Why almost anyone would enjoy owning a €22 rice cooker
Recently I exchanged some friendly banter with a few friends and acquaintances in a messaging group.
I was firmly in the camp of always wanting and needing a rice cooker at home, as were a few others. Two of the persons in the group had never owned one, and didn't really plan on buying one.
Jeff, a professional lunchroom cook, wrote: "Never owned a rice cooker, another thing I don't see the point of haha." One of the pro rice cooker persons, Sarah, who has two Asian parents, replied to Jeff:
"Omg fight me." & "Rice in a good rice cooker is just better - it's almost guaranteed fluffier, better texture, etc."
I replied to Jeff: "Two Billion Asians think you are wrong for that."
We were joking, but only slightly. Below is a short, very nice article that explains well why rice cookers are a key appliance, a source of convenience and comfort across many Asian cultures and how they intersect with daily life, culinary practices, and social dynamics:
https://www.weknowrice.com/the-cultural-impact-of-rice-cookers-in-asia/
My experiences with cooking rice, as I related to the people in the messaging group: I made rice without a rice cooker for at least 15 years,.. I was happy. Then I tried a rice cooker, since then I would never go back to cooking rice in a regular pot. Girlfriend and I just today used mine, to make perfect rice to go with our Chili sin Carne.
It is primarily luck that I ended buying any rice cooker, the one I am using to this day. It is more than 15 years old, I got it for €5, very slightly used, at as I recall, a Dutch "King's Day" fleamarket (back then it was called "Queen's Day").
My rice cooker is the simplest, cheapest, smallest model available then and now. It is almost identical to the one below.
I just checked and including shipping, it retails for E21,39. It is rated for 300 Watts and measures 24x27x21 cm and has a 0.6 L capacity.
I moved mine from the Netherlands to Berlin and later to Valencia, and today it still cooks rice flawlessly and fast.
There are so many reasons to have and use a dedicated rice cooker and few indeed that speak against it. Yes, of course you can make great rice in any pot. You will however, need to pay more attention to it and will have to mind the heat since you are using a range. Everybody has burned rice in a pot or had it boiled over, at least once or twice. In a rice cooker both burning and boiling over are nigh-on impossible. A regular pot is generally slower to cook rice in and does not keep the rice warm for many hours, much less without running a risk of burning. And usually a regular pot is quite a bit harder to wash up due to size, weight and sticking more.
We have a small kitchen. I appreciate the idea of having only multi-functional kitchen gear and having fewer dedicated appliances, but I truly believe in this case making an exception is utterly worthwhile.
A rice cooker may take up a little space, however the one I have is very small yet perfectly apt for cooking rice for 3 or even 4 persons. Rice cookers exist in nearly every size. Having one will save you time, electricity and money, while offering convenience alongside a better, more consistent and tastier result.
There is also no need to buy anything expensive or fancy. There are complex ones with a lid and seal along the lines of this image:
Yet those lids get more grotty and are hard to clean and the seal wears out. The extremely affordable ones with glass lid, not so. I did a deep dive into rice cookers. Watched at least three different YouTubers comparing rice made with a €20 rice cooker vs. a €200 rice cooker, latter being the famous Japanese Zojirushi.
These content creators were either truly not sure if the expensive one made rice any better or, if they it did, it was a minute difference. Yet two of those creators also stated it took twice as long to make the rice in the expensive and more complex unit! And that style of cooker has other problems too. This lady really knows what she is talking about ->
I will try to replace my ancient rice cooker with the exact same one she recommends, since I do really prefer nothing like Teflon in my kitchen, and she makes good points.
The simple ones are truly clever devices from a technical and physics point of view. ->