How to Use a Rice Cooker

Rice is a staple food for almost half of the population of the world, so it is no wonder that the rice cooker was invented to make the job of cooking rice easier. It is a thermostat-controlled appliance which boils rice with water until the water has evaporated and the inside of the rice cooker has reached a certain temperature. Most rice cookers today will keep the rice warm after you cooked it. Most also comes with a steamer for other purposes. In this article, I will give you instructions and some tips if you want to avoid burning your rice.

Instructions

1. Rice cookers usually come with cups for rice measurement. Be wary of its measurement though, because 1 cup of rice is only about ¾ cup of the standard US measurement. Measure the rice before putting it into the cooking bowl.
2. Depending on the instruction, you do not need to rinse your rice before cooking it. Doing so may wash away the thiamin, folic acid and other water-soluble nutrients. But it may imperative to wash the rice to remove dirt and chemicals present on its surface unless the label insists on the opposite.
3. To properly rinse rice, fill the cooking bowl with tap water, all the while stirring the rice. To drain the water, tip the cooking bowl on one side and slowly drain water away. To catch some rice grains that fall with the water, use one hand to hold the lower part of the bowl. Drain as much water from the bowl as possible. You may repeat the process until the solution is clear, but personally, I only rinse rice up to 2-3 times, so I can still have some of that vitamins and minerals.
4. Some people soak the rice for some time (up to 30 minutes) before cooking it. This is only optional though.
5. Water plays a very important role in what your cooked rice would be like. You would want your rice to be fluffy, not too dry and not too soaked with water that it seems like you’re cooking porridge. Some variety of rice needs more water to be cooked than others, like the brown rice for example, which needs about 2 ¼ cups water in every 1 cup of rice. But you will never go wrong with the ratio of 2 to 2 ½ cups of water in every 1 cup of rice of all the remaining varieties.
6. It is proper to level out the rice inside the cooking pot and put stray grains in the pot’s edge into the water.
7. Once you’re ready, put the cooking bowl into the rice cooker and then cover it with the lid. You can then plug the cooker and turn it on. Once the rice is cooked, you will hear a clicking sound. As I’ve said above, most of the rice cooker models today warm your rice automatically until you pull the plug.

Tips

You can enhance the flavor and aroma of your cooked rice if you cook it with bay leaves.

Trust in your rice cooker; do not open the lid while the rice is not yet cooked. Opening it may lead to an undercooked rice and other undesirable results.