4 ms·

> You cannot cook anything good in a rice maker anymore than you can a microwave except, of course, rice. This is silly in the extreme. A rice cooker is just a

by TillE 14y ago

> You cannot cook anything good in a rice maker anymore than you can a microwave except, of course, rice. This is silly in the extreme. A rice cooker is just a pot with a built-in heating element and a sensor to tell when the water has boiled off. Most dishes you can make in one pot, you can make equally well in a rice cooker. (The exception being when you need to carefully control the heat.) Do you really think it's impossible to make a good one-pot meal?

mattmaroon 14y ago
That's a large enough exception that one pot cooking and rice cooker cooking are two very different things. You can make some good meals in one pot, but you're doing things like browning meat in it, then sweating onions, then adding in whatever else. I make a mean poulet basquaise in a dutch oven, but couldn't make it in a rice cooker. Can you somehow get a maillard reaction to occur in a rice cooker? Or caramelization?
- jules 14y ago
  You can in some limited cases. E.g. you can make dulce de leche au bain marie. You probably won't have much success searing your meat au bain marie though ;-)
  - mattmaroon 14y ago
    But a bain marie is sorta two pots though :)
- tptacek 14y ago
  You can definitely get browning in a rice cooker, but it usually means you've done something wrong. This is very definitely a downside of Ebert's rice-cooker meals.
- mamoswined 14y ago
  "Can you somehow get a maillard reaction to occur in a rice cooker? Or caramelization?" You can use ingredients that already have these. Like I use onions I caramelized before hand and top a lot of my dishes with meat that I browned. You can get some browning in a rice cooker if you need to though. Actually some rice cookers are made specially to do that. The ones that target the Middle Eastern market produce rice with something called a "tadig" which means that the bottom rice has turned crispy and brown- ideally with ghee put in the bottom of the pot before the rice was added. My rice cooker produces that and I typically take it out, break it up, and mix it in with the dish so there are lovely crunchy bits.

by TillE 14y ago

mattmaroon 14y ago

That's a large enough exception that one pot cooking and rice cooker cooking are two very different things. You can make some good meals in one pot, but you're doing things like browning meat in it, then sweating onions, then adding in whatever else. I make a mean poulet basquaise in a dutch oven, but couldn't make it in a rice cooker. Can you somehow get a maillard reaction to occur in a rice cooker? Or caramelization?

jules 14y ago
You can in some limited cases. E.g. you can make dulce de leche au bain marie. You probably won't have much success searing your meat au bain marie though ;-)
- mattmaroon 14y ago
  But a bain marie is sorta two pots though :)
tptacek 14y ago
You can definitely get browning in a rice cooker, but it usually means you've done something wrong. This is very definitely a downside of Ebert's rice-cooker meals.
mamoswined 14y ago
"Can you somehow get a maillard reaction to occur in a rice cooker? Or caramelization?" You can use ingredients that already have these. Like I use onions I caramelized before hand and top a lot of my dishes with meat that I browned. You can get some browning in a rice cooker if you need to though. Actually some rice cookers are made specially to do that. The ones that target the Middle Eastern market produce rice with something called a "tadig" which means that the bottom rice has turned crispy and brown- ideally with ghee put in the bottom of the pot before the rice was added. My rice cooker produces that and I typically take it out, break it up, and mix it in with the dish so there are lovely crunchy bits.