It would seem that everyone here has ignored how many different ways that rice cookers are used in the far east. It's very common to put a whole chicken or sal

It would seem that everyone here has ignored how many different ways that rice cookers are used in the far east. It's very common to put a whole chicken or salted duck egg (in the shell) in with the rice when it cooks, by the time the rice is done you have a hard boiled egg. Then, you put a wire stand on top of the rice and a shallow metal dish on the stand, and put in some meat, and some vegetables and you have a whole meal. If you don't have access to any other way, rice cookers are not half bad at popping popcorn (though if I have a choice I do it in a wok). I have recently moved from Thailand to Cambodia and am still waiting (four months now) to move my things to Cambodia, but I have a rice cooker. So I still use the rice cooker every morning to make ramen every morning. I buy some ground pork and bean sprouts in the wet market down the street, first boil the water, then add the meat, and then add the soup mix and bean sprouts. Many cheap rice cookers include a steaming rack which you fit above the bowl. I use this all the time to cook frozen dim sum -- or a steamed version of the fritata that was mentioned in the article. As some of the other posts mentioned, it would be nice if there was a low heat setting so it could double as a crock pot, but then, there is a reason that rice cooker pots are made from aluminium and crock pots are a thick ceramic.