4 ms·

Can you explain in an objective way, talking about taste or whatever terms foodies use why rice-cookers cannot cook good food? I'm inclined to think that this

Can you explain in an objective way, talking about taste or whatever terms foodies use why rice-cookers cannot cook good food? I'm inclined to think that this is subjective and just one man's opinion, but artistic types have been defending their subjective opinions in objective terms for a long time. For example designers talk about hierarchy, organization, affordances, even though design is artistic. I'm curious to hear if you have something to say along these lines.

mattmaroon 14y ago
I'll give it a whack. First off, I'm defining "good food" rather strictly. Something you'd see in a chef-owned restaurant, where the chef either went to culinary school or worked in prestigious restaurants. (Cooking, like programming, can be learned without school.) I'm not saying they have to have a Michelin star, but they have to be making a real effort to make good food, so not Olive Garden. Most of the people who disagree with me simply don't like my definition of good food (and perhaps find it snobbish) which is totally fine. So imagine you took a list of everything on those menus, and started filtering out anything using a technique a rice cooker is incapable of. I suppose my statement might not be literally true, there might still be SOMETHING left on the list, but we'd be talking less than a percent. There are a number of things you just can't do (I think) in a rice cooker that you do at least one of in pretty much every dish you'd see at such a restaurant. You can't cook something at more than one temperature, for instance. You can't cook at any temperature above or below 100 celsius. You can't get a Maillard reaction (the browning of a steak or toast and it's associated flavors) or caramelization to happen. Right there you've knocked out almost everything cooked that you'll see on such a menu. You can't roast or sear or sautee anything. A rice cooker cooks only with conduction in a wet environment. (I'm assuming convection occurs too when there's still enough liquid in the pot.) It's too hot to simmer and too cold to braise. Even one pot dishes (and anything that isn't a one pot dish, which is the vast majority of the food I've described, is out by definition unless you have numerous rice cookers) usually take multiple steps. For instance toss the chicken in to brown, remove, sweat some onions, toss in some peppers, put in some plum tomatoes and white wine, raise the heat a little to deglaze and burn off the alcohol, lower the heat, add the chicken back in, braise. Etc. (Season the chicken with salt and a little piment d'esplette in the beginning and you've got poulet basquaise! You're welcome HN.) So what can you do in a rice cooker? Boil stuff, that's it. You rarely in any decent restaurant will be served something that has had nothing done to it but boiling, in fact, I can't think of anything and like I said, I'm a foodie. I travel around a lot and have been to a lot of restaurants.
- bane 14y ago
  By the same token, you can't cook soup in a deep fryer or tea in a sauce pan. I probably wouldn't cook a fish in a rice cooker. But I've cooked a meal of chopped and deboned chicken legs, glutinous rice, fresh crushed garlic, salt, fresh crushed pepper, chopped green onions right from my garden, and a few fresh ginger slices in a 10 year old cheapo rice cooker that was a great accompaniment to my butter pan fried basa (dried for a couple hours, then salt and liberal pepper and paprika'd). The butter helps with the Maillard reaction ;) My chef friend asked for the recipe. Entire meal prep was probably a total of 15 minutes, active cook time probably less than 15, rice cooker spent an hour or so working on the rice and chicken. There's literally nothing wrong with boiling meat. It's a perfectly cromulent cooking technique. You just have to know what you are doing. Boiled meat dishes have been royal court food for thousands of years in some places. The French (God bless 'em) just never got it down.
  - tptacek 14y ago
    The funny thing about this comment is that the Ebert-style rice cooker is actually good at cooking fish.
    - bane 14y ago
      hmm....maybe I should give it a go then...
      - tptacek 14y ago
        There's an old Salon article about cooking salmon in a dishwasher that works on the same principle; gentle moist heat works well with fish.
  - lmm 14y ago
    I've never tasted good boiled meat. Or good boiled anything, really. I like my steaks rare and my vegetables crunchy. Know anywhere in London that would change my mind?
  - giardini 14y ago

mattmaroon 14y ago

I'll give it a whack. First off, I'm defining "good food" rather strictly. Something you'd see in a chef-owned restaurant, where the chef either went to culinary school or worked in prestigious restaurants. (Cooking, like programming, can be learned without school.) I'm not saying they have to have a Michelin star, but they have to be making a real effort to make good food, so not Olive Garden. Most of the people who disagree with me simply don't like my definition of good food (and perhaps find it snobbish) which is totally fine. So imagine you took a list of everything on those menus, and started filtering out anything using a technique a rice cooker is incapable of. I suppose my statement might not be literally true, there might still be SOMETHING left on the list, but we'd be talking less than a percent. There are a number of things you just can't do (I think) in a rice cooker that you do at least one of in pretty much every dish you'd see at such a restaurant. You can't cook something at more than one temperature, for instance. You can't cook at any temperature above or below 100 celsius. You can't get a Maillard reaction (the browning of a steak or toast and it's associated flavors) or caramelization to happen. Right there you've knocked out almost everything cooked that you'll see on such a menu. You can't roast or sear or sautee anything. A rice cooker cooks only with conduction in a wet environment. (I'm assuming convection occurs too when there's still enough liquid in the pot.) It's too hot to simmer and too cold to braise. Even one pot dishes (and anything that isn't a one pot dish, which is the vast majority of the food I've described, is out by definition unless you have numerous rice cookers) usually take multiple steps. For instance toss the chicken in to brown, remove, sweat some onions, toss in some peppers, put in some plum tomatoes and white wine, raise the heat a little to deglaze and burn off the alcohol, lower the heat, add the chicken back in, braise. Etc. (Season the chicken with salt and a little piment d'esplette in the beginning and you've got poulet basquaise! You're welcome HN.) So what can you do in a rice cooker? Boil stuff, that's it. You rarely in any decent restaurant will be served something that has had nothing done to it but boiling, in fact, I can't think of anything and like I said, I'm a foodie. I travel around a lot and have been to a lot of restaurants.

bane 14y ago
By the same token, you can't cook soup in a deep fryer or tea in a sauce pan. I probably wouldn't cook a fish in a rice cooker. But I've cooked a meal of chopped and deboned chicken legs, glutinous rice, fresh crushed garlic, salt, fresh crushed pepper, chopped green onions right from my garden, and a few fresh ginger slices in a 10 year old cheapo rice cooker that was a great accompaniment to my butter pan fried basa (dried for a couple hours, then salt and liberal pepper and paprika'd). The butter helps with the Maillard reaction ;) My chef friend asked for the recipe. Entire meal prep was probably a total of 15 minutes, active cook time probably less than 15, rice cooker spent an hour or so working on the rice and chicken. There's literally nothing wrong with boiling meat. It's a perfectly cromulent cooking technique. You just have to know what you are doing. Boiled meat dishes have been royal court food for thousands of years in some places. The French (God bless 'em) just never got it down.
- tptacek 14y ago
  The funny thing about this comment is that the Ebert-style rice cooker is actually good at cooking fish.
  - bane 14y ago
    hmm....maybe I should give it a go then...
    - tptacek 14y ago
      There's an old Salon article about cooking salmon in a dishwasher that works on the same principle; gentle moist heat works well with fish.
- lmm 14y ago
  I've never tasted good boiled meat. Or good boiled anything, really. I like my steaks rare and my vegetables crunchy. Know anywhere in London that would change my mind?
- giardini 14y ago