During Black Friday I purchased a zojirushi rice cooker and been very happy.
My family rice cooker finally kicked the bucket and had been around before I was born. It will be sorely missed. The instant pot makes very good rice and of course the stove top is also a good option.
I will say like many other reviewers have pointed out is that it produces a very consistent finished cooked rice. I think that was the biggest issue with my old cooker is that the bottom heating element would crisp maybe the lower 1/2 inch of rice in the pot.
Everyone I know who has an instapot is always a little scared of using it. I have not shared as much worry since the safety features of these appliances have greatly improved over the years if you use them properly.
I personally don’t like doing stove top rice at the moment since the rental we are in used an electric stovetop. I find the settings on the electric counter top to be too aggressive and not sensitive enough to cook “perfect” rice.
We’ve had no issues in the month of use. The grains maintain good consistency and feel closer to restaurant quality than I’ve ever been able to achieve at home.
If you like making rice balls to bring for lunches or snacks I find “sweet” rice to be very glutinous and perfect for this application… otherwise we mostly cook short Japanese rice or jasmine.
Zojirushi here. We got one around 8 years ago and never looked back.
What I find funny while watching MKR (an Australian cooking competition for home cooks) is that more often than not it’s the Asian cooks who mess up cooking rice. They always say the same thing “We only use a rice cooker at home”
Yea, it’s painful to see when there is a rice cooker there.
I think the only excuse not to use one is if you want to make a very large quantity that will not fit…. But then you just buy a second rice cooker for large gatherings
I do like the having rice in 15 minutes as opposed to the 40-50 minutes the zojirushi takes.
I do like the zojirushi has a tenderness setting: firmer/normal/softer. I feel like I guess a little bit in the instant pot when switching different style of rices even when following package directions.
It gets a permanent spot on the island countertop next to the air fryer.
I cook mine in the oven. Rice butter and salt in the bowl, boil water on the stove, pour over rice, cover and bake 350° for 30 min. If I want sticky rice I leave the butter and salt out.
Put 3/8 inch of rice in a non-stock pan or pot, and fill with enough water to cover the rice by the length of one pinkie knuckle.
Cover loosely with a lid tilted enough to allow subsequent steam to escape, and to avoid boil-over.
Simmer at low heat until all the water is absorbed fully.
Cover tightly with that lid.
keep at very low heat until the rice is tender and done.
This is a very forgiving method, which requires minimal oversight, and has scant risk of under-cooking, boil-over, or over-cooking.
I’m puzzzled by people quoting a single cooking time (for whatever method). My simplistic approach using a pan with a good lid on the stove top (gas which can go very low) has cooking times varying from 15 (Jasmin rice) to 40 or 50 minutes (brown , japonica, wild etc).
We have had the same National rice cooker for at least 15 years now. Still works perfectly, except for brown rice, which I never had good luck with in it, so I switched to the instant pot for brown rice though with the manual setting instead of the rice setting. I think I got that tip from CFu on here.
This is about what I do. Principal difference is that I take the pan off the heat when the water is absorbed a put a kitchen towel between the pot and the lid which absorbs some excess moisture, and let the pot sit for 10-15 minutes
Actually, I always soaked my brown rice first and discarded the liquid, the last couple years I take the extra step of parboiling it as well. Kind of a pain though.
