Rice is one of the widely-consumed foods that feed almost half of the world’s population until now. In Asian countries, rice is their staple food paired with cooked fish, chicken, and vegetables. Meanwhile, Latin-American and African countries regard rice as the primary starch for their meals. To them, mealtime is incomplete without serving a bowl of rice on the table.
However, not everyone can cook perfectly cooked rice; it requires years of experience and precision. Your rice could either go mushy or undercook if the liquid and rice grain are not proportioned. And if you’re still daunting in cooking rice, don’t falter because the rice cooker will save your day. Hence, below are the pros of the rice cooker that you should know.
1. Maintained Cooking Temperature
In a traditional cooking rice method, either on a stove-top burner or wood-fired cooking set, maintaining the heat temperature is crucial in achieving flawlessly cooked rice. But, there are times that things won’t go on your way—heat temperature could become inconsistent. As a result, it burns the rice, which is unappetizing to eat.
The great thing about cooking in a rice cooker is its regulated temperature, set to the appropriate cooking heat intensity. With that said, you wouldn’t have to worry about the rice’s texture and outcome. If you’re trying to impress your visitors, you can click here to purchase the best-buy rice cooker for your ultimate rice-cooking kitchen hacks.
2. Keeps Your Rice Warm
Nothing beats a bowl of fluffy warm rice after being drenched in rain or an energizer after a tiring day. But, not all pots can maintain the warm temperature of the rice, especially the metal pots. Moreover, the rice texture becomes mushy after being left covered for several hours because the trapped heat continues to cook the grains.
Today, most rice cookers already have a “keep warm feature” to maintain the rice’s warmth for almost 12 hours. Also, keeping the 60 degree Celsius temperature prevents bacteria’s growth, but it shouldn’t exceed the required degree as it quickly dries out the moisture—no one likes to eat tough rice, right?
3. Cooks Different Foods
The Rice cooker is not only limited to “cooking rice.” Perhaps, you can cook many dishes that need heat preparation to be cooked. This handy equipment is a friend to those who don’t have enough time to cook food, like boarding students and early-morning workers. Its shallow pot can become a comfort food vessel, and enumerated below are the easy yet delicious dishes you can cook in a rice cooker.
4. Cake
Even if you don’t have an oven to bake your favorite cakes and pastries, a rice cooker can be a great substitution. Primarily, baking requires consistent temperature for the cake’s proper rising, and rice cookers have that, too. All you have to do is provide your all-time favorite recipe and ingredients, combine everything, transfer in the pot, set the time, and wait until it’s cooked.
5. Hard-boiled and Poached Eggs
The egg is the go-to food item every time you’re in a hurry. Amid its simplicity, it’s fascinating that it actually fills the stomach. Typically, you prefer cooking the eggs as hard-boiled because all you need to do is wait for the egg to be thoroughly cooked. However, you can also enjoy a poached egg. It has a runny yolk in the middle that complements the egg’s benedict or enjoy as it is with salt and a dash of pepper on top.
6. Soup
During the winters and rainy season, your body needs warmth, and the best way to heat it is through a hearty bowl of soup. Tomato soup is one of the many all-time comforting foods and can be cooked in a rice cooker with ease. It is paired best with garlic croutons or a slice of ciabatta bread.
7. Easy to Clean and Wash
Washing dishes is probably the most disliked and least-favored task, especially removing the scorched portion of rice that’s difficult to detach. But, gone are heavy-handed washing days because most of the cooking pot of the rice cooker today is non-stick. This might be one of the pros that lessens the burden during washing. Further, when cleaning the rice cooker’s surface, use only a damp kitchen towel to wipe the unwanted dirt to avoid electrical mishaps.
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8. It’s Easy to Use
Cooking rice shouldn’t give you stress; that’s why digital rice cookers are made to make the home-cooking experience easy. One of the notable functions of digital rice cookers is its function to cook the rice without looking after it for the whole cooking time. You just have to press the corresponding process button, such as the automated time for cooking jasmine, white, or brown rice.
Takeaway
Indeed, a rice cooker is one of the many kitchen hack equipment you can use to impress the visitors. Moreover, cooking the humble rice should be stress-free since rice absorbs your energy that affects its integral flavor and aroma. But remember, using a rice cooker for cooking rice doesn’t discredit the traditional method. It’s only a tool to make people’s lives easier.
