespread electrification had occurred, which favored rice cookers, especially because cooking food on electric ranges is anathema for huge swathes of Japanese cuisine. The standard to be measured against was also, again, Kamado rice, which most rice cookers today would struggle to meet and I guarantee few bachelors are measuring up to with their sauce pans.

dec0dedab0de 6y ago

Jo Koy has a bit about cooking rice on his newest special that points out an even easier trick. Put as much rice as you want to cover the bottom of the pot, then put your index finger on the rice and fill the water up to the first knuckle. ...But for the next step I'm using my instapot while I do something else.

imglorp 6y ago
I was taught this method also, by a Japanese woman in the 80s. I think it works because the cooker cuts the heat exactly when it's all turned to steam, which is held at a minimum pressure by the lid. So the amount of water is very forgiving because there's those two automatic functions regulating the process.

jasode 6y ago

>Cooking rice is difficult? Hmm .... I didn't downvote your comment but your dismissive snark seems out of place since the _history_ of "tricky/difficult/labored" was explained in the article: >It was painfully tricky. Cooking rice this way, says columnist and food writer Makiko Itoh, takes heat modulation: high heat until the water and rice boils, then low heat, then high heat again. “And that, with a wood-burning stove, is very difficult.” Each day, Japanese women rose at dawn and labored for several sweaty hours to make rice. (A contemporary restaurant in Nara, Japan, offers a kamado-cooking experience that starts with 15 minutes of pumping a bellows to fan the flames.)

eternalban 6y ago
The article makes general statements about cooking rice, but it is really about cooking rice Japanese style. In some rice eating countries, automatic rice cookers never really took off because of the 'quality' of the product is obviously East Asia centric, which is considered 'mushy' rice in West Asia. With some rice cooking approaches, the amount of water makes no difference as whatever is left is drained after a fixed period of time, and then it's simmer time. "Burning" of the bottom is also locale dependent. In Persian Cuisine for example, the art of making 'Tah-Deeg' (lit. bottom of the pot) is one of the stepping stones of becoming a serious cook, and generally this is the bit of the rice that family fights over at the table. Bottom line, OP is correct, imho.
- cangencer 6y ago
  +1, in countries like Turkey, Persia, India, Pakistan rice cookers are pretty uncommon. In my home country of Turkey where rice is eaten very commonly, I've never heard of a single person use it. Further, rice is typically first washed several times, fried with a bit of oil and perhaps some spices before being simmered. I don't know if it's possible to do this with a Japanese style rice-cooker.
  - deleted 6y ago
    [deleted]
  - 6y ago

bobcostas55 6y ago

2:1?! That ratio is crazy and will certainly not produce good rice.

Icathian 6y ago
What do you personally recommend instead?
- pyk 6y ago
  1 cup rice 1.25 cups water is what I use as a ratio for short-to-medium grain white rice (I recommend kokuho rose extra fancy). That also is the one typically inscribed on the side of a rice cooker pot. You can go a little over water-wise for a mushier rice, or under for a chewier/drier rice - white rice is forgiving.
riahi 6y ago
That's sort of a typical ratio for Basmati rice. Not good for East Asian varieties though.

smichel17 6y ago

I follow very similar steps. Two changes: - I turn the heat off (but do not open the lid) at 15 minutes - If I'm planning on making extra, sometimes I like to add some oil (usually coconut, sometimes olive or butter), which I find helps it keep better. Oil and rice added before water, to spread it evenly.