Customer Reviews

The Ultimate Rice Cooker Cookbook

5 star:		(77)
4 star:		(25)
3 star:		(17)
2 star:		(17)
1 star:		(12)

 

 

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).

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"

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.

After reading all the reviews of this cookbook, I decided to purchase it. I've been looking for a good rice pudding recipe to be made in a rice cooker.

However, the book is nearly useless to me. Every single recipe in the pudding section calls for using a "fuzzy logic only" cooker. I checked the oatmeal and porridge section as well -- and found the same.

So, it might be a good cookbook for people who own $200 rice cookers, but for the majority of us, the book is just not worth it. There are too few recipes for regular old rice cookers.

(And I find it disingenuous that, when the authors talk about the differences in cookers in the beginning, they fail to note that the majority of their recipes only work in the expensive machine.)

I got this book as a gift after debating whether to buy it for about six months. I have a fuzzy logic cooker and wasn't sure if the recipes in the book were for regular rice cookers or the fuzzy logic type. Turns out its for all kinds of rice cookers. In fact the book basically is a reference guide to rice, rice cookers, rice recipes and anything else eatable the authors attempted to cook in the appliance. The only thing that fuzzy logic cookers get left out of is steamed items. Each recipe tells you if it is appropriate for the rice cooker you have. Most of the recipes seem to work for all cookers.

Comprehensive is the word that came to mind the first time I sat down with this cook book. The first section deals with rice cookers and describes each kind in detail and how to use it. That takes 16 pages. Then they move on to every type of rice you are might encounter in the whole rice loving world. That's another 16 pages. Included in that section is a page devoted to how to make packaged rice mixes in the cooker; things like rice-a-roni or some of the new orleans red beans and rice mixes or casbah brand.

The recipes start appearing on page 34 and one thing to know is that THERE ARE NO ILLUSTRATIONS. The recipes are separated into chapters like pilafs, risottos, deserts, and other unlikely items, like little meals, dim sum and grains. What is convenient is that at the start of each chapter is a little table of contents for that chapter listing the name and page of each recipe. What a great idea. In each chapter if there is any step of a recipe that can't be done in a cooker that gets its own little recipe. The recipes are laid out well; the ingredients are listed in a different color type than the directions.

There are some things they want you to do that seem weird, like melting butter and sauteing things in the cooker using the quick cook cycle with the lid open. I haven't tried that yet. One day, but not today. Making different breakfast oatmeals and porridges seems like high adventure to me.

There are lots of side items about rice or other ingredients, including a list of useful items found in asian markets. Things like that are printed on different colored paper. Even a amall history of rice.

...

While I love this cookbook, I'm going to tell you about the problems so you can get better results from it.

1. Measuring is a challenge! Depending on your rice cooker, liquids can be measured three ways: using the rice cooker cup, by the marks inside your rice cooker bowl, and by a standard measuring cup [8 fl oz.]. Dry ingredients can be measured by either the rice cooker cup or by a standard dry ingredients measuring cup. Before beginning any recipe, make sure you know what measures are being used, and do not make any recipe for the first time when company is coming over, in case you need to adjust it. Based on numerous recipe failures, I think the writers sometimes mixed up the measurements. They definitely could have made the information clearer in each recipe. How about a revised edition? ;)

2. Some recipes, polenta for example, have overly long cooking times, such as two porridge cycles back to back, or 90 minutes. Polenta cooks on the stovetop in 20 minutes; even a single porridge cycle is too long. Feel free to cut cooking times short.

3. When cooking oatmeal, polenta, grits, etc. with the porridge cycle, open the cover up, and leave it up, once the contents reach a simmer. If you don't, starchy lava will flow out of the vent and make a horrible mess, hot liquid may shoot out, and the recipe may be ruined as a result. If your rice cooker starts to spit, use extreme caution when you open the lid, as the hot contents may splash and burn you.

4. If a recipe says you can skip pre-soaking for tapioca, beans, etc., don't. Your final results will be much better using a traditional overnight soak in cold water.

5. When making risotto, don't perform the first step, briefly sautéing the rice in oil, in the rice cooker. Because rice cooker bowls are narrow and deep, the rice will be steamed, and your risotto will be mush. Instead, sauté the rice as usual in a large flat frying pan, then transfer the contents to the rice cooker bowl. Also, use the variety of Arborio called Carnaroli, as it holds up the best.

6. Use an easy to clean rice cooker; mine is the Panasonic from Williams Sonoma. You can avoid lingering odors--even from cinnamon and curry--if you can take the top completely apart and wash it each time. Soak the parts in cool water, not hot, and they should clean up easily. If odors remain, put two or three cups of cold water in the rice cooker and run it through the regular cycle, taking care that it doesn't cook dry. By cups, I mean 8 fluid ounces. ;) Then let it cool, take it apart as much as you can, and let the pieces dry completely in a dish rack.

7. No recipe is foolproof! Variances in rice crops, local water, and rice cookers will affect the outcome. If it doesn't work the first time, make adjustments and try again.

I bought this book before I purchased my rice cooker. I really wanted to prepare beans and whole grains, not just rice. I learned that I could use this appliance in many ways. It made me so excited to purchase a rice cooker. All questions are answered. You CAN use this book to prepare many healthful foods in the basic on off rice cooker. There are only a few recipes that require the fuzzy logic rice cooker. I don't think I have ever had a cookbook that was so well written and entertaining to read, or easy to follow.

I have been using a rice cooker at least 3x/week for over 16 years, but only to make white rice. I bought this cookbook so that I could explore other ways to use this "must-have" kitchen appliance. I think the book is well worth the price, even if you don't own a "fuzzy logic" rice cooker. There are not too many recipes that call for "fuzzy logic" cookers only. Most recipes can be done with either the "on/off" type (like I have) or the "fuzzy logic" type.

First of all, this is a great book that everyone with a rice cooker should own (although if you don't have one, obviously save your money). I've only just begun to explore the recipes, but they are quite good. I haven't found any other rice cooker cookbooks near this quality, depth, etc., basically this book fills a empty spot on my shelf. So thanks Beth Hensperger!

The two disappoints in this book were:
1) Most recipes work with only an on/off cooker OR a fuzzy logic cooker, not either! I thought my sanyo ecj-d100s did everything. In fact, I was happy to note the introduction claims that no fuzzy logic cookers can steam food, only of/off. My sanyo can steam, but it still can't make any of the 5 custards apparently.
2) The book itself is bound in a way that does not let it lie flat on the countertop when open. This is true for most paperbacks though and even some hardbacks. Most recipes however, are simple enough that you don't need to refer to the book more than a few times.

(...)
Oh and if you're looking for recommendations on a rice cooker, this book will not advise. Though I'd suggest a zojirushi zcc, myc or the sanyo ecj-d100s.

`The Ultimate Rice Cooker Cookbook' by bread baking guru Beth Hensperger and culinary colleague, Julie Kaufmann is exactly the book I imagined may be possible the moment I was exposed to a rice cooker when I became part of a Filipino household which, like virtually all Asian-American households, bought rice by the multiple 25 pound sack at a time and made rice for every evening meal in the week. The whole rice cooking culture, with its large rice dispenser holding up to 50 pounds of rice at a time and the handy little levers at the bottom which dispensed either one, two, or three portions of rice into the aluminum rice cooker chamber was a culinary revelation to my western experience.

Being familiar with the slow cooker, which could be used for many different kinds of dishes, I was certain, upon seeing this clever little simple gadget which made perfect cooked rice by turning itself off when all the water had evaporated, that it could do much more than simply cook rice. Well, this book is the perfect realization of my expectations. As luck would have it, I have owned a copy of this book for years, as I bought it in fond remembrance of that lost household, but as my mother has no taste for rice, it went on my shelf along with the small rice cooker I bought upon moving back to the Pennsylvania Dutch culinary world. I rediscovered this book upon my reviewing Hensperger and Kaufmann's superb new book, `Not Your Mother's Slow Cooker Cookbook'. Upon looking at the authors' previous works, it was perfectly obvious to me that this team had already done a book on the rice cooker, and I was embarrassed to realize that I had this little gem collecting dust on my shelves.

Well, I am here to tell you that this book is every bit as good as the later `Not Your Mother's Slow Cooker Cookbook'. Not only does it thoroughly cover the whole world of cooking rice, it has many chapters on my expected recipes for cooking non-rice dishes such as beans, puddings, porridges, polenta, plus lots of unexpected rice applications such as pilafs and risottos.

One of the most important things to learn about rice cookers from this book is that the world of modern appliances is divided into the simple on / off machines I know and the more advanced electronic machines. The former type are about as simple as it gets, just one step removed from a slow cooker with a temperature sensor which turns off the heat when it senses the temperature going above the boiling point of water. The two enhancements to this very simple design are a `keep warm' feature and a steaming basket. These appliances are so simple that you literally have to unplug them to turn them off. The latter machines are much more complicated, with digital readout controls and a sensor that works on the weight of the contents of the cooking vessel rather than the temperature. There are two drawbacks of these advanced `fuzzy logic' machines. One is that many of them cannot be set up to steam. The other is that some of the best may only be available in the Orient. One of the many nice things about this book is that it covers recipes for all different sizes of cooker, which seem to range from one or two person size to big, commercial machines capable of making 12 to 16 cups at a time.

One unusual thing about cooking in a rice cooker is that unlike almost all other savory forms of cooking, one must play close attention to measuring both the rice and the liquid to achieve good results with any model of rice cooking. This fact is emphasized by the fact that there is a special measure for rice that is different than any conventional metric or English measure and you get one of these measures with every rice cooker. Oddly, one widely used and exceptionally easy and reliable measurement for rice cookery is the measurement of water over the rice. One puts enough water in to cover the rice by the depth of the first joint on your index finger. Mysteriously, this seems to work regardless of the length of your fingers.

As with many books on popular appliances such as the food processor, the blender, the slow cooker, and the pressure cooker, the book includes several chapters which deal with recipes for precursors to rice cookery such as stocks and recipes for using rice cookery leftovers, such as fried rice. Neither of these chapters uses the rice cooker to make these dishes, but they are all used in conjunction with the rice cooker.

One of the very best aspects of this book is its discussion of the star main ingredient, rice. Like tea, virtually all varieties of rice are part of the same species. The only notable `rice' which is not `Oryza sativa' is `wild rice' which is a totally different grain native to the New World. Asian rice comes in two main varieties, `indica' and `japonica' which, while both being varieties of the same species, are about as similar as a dachshund and a whippet. Within these two main varieties are numerous little variations with properties which make cooking rice a lot more complicated than cooking beans which, in spite of their being many different species, generally can be cooked in basically the same way.

Speaking of beans, the authors succeed in giving us information about beans that I did not even find in a book on beans. Among other things, it states that the lighter the bean, the longer it will need to cook.

My only warning is that also like books on other appliances, some recipe adaptations are done more to show you can do this with a rice cooker than is the very best method for doing the recipe.

This is an excellent book for any foodie or rice-cooking lover.