The Ultimate Rice Cooker Cookbook [Hardcover]

Beth Hensperger (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: January 1, 2002

This book unlocks the rice cookers potential for the American kitchen.

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com Review

Beth Hensperger and Julie Kaufmann's The Ultimate Rice Cooker Cookbook offers 250 timesaving, convenient, and healthy recipes for making everything from simple white rice to full-course meals. This cookbook proves the rice cooker--which tends to have a bad rap as a never-opened or oft-neglected wedding gift--can be surprisingly versatile: not only does it prepare your rice, it can be used for every dinner course--salad, soup, vegetable, entree, and even dessert.

There is a complete buying and cooking guide for the many rice varieties, as well as other whole grains such as barley, millet, wheat berry, and quinoa. Many of the recipes provide convenient alternative cooking methods for traditional dishes like Italian risottos (the Italian Sausage Risotto is wonderful). Hensperger and Kaufmann show the rice cooker can also work miracles for hot breakfast cereals and porridges with such recipes as Hot Fruited Oatmeal. Delightful main courses include Steamed Ginger Salmon and Asparagus in Black Bean Sauce, and the meal is done almost exclusively within the rice cooker for simple preparation and cleanup. The dessert section has many ideas beyond the expected Old-Fashioned Rice Pudding--the Poached Pears with Grand Marnier Custard Sauce is one elegant and sophisticated example. Both authors of this cookbook are seasoned food writers and this combined effort gives tasty, easy, and healthy recipes that will motivate you to use what has been, until now, an underutilized appliance. --Teresa Simanton

From Library Journal

Hensperger is well known as the author of a dozen or so books on bread. Here, she and Kaufmann, food editor of the San Jose Mercury News, show just how versatile a simple rice cooker can be. They start with rice, of course, providing an excellent guide to the numerous varieties now available and cooking directions. Included are recipes for dozens of rice dishes from risotto to sushi and a chapter on other grains. There are also recipes that use the cooker to steam vegetables, main dishes, dim sum, and tamales, and readers will find a good assortment of desserts, from silky custards to creamy puddings. Other books, such as Stephanie Lyness's Cooking with Steam (o.p.), have focused on various aspects of "steam cuisine," but Hensperger and Kaufmann's is far more ambitious and wide-ranging. For most collections.
Copyright 2001 Reed Business Information, Inc.

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 384 pages
• Publisher: Harvard Common Press (January 1, 2002)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1558322027
• ISBN-13: 978-1558322028
• Product Dimensions: 9.3 x 7.5 x 1.3 inches
• Shipping Weight: 2 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 3.9 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (148 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #626,046 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Beth Hensperger, a New Jersey-born who now considers herself a California native, has been educating, writing, and demo-lecturing about the art of baking bread and cooking for thirty years. In the last few years, she has shifted focus from baking bread to countertop appliance-driven cookbooks that embrace the use of seasonal ingredients, merge convenience with cooking from scratch, and modernizing the home kitchen: the bread machine, the rice cooker, the microwave oven, and now a four-volume compilation specifically for use with the electric slow cooker, stressing care in preparation and personal creativity.

Hensperger's writing career began when she was chosen as the guest cooking instructor for the March 1985 issue of Bon Appétit. Now she is the author of over twenty cookbooks, including the best-selling Not Your Mother's Slow Cooker Cookbook series, which includes Not Your Mother's Recipes for Entertaining, Not Your Mother's Family Favorites, Not Your Mother's Weeknight Suppers, and NYMSC Recipes for Two along with the blockbuster first volume, Not Your Mother's Slow Cooker Cookbook. Also from The Harvard Common Press are The Bread Lover's Bread Machine Cookbook, The Ultimate Rice Cooker Cookbook, and The Best Quick Breads. She is also the author of The Bread Bible, winner of the 2000 James Beard Book Award in Baking, and nominated twice for an IACP Cookbook Award.

Hensperger wrote a food column, "Baking with the Seasons," for the San Jose Mercury News (which was nominated for a James Beard Award in newspaper journalism) for over 12 years until the newspaper downsized.

She is a contributor to dozens of national and online cooking & lifestyle magazines, such as Food and Wine, Rachel Ray Magazine, Prevention, Veggie Life, Working Woman, Family Circle, and Cooking.com, as well as being a sought after radio interviewee speaking on cooking, baking, and entertaining. She lives in the San Francisco Bay area.

Visit Beth's website at BethHensperger.com and her weekly blog at notyourmotherscookbooks.com.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

279 of 281 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars We use this cookbook at least 3 times a week (usually more), November 20, 2002

By 

K. Corn "reviewer" (midwest, United States) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)    (TOP 100 REVIEWER)   

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: The Ultimate Rice Cooker Cookbook (Hardcover)

I bought a rice cooker, learned the basics of preparing rice and then wanted to expand my skills. So I bought a few cookbooks but this is the ONLY one that has recipes my whole family loves, so much so that we use it at least 3-5 times a week and never feel like we're eating the same thing.
The recipes aren't just for rice but for all sorts of grains and vegetables and fruits as well. In fact, I'm ready to throw out my crockpot because the meals prepared in the rice cooker are much better, don't have that overcooked, stewed taste you can get with a crockpot and have all the convenience and ease that I need with my busy schedule. The directions are clear and the recipes range from the simple (plain cooked grains) to the more complex (rice with coconut and currants... or grits with cheese and spices )
The ultimate test of a good cookbook, of course, is getting compliments and raves about the food. Every time I've made a recipe from this book, the food has been devoured quickly. We rarely have leftovers and my son's friends even make a point of looking in the kitchen to see if the rice cooker is turned on ( yes, the recipes in this cookbook are THAT good).

505 of 517 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars One thing to consider...SMELLS, March 25, 2005

By 

Scott Collard (Sacramento, CA United States) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: The Ultimate Rice Cooker Cookbook: 250 No-Fail Recipes for Pilafs, Risottos, Polenta, Chilis, Soups, Porridges, Puddings, and More, from Start to Finish in Your Rice Cooker (Non) (Paperback)

I have owned rice cookers for many years. My latest, the Zojirushi NS-ZAC10, is the best I have ever used. I figured it would be a good idea to branch out from using the rice cooker to cook only rice, so I purchased this highly recommended book.

While the book is very good, and the recipes I have tried so far have all been quite tasty, there is a major consideration that you should be aware of when making many of the recipes in this book: residual odors.

Yes, when you use your rice cooker to make the delicious "creamy breakfast oatmeal" with steel-cut oats, bear in mind that your steamed white rice will smell of cinnamon for at least three or four batches afterwards. My 11-year old (a steamed rice 'purist') noticed the cinnamon 'essence' immediately and complained that 'something was wrong with the rice.'

Similarly with any of the dishes which call for sauteing onions in the rice cooker, or adding other strongly aromatic ingredients. If you use your rice cooker primarily for preparing perfect (and I mean PERFECT) steamed rice, you may not want any other flavors mingling in there.

Just something to keep in mind.

Otherwise, the book is a great resource. There are a few minor inconsistencies (try finding 'congee' in the index), and the resource materials can be a bit confusing (to be fair, the number of rice varieties is quite daunting). And if you are an experienced cook you may get tired of being told the exact procedure for washing rice in every recipe, but all in all, the sheer variety alone is easily worth the price. Also, it is worth noting that if you have a fuzzy logic rice cooker, you will not be able to use it for any of the recipes that employ steaming (which is a fair number of dishes), but you can easily adapt these recipes to any another stovetop steaming setup you may have.

Just remember to plan your rice cooker experiments around your need for 'un-tainted' steamed rice, and you will enjoy "The Ultimate Rice Cooker Cookbook"

196 of 199 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars turns a rice cooker into a major kitchen appliance, April 28, 2003

By 

P. Crowe - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: The Ultimate Rice Cooker Cookbook: 250 No-Fail Recipes for Pilafs, Risottos, Polenta, Chilis, Soups, Porridges, Puddings, and More, from Start to Finish in Your Rice Cooker (Non) (Paperback)

I used to use my rice cooker several times a week. With this cook book and my new fuzzy logic rice cooker, I use it several times a day. It will appeal to cooks of all levels. For cooks experienced with rice and whole grains, the most important part of the book will probably be recipes for the porridge cycle of a fuzzy logic cooker: rice porridge, puddings, custards, and hot cereals. Even for experienced rice cooks, however, this book has excellent information on different varieties of rice and different types of dishes. In addition to many styles of rice dishes, it includes recipes for other grains such as couscous, bulgur and grits. It is well laid out and has commentaries on grains and dishes that will enable creative cooks to invent their own recipes as well as using the very tasty recipes included in the book. Although the recipes suggest the size of the cooker to be used, you need to use some common sense. I have a small cooker and have successfully made recipes suggested for other size cookers. This book is utterly clear and easy to follow. All the recipes work, and all taste wonderful. If you have a rice cooker, especially a fuzzy logic cooker, you need this book.