Dear Tamar:
What rice cooker should I buy? Is there a price threshold below which they make bad rice? Are some better for certain kinds of rice? Some cost over $300. Is the most expensive one the best?
-A Grain of Truth
Dear A Grain of Truth,
Years ago I was confit-ing a piece of goose with my friend, Gabriel. We were also sauteeing greens. We spent our cooking time sitting on the patch of grass in front of his apartment in Ditmas Park, though, blowing dandelion puffballs and deliberating about young grown up things, like whom we would end up with and who we would end up being.
We forgot about the confit entirely, retrieving it from the oven hours and hours after we’d put it in. We also singed the greens. I remember Gabriel’s face, panicked at the greens, utterly crestfallen when we remembered the goose. I comforted him with the words: “Just taste it,” and “It’s fine!” It’s very hard to burn greens or over-confit goose. They were both delicious with lots of fresh baguette and the Etna Rosso we drank as often as we could in those days. As we sat among our blown off dandelion seeds, blotting our plates with bread and lying back to stare at the clouds, Gabriel suggested I write a food book full of kitchen disasters with the answer for each being either “Just taste it!” or “It’s fine.”
It wouldn’t have been a very good book. But the underlying point is sound—even vital. In cooking, there are things that matter and things that don’t. Food must taste good. If it does, all is well. If our greens had been undercooked, fibrous and harsh, it would have been a problem—as would underseasoning. But a bit of extra heat was no cause for concern. For the goose, the proof was in the probing: if it tasted good it was good. As long as the things that matter are alright, the rest can go pear shaped or sideways or upside down. If the things that matter fail, so does the overall attempt.
There is always a thing that matters, and things that don’t. Part of becoming a good cook is learning to discern them. This brings us to rice. What matters is the rice itself. The universe of rice is vast, and ranges from bland mush to taut aromatic grains that absorb your attention when you eat them. I have several theories about why rice cooking causes us global northerners so many problems and so much anxiety. One of my central ones is that we don’t pay enough attention to what sort of rice we’re cooking, but instead cook whatever a recipe writer tells us to.
I love Koshihikari rice, which I buy in 15 lb bags. I also go through phases of loving Jasmine rice, and other phases when Basmati’s insane noodliness is the only thing that will content me. But I don’t buy “rice” as though it’s all one category on level playing field because it isn’t. It also matters that rice be washed and soaked. I hang my head in shame to admit I went through years of not doing either. It changes the rice immensely. Cooking requires less water and is faster and more even. (Also, I season my rice with a little salt.) The amount of water matters—if you’re steaming rice—and it’s worth learning the ratio for the one you’re practicing on. But if you boil rice, putting a big pot of water on to boil and cooking rice like pasta, draining it and letting it dry on a tray, the amount of water just has to be “a lot.”
What does not matter is what kind of rice cooker you use. In fact, the simpler the better. The last rice cooker I had was a plain white one, with no settings or customizations, for which you just put in rice, the correct amount of water, and salt, and pressed down a lever. I loved it, and cooked rice in it almost every day, often adding the ingredients and depressing the lever before I’d even taken off my bag and jacket. The rice maker belonged to my roommate. Ever since moving out, I’ve been cooking rice in a pot, which I like because there is more stuff in my life and consequently on my counters now than there was then, and the multiple utility of a pot is a blessing. If I didn’t have a young child, or had the sense to get rid of some stuff I likely would buy another simple rice cooker, continuing to do the important parts—buying good rice, and washing and soaking it—myself, but leaving the simple three step process of bringing it to a boil, lowering it to a simmer, then turning it off to finish steaming off heat, to a friendly robot.
Dear cook, I’m happy to resolve your affair with this grain of truth that applies across disciplines: find what matters, do it well, and don’t spend a second longer than you need to on the other stuff. What matters is already as absorbing as the very best Koshikihari rice.
We're a family that cooks rice with every meal, so we have a rice cooker. I have recently begun experimenting with cooking my beans in the rice cooker too, and steel cut oats, which both benefit from having a "soak now, cook later" setting. For all the rest of my life, though, we were content with a pot or the cheapest available.
This was priceless! So true. I used to have a rice cooker and a bread machine, neither of those are necessary--just the food is. I usually roast my farro & rice before cooking it. I imagine that in real cooking circles that's a no-no; but I like the roasted nutty flavor it gives the grain. ;)