The Magical Rice Cooker

Invented by Yoshitada Minami during the 1940s, and first introduced to the world by Toshiba in 1956, the rice cooker has long since become a mainstay in Asian households. Just put in the right ratio of water and rice, and it’ll make steamy, fragrant and perfectly textured rice, every time. Thus, freeing your time and attention for other dishes. It even inspired the creation of the modern slow cooker, which uses the same idea of electrical heating via insulated container and heat-trapping pot.

That’s not all. Despite the relatively simple design, the rice cooker can actually cook more than rice!

Flavoured Rice

Let’s start with the most direct ‘variant’ of cooked rice: just add pre-cooked ingredients with water and rice, and switch on to cook! Next to fried rice, it’s the easiest way to yummify plain rice for a satisfying meal. Here’s an umami Japanese special with shiitake mushrooms and dashi!

Congee

Put more water with your rice in the cooker, and it’ll simmer into a velvety, oatmeal-like texture. Voila! You just made congee or rice porridge. The classic Asian comfort food and popular breakfast. Steamy and fragrant but neutral-tasting by itself, you can add pretty much any topping you like. Come check out the various signature Asian flavours you can enjoy.

Steam cooking

Steam cooking is among the oldest and healthiest ways to cook, and you can absolutely do it with a rice cooker, especially for bite-sized dishes like dumplings and yum cha goodies. Just fill about a quarter of the pot with water, cook to boiling point, put in your steamer basket, and close the lid. Let the rice cooker carry on cooking till it switches to the keep-warm function, then leave it for another 10-20 minutes more, and it’s done!

Hot Pot

Want to have a sumptuous hot pot party at home, but don’t have a portable stove or hot plate? Easy, just do it with your rice cooker! Fill it up with water and your broth ingredients, and turn it on to simmer. Enjoy a warm and delicious time with a Thai Suki hot pot, simple Malaysian Lok-Lok, classic Chinese hot pot, flaming Sichuan special, spicy and tangy Vietnamese Tom Yum style, Japanese Shabu Shabu, or the magnificent Chanko Nabe.

Meaty stews

As mentioned, the slow cooker was inspired by the rice cooker. The key ‘upgrades’ are the heat-setting and timer functions, which the latter lacks. Nonetheless, you can still make certain slow-cooked dishes with the rice cooker, such as stews. Here’s a warm and flavourful Japanese pork stew, perfect for weekday dinners!

Cakes

Yes, you can even ‘bake’ cakes with your rice cooker, thanks to its basic principle of trapping heat in an enclosed chamber, i.e. its pot, which also functions as the baking tray. Just prep and blend all your ingredients for the batter, grease the rice cooker pot with butter, pour in the batter, close the lid and switch on. Super simple and much easier to clean afterward than your oven! Satiate your sweet-tooth craving with this fruity pancake, or indulge in the fluffy pleasure of an amazing Japanese cheesecake.