[jumpkick]

2 cups water, 1 cup long grain rice (2:1 ratio water to rice). Bring water to boil in a pot, add rice, stir and let return to boil. Immediately reduce heat to simmer, put on a lid and let cook for 20 minutes. Once the time is up, remove from heat and fluff the rice with a fork.

I’ve been cooking rice exactly like this for 15 years. It’s one of the easiest things to cook and it’s always come out great.

I really struggle to understand the reason for owning a rice cooker.

[maxglute]

Rice is really easy to master, especially small portions like 1-2 cups of rice.

Convenience of rice cooker life is if you have to feed family of 4+ and don't want to fuss or worry about water boiling over because you forget to check stove. Throwing in 4-5 cups of rice, and have keep warm feature preserve rice for 3-4 days. Extra perk with fancy induction rice cookers which gives bump in rice taste but takes 3x more time to cook - 50-60 minutes, which isn't worth the effort for small portions, but worth a little planning if you're doing multipe days worth. Slightly high end models are solid $300-400 appliance (msrp in JP) investment, steep if you're paying 500+ elsewhere. Super high end 800+ hard to justify. Especially when there's instant pot. But instant pot fussy with measuring. Beauty of dedicated rice cookers is you just dump in bunch of rice and eyeball water and it'll generally manage very consistent results. Easily worth the convenience if you're eating rice every day.

Edit: ultimate lazy / easy rice for small portions is a $20 microwave rice cooker with dialed in settings. Joseph Joseph has one that's very easy to clean - there's drain basket for cleaning rice, it's plastic so don't have to worry about accidental sticky bottom, and post cooking clean up takes a minute. Paired with my (lol) $700 inverter microwave, makes very solid cup rice in 13 minutes.

[harshreality]

Then again, a rice cooker with metal or ceramic-coated surface doesn't infuse your grains with microplastics.

[maxglute]

Purely convenience at expense of personal health. I don't feed others plastic cooked rice because it freaks people out.

Hario (HARIO XRCN-2-B) has a $7 glass microwave rice pot in JP . Still has some plastic components that do not make contact with the food. But it's like $60 to import to NA. There's also ceramic versions which I've never tested.

[ricardobeat]

Keep warm for 3-4 days? That’s insane. Rice stored in the fridge starts to go bad after three days. Not to mention you’d end up with a dry block of rice. Have you actually done this?

They recommend the “keep warm” feature is used for no longer than 4-12 hours. You’re exposing yourself to serious food poisoning going longer than that, especially if your cooker isnt very good at keeping the entire bowl at >60C.

[phil21]

The rice cookers are very good at keeping things at a safe temp. The good ones will have power failure detection.

I regularly make a (work) weeks worth of rice on Sunday night and eat through it until Thursday or Friday or so. Been doing this for well over a decade so far.

The first two days you probably can't tell the difference unless you are a rice snob. After that the taste tends to suffer a bit, but infinitely better than reheating rice from the fridge.

[peteforde]

Keep in mind that the only good way to make good fried rice is to start with yesterday's rice from the fridge.

[wk_end]

A rice cooker is even easier than that, but most importantly: you can throw the rice on in the morning, go to school/the office, and come home to hot rice, ready-and-waiting in the evening.

[zakki]

It is true that rice cooker make life easier, no need dedicated time to cook it. And we have always-warm rice.

Recently a family member told me that eating a-room-temperature rice help in reducing the glucose* amount in the rice. So in that case always-warm rice is not a good feature.

*) maybe it is not the correct term

[wk_end]

You should warn your family member that keeping rice at room temperature is a really, really good way to give yourself serious food poisoning - it's an ideal breeding ground for Bacillus cereus. Google "fried rice syndrome".

[implements]

Yes - it’s important rice is either hot or cold, not kept warm for long periods (five or so hours) and then eaten.

[billfor]

Besides the timer there are settings for brown rice, which may take a while to attend to if done by hand. Also some models have pressure. Others let you give feedback as to the final product and will take that into consideration for future batches. I use mine for oatmeal. I put all the ingredients in at night and its ready in the morning. Steel cut or full groat would take a while doing it by hand.

[asylteltine]

… with my rice cooker I put the rice and water in and press a button

Do you REALLY struggle to understand that?

[Lukeisun]

That and the consistency of the rice cooker. I try not to buy one use kitchen utilities as a frequent home cook. But I’d be hard pressed to ever give up my rice cooker

[adrian_b]

A rice cooker may be needed for cooking large quantities of rice, but perfect consistency and no effort is achieved by cooking the rice in a microwave oven, which needs only 10 to 15 minutes, depending on the oven and on the amount of rice.

[jumpkick]

I do. Usually I’m cooking rice as a component of a meal. So I’m already at the range cooking other things and I can’t leave to do something else anyway. Since I’m already there, I may as well set a timer for 20 minutes to let the rice cook.

[notfed]

Try it... you're making things harder on yourself.

- Rice cookers are like $10-$20

- You save precious stovetop space

- You can start cooking rice and leave the house, e.g., to pick up other last-minute groceries

- Once it's cooked, it keeps your rice warm/wet until you're ready to eat it

[asylteltine]

I’m not saying that’s bad, but it’s a lot more work than a rice cooker. Set it and forget it is important to me as I already hate cooking. I also have a ninja foodi xl which perfectly grills meat using a probe, so it makes cooking faster, easier, and more consistent

[tonyedgecombe]

>Do you REALLY struggle to understand that?

I do. Cooking rice in a pan is so easy I'm struggling to understand why you would buy a gadget to do it for you.

[quacker]

Ultimately, a rice cooker is a small luxury, but:

- A rice cooker frees up a burner on the stove, which is useful for those with small apartments or other situations where there are few or no burners available.

- Rice cookers are very consistent and virtually foolproof, even the cheap ones. Add water and rice, set it, and forget it. I can say I’ve over or under cooked rice on the stove at least a few times, but not once in a rice cooker.

- Decent rice cookers make far better rice than I’ve personally ever made on the stove (and I have cooked rice on the stove plenty).

- More expensive models keep rice hot (at a food-safe temperature) for hours, so you can prep well in advance of a meal. I put rice on to cook and can leave the house for hours without worrying about it, and have rice for the whole day in one batch, if needed.

- Rice cookers also cook other things and some handle different kinds of rice. Brown rice needs to be cooked significantly differently than white rice, for example.

[zajio1am]

Rice cooking is kind of complex, because you should boil away most water and not cook any longer, and you are not really able to inspect the level of water.

20 minutes works in your setup, but will it work on different stove with different power levels, in a pot with different geometry, or with a different kind of rice?

Rice cooker solves that issue with a simple feedback.

[ChoGGi]

I do 20m as well.

[cynix]

> long grain rice

Maybe you’re not the target audience. Cooking short grain rice seems to require more care, and a high end rice cooker is the easiest way to get perfect rice.

[judge2020]

Maybe it's faster? Bringing a pot of water to boil can take a long time especially on some lower-quality/older electric ranges.

[kouru225]

Rice cookers are actually slower in my experience. The benefit is that you don’t have to pay attention to them at all.

[callalex]

The slowness is a feature. The “smart” or “ai” or “fuzzy logic” or “buzzword” cookers take longer to cook the rice than a simple cheap cooker or a pot on the stove. The rice comes out better that way.

[maxglute]

Induction Coil ones like in the video takes 2-3x longer for nicer rice. Which is pain in the ass for people use to 20m stove top rice. But fine if you make 5 cups and eat over multiple days.

[gcheong]

Not sure it’s faster but at least for me I can start the rice then go off and do other things while it cooks and the rice cooker will keep it warm when it’s done.

[t-3]

Rice cookers are inferior in flavor/texture and they take longer to cook, but you can safely leave them unattended and they also save space on the stove. Not every apartment has a range, and not every range actually works, so they can help there too.

[trefoiled]

My Zojirushi makes rice with better consistency and texture than any rice I've had outside of a sushi restaurant - but then again it's possible I just don't know anyone who knows how to make good rice on a stove

[chongli]

Zojirushi rice cookers do not have inferior texture. That’s why people pay so much money for them!

[Bud]

It's totally understandable that you don't get it; I didn't either, until I finally bought one. First of all it's the amazing consistency of the rice you get. Second, it's so forgiving. Too much water? Not enough? Machine adjusts and your rice is perfect anyway. Not ready to use the rice yet, because the rest of the dinner is behind schedule? No problem. Leave it in there. For hours if you have to. Keeps it warm and ready. Need to leave the house for a while? Set the timer, it will have the rice ready when you get back. Even if that's 10 hours later.

It's awesome.