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[bryant]

Warning: this may be disturbing to real cooks. Or not. I really have no idea.

My aunt, blessed be her name, gave me a rice cooker for Christmas. It has a no-stick pot so it's super easy to wash. You don't have to pay attention to it while you're cooking something. It rocks. I made rice and put some beans in and it was great.

So then I decided to try something else. There's a rumor floating around out there that you can cook meat in it. Mmm, steamed chicken! So I cut up some chicken and some sausage, and put some olive oil into the bottom of the pot, and turned it on. When the oil heated up, I threw in the chicken and sausage and stir fried it a little till I got bored. Then I dumped in a bunch of rice and some water and a can of black beans and a few random spices that were probably past their expiration date, and closed the lid, and made myself go into the living room to read comics.

When I came back, it was done cooking and had switched over to "keep the stuff warm until Bryant wants to eat it" mode. I opened it up, kind of assuming that the meat would be undercooked. Not so! Perfect! Nice moist tender chicken, tasty bits of sausage, all around goodness.

And cleanup was just rinsing out a non-stick bowl. Aw yeah.

Comments

[merlinofchaos]

Most rice cookers use a temperature sensor to determine when to stop cooking, since the whole mess can only get so hot while water is in a liquid form; when it's mostly been converted to steam, the overall temperature can go up again.

You may've gotten lucky on the time to do the meat; but then again, maybe not. It's an interesting idea, I suppose I ought to give it a try in my rice cooker--one dish rice meals are always nice if they're tasty, and getting chicken to not overcook is actually the hardest part.

[gblake.livejournal.com]

You should check out _The Ultimate Rice Cooker Cookbook_. It's pretty cool and has all kinds of stuff you can do in the rice cooker.

[enmascarado.livejournal.com]

There are two (basic) types of rice cookers: boilers and steamers. It's easy to tell which you have. If everything goes into one pot, it's a boiler. If you put the water in a seperate reservoir, it's a steamer.

If it's a steamer, then you have no worries. As long as you have enough water for steam, you will cook the chicken.

If it's a boiler, then you have to be more careful. The cookers go by time on the lower end or humidity on the higher end and might stop before the chicken is fully cooked.

I have a high end boiler, which I love. Every night, unless I'm out, I make myself brown rice, beans and veg with the thing. It's one of the reasons I've lost 50 pounds since college and it keeps my grocery bill low. Rice cookers can handle veg and bean with little worry, but if it's a boiler, I'd reccomend grilling the chicken first.

-Dan

[bryant]

Mmm, much good advice.

I will confess that I kinda cheated and used the little cookbooklet that came with the rice cooker (which is a boiler), which suggested a very similar recipe. Giving it enough stir fry time is key, for obvious reasons. I stir fried the meat until it was just about done, so it wasn't really as risky as I'm sure I made it sound.

Gonna have to check out the cookbook, though. Sounds intriguing.

[r-ness.livejournal.com]

Welcome to the wonderful world of rice cooker cookery. As I like to say, no self-respecting Asian household is without one.

Maybe nowadays I should delete the 'Asian' from that last sentence.

Elizabeth and I both have what was described above as a 'steamer'. I love it. I think I use it for cooking all manner of food, sometimes even rice.

I think I need to check out that cookbook, too.