First, get the Pot. You need the simplest rice cooker made. It comes with two speeds: Cook, and Warm. Not expensive. Now you're all set to cook meals for the rest of your life on two square feet of counter space, plus a chopping block. No, I am not putting you on the Rice Diet. Eat what you like. I am thinking of you, student in your dorm room. You, solitary writer, artist, musician, potter, plumber, builder, hermit. You, parents with kids. You, night watchman. You, obsessed computer programmer or weary web-worker. You, lovers who like to cook together but don't want to put anything in the oven. You, in the witness protection program. You, nutritional wingnut. You, in a wheelchair.
The three-cup Pot
And you, serving in Iraq or Afghanistan. You, person on a small budget who wants healthy food. You, shut-in. You, recovering campaign worker. You, movie critic at Sundance. You, sex worker waiting for the phone to ring. You, factory worker sick of frozen meals. You, people in Werner Herzog's documentary about life at the South Pole. You, early riser skipping breakfast. You, teenager home alone. You, rabbi, pastor, priest,, nun, waitress, community organizer, monk, nurse, starving actor, taxi driver, long-haul driver. Yes, you, reader of the second-best best-written blog on the internet.
We will begin with a scientific conundrum. You put Minute Rice and the correct amount of water into the Pot, and click to Cook. Minutes later, the Pot clicks over to Warm. Tomorrow night, you put whole grain organic rice and the correct amount of water into the Pot, and click to Cook. An hour later, the Pot clicks over to Warm. Both nights, the rice is perfectly cooked.
How does it know? There are no dials and settings on the Pot. As far as you can tell, there is only a heating element beneath. There doesn't look like room for anything else to hide. How does the Pot know how long to cook the rice? It is a mystery of the Orient. Don't ask questions you don't need the answers to. The point here is to save you some time and money. If you want gourmet cooking, you aren't going to learn about it here.
[The 10-cup PotThe eternal dilemma: Which rice? Minute Rice cooks fine in the Pot, if you will but follow the exact instructions on the box. Later, I will instruct you not to read instructions. That's further down. For now, read the Minute Rice box! It is called Minute Rice for a reason. If you let it Cook or Warm for half an hour, you are going to be poking around your Pot looking for your rice. Minute Rice is for when you're in a big hurry and nutrition be damned. Minute Rice has been painstakingly deprived of its vitamins and things, which are fed to boars and captive chickens. Use real rice. Brown rice is good for you. Basmati is nice. Don't overlook other grains and pastas. [Note: Someone wrote in saying oh, oh, I can't eat this or that kind of rice! I'm allergic! Then don't eat it. Do you think I want to give you the hives?
I am not a French gourmet. I am a practical cook. An American, Urbana-born, and go at things as I have taught myself, free-style, and will make a cookbook in my own way. When I cook, I want to eat in the immediate future. I can cook for my wife or the whole family as easily as for me. And, as Travis Bickle says, "anytime, anywhere." To be sure, health problems now prevent me from eating. That has not discouraged my cooking. Now cooking is an exercise more pure, freed of biological compulsion.To repeat, get the Pot. I have had about a dozen over the years. I always buy Zojirushi. I have no idea if that is the best. I use a 3-cup and a 10-cup. They make many models and sizes. Have nothing to do with anything "Micom Programmable." Nothing to do with words like "Neuro Fuzzy." No dials or "settings." I am saving us money. What you want is your basic Pot with two speeds: Cook, and Warm. Sometimes it says Hold.
Aunt Mary's graduation class. She was kept home for fear of the typhoid
You can skip this paragraph. If you click on the photos of Pots, you go to Amazon and I get a percentage. I am not going into the rice cooker business. Go to Amazon yourself. Search for "rice cooker," and you will find 443 choices. There is one for $8.99, but you have to put it in a microwave. That's where they get you. I found a Black & Decker 3-cup for $19.99. Haven't tried it. Nor the Salton or the Aroma, but they look okay in their photos. I linked to the 10-cup Panasonic for a little variety. There is a 10-cup Zojirushi. There is even a 20-cup Zojirushi, if you are the Soup Nazi. We are still using a 3-cup Zojirushi our assistant, Carol Iwata, gave us as a wedding present 17 years ago. It has gone to Sundance with me. This is the bottom line: Get the Pot.Amazon has rice cooker cookbooks. We don't want no stinking cookbooks. Whatever your gender, you will do this like a man, by refusing to read the instructions. Or a woman like my Aunt Mary, who copied down and traded recipes for a lifetime, and never used a single one. When she was in the kitchen, she was on automatic. She had two speeds: Cook, and Serve. She did not know how to measure salt. "Just throw in about enough, honey," she told me. I believe I have mentioned before her poetic wisdom about how to estimate the number of potatoes sufficient for a meal.
One potato
For every member of the family.
One potato for the pot.
And one last tater, honey,
For fear of later company.We are her kind of cook. We try. We learn. We experiment. When we have absorbed the principle of the Pot, we will find ourselves day-dreaming new combinations. Can you cook potatoes in the Pot? Of course you can, and boiled eggs, too. You can cook about everything but a souffle.
Breakfast good for the rest of your life. Start with oatmeal. I like the stone-ground organic oatmeal. Put in as much as you need, and the specified amount of water. The water is important. I like my oatmeal a little al dente. You may like yours a little softer. With experience you can make small adjustments in the amount of water.
Mortar and pestle.
Look for some unground flaxseed. Never mind why unground. Good for you. I'm cooking here and I don't have time to do into endless details. Grind it fresh in a mortar and pestle. You don't have a mortar and pestle? People these days want everything done for them. Do like the Indians did and grind it with the end of a stick in the depression of a boulder. Measure out a generous teaspoon for every serving. There is a plenty good reason for grinding it fresh. Trust me.
Now you have your oatmeal. You can substitute any grain of your choice. Even amarath, seen as the favorite side dish in "The Mummy: Tomb of the Dragon Emperor." I like to use low-fat Silk soybean milk. Use what you like. Have a small or medium chopping block and a nice knife. Slice into smallish pieces the fruit of your choice. Any fruit except something like watermelon. I shouldn't have to be telling you this. Slice your bananas, your peaches, your applies, pears, plums, apricots, strawberries, your Kiwi. Throw in your blueberries, your blackberries, your boysenberries, your this berry, your that berry. Drop in maybe a couple dried prunes. No, stupid. Not all the fruits at once. We're making breakfast, not fruit compote. Let's say two fruits together are nice. Bananas and peaches make Peaches 'n Cream. Mmmm! Chaz loves 'em.
While you're doing this, your oatmeal is already cooking. Figure out the hard way when to add the fruit to the Pot so it tastes the best and doesn't get all boiled to death on you. Okay. Fruit's in. Slam the lid back down. Cook, click, and Warm. It will wait there for you a long time. Find out the hard way what's too long. If the result looks like a potato pancake, that was too long. On the other hand, you can make a sortofa half-assed potato pancake, although not crisp on the bottom, that way. You can even start with instant potatoes, if you are a fool. Chop in some onions on the far turn. Throw in onions, peppers and mushrooms, and when they're thundering down the home stretch, some stirred-up eggs, and you have what down home we call Skillet.
Now you have mastered the Pot. Every recipe works the same way. By trial and error, you learn to adjust the amount of water, for example to steam spinach versus steaming broccoli. And you will learn how to monitor the Pot when you're making something like soup, which you don't want to cook all the way down.
I'm strong to the finich, 'cause I eats me spinach.
Let's make some soup. Assemble your ingredients. Throw them in the pot. Add enough water to make it soup. I have been known to start with a can of Health Valley or Pritkin soup and add fresh ingredients. I have also been known to start with Health Valley chili and add ground beef, spices, and a small chopped onion late in the day, Slam down the lid. This watched Pot boils. Click to Warm when the soup looks about right. If it looks undercooked, add a little more water and keep going. You will also learn to add the ingredients in a mixture in the reverse order of how long you think they'll take to cook. For example, dried beans first. Even let them sit in water and Warm for awhile. If you're in a hurry, throw them in and boil them. The hell with them. Never put in meat and chicken so soon it will overcook. There are no rules. You are Aunt Mary. The last ingredients into the Pot should be the things you like still a little crunchy, like frozen peas and corn.Stews. Like soup only with less water, Albert Einstein.
Your ingredients, (1) Any meat. Lamb, pork, beef, chicken, goat, wild boar, minotaur, hot dogs, ground beef. Cut into bite-sized pieces. (2) Fish, you have to be careful not to overcook. Canned tuna is useful. Use chilled shrimp, but don't let it cook until it gets too tough. Delicate fish, wait to read my salmon recipe. (3) Vegetable protein. Slice up tofu bite-sized. Try textured soy protein, which comes pretending to be beef chunks, chicken chunks, hamburger. (4) Vegetables. Just about any and all, but use your common sense. Don't try to cook a whole head of cabbage. You can cut it into wedges and steam it. Easier, use Brusells sprouts. Obvious principles: Carrots take longer than peppers. (5) Grains and pastas. Any and all. Experiment. With some, you'll want to cook them a little before adding anything else. (6) Salt, pepper and oils. Use all the pepper(s) you like. Otherwise, see below.
Your spices. Earlier, I
carefully avoided mentioningdidn't emphasize that I want to put you on a low salt, low fat diet. This is up to you. Throw in salt by the handful if you want to. Aunt Mary would get nervous: "Don't you think that's about enough?" Hell, I don't care. Take a good look at that microwave oatmeal you've been eating. It's loaded with salt, corn syrup, palm oil and coconut oils--the two deadliest oils on earth. But it's high fiber, you say? Terrific. You can die of a heart attack during a perfect bowel movement. Use oils very sparingly. Even my pals at Pritikin say you can use a little olive oil. That means a little, Chef Boy-ar-Dee.
Other herbs and spices. Any and all, especially fresh ones like basil. Dried ones, rub them between your palms. Or use your elbow to grind them on the boulder. You don't want to be tasting stick.
The Original Lea & Perrins Worcestershire Sauce. No oil. Very low salt.
You know how Lea and Perrins invented it? They owned the chemist shop in Worcestershire. A colonel in the British army came home from serving the Raj, and told them about a great sauce he had tasted in India. John Wheeley Lea and William Henry Perrins worked together with great care to assemble the correct ingredients. They left them to ferment in a barrel down in the cellar. The colonel never came home again from India. Three years later, Lea & Perrins remembered the barrel, but they couldn't remember what they put into it. So, they invented Worcestershire Sauce. It is still made in the original factory on Midlands Road. The neighbors smell like Bloody Marys.
Marie Sharp's Exotic Sauce. Made in Belize, the former British Honduras. You were thinking of Grenada. Cooked up first in the kitchen by Marie and her family, now by 20 employees who are like family. No salt. No oil. A little spicy and and very delicious. Ingredients: fresh green mangoes, tamarind, raisins, ginger, sugar, vinegar, onions, garlic, Habanero peppers and spices. Sold in stores and on the Web. Marie makes a lot of hot sauces, but the Exotic Sauce does not alarmingly claim to remove spots from your driveway. Worcestershire and Marie Sharp's Exotic are the two best steak sauces in the world. Sometimes I get to the point where a add a little Worcestershire, Marie Sharp's or Saigon Sizzle to everything. Then I remember that nothing whets the appetite like the smell of curry cooking. However, there is strictly speaking no such thing as "curry powder." You can purchase the constituent ingredients and combine according to taste. You will have noticed I do not recommend cooking steaks in the Pot. That would be a bad idea. Cook them over a fire on your boulder.
Marie Sharp invented one of the two best steak sauces in the world.
House of Tsang Saigon Sizzle Sauce. Contains some salt and oil. Use it when you go crazy mad. I do, several times a week. A nice addition to a stir-fry. How do you stir-fry in the Pot? You don't. Combine the ingredients of your stir-fry and Pot them. Much lower oil that way. Start with rice or the grain of your choice, let it cook awhile, then throw in whatever you want in your stir-fry. Animal or vegetable protein, onions, peppers, mushrooms, bamboo shoots, baby corn, anything. Also try Sweet & Sour sauce (and throw in some pineapple chunks) or Peanut Sauce (and throw in some soy nuts). A few drops of sesame oil add aroma. I like to stir in some frozen peas at the last moment, and let them cook on the way to the table.There are countless other sauces. These are mine. There are countless combinations of grains and foods. You will be full, healthy and happy. You will become the center of attention when you claim you can cook almost anything in the Pot. Take it from me. I put it in my Who's Who entry, and it has added immeasurably to my aura of mystery and intrigue.
Dear Readers: If you desire fame, please please send in a recipe so I can rip you off when I publish my stinking cookbook in 2009. Chaz has been after me to write this book for years, but for some reason she objects to my title, "The Pot and How to Use It." So do my publishers. You have to Use the Pot to love it.
¶
"The Legend of the Legendary Rice Cooker: A Quest for Love." Written and directed by Bobbie Liang. Winner of 2007 Baulkham Hills High School Short Film Festival¶
Finally...a post for the stay-at-home hosewife with not-so-much time on her hands (we're your target demographic, I know).
But will it rival my beloved Crock Pot? That's what I really want to know. But I'm a sucker for a gadget, so the Amazon order is in and I'm determined to find out.
Ebert: You can try leaving it on Warm for an extended period, but keep an eye on it and unplug it if it causes any concern. I think you're safer with your beloved Crock Pot. You probably have more than two square feet of counter space. Think what a treasure the Pot is for Asians who don't have kitchens as big as an indoor skating rink.
Dude, I can't risk a rice cooker purchase. Three years ago I bought a cast iron pan and ever since Amazon has tried to convince me that I need to buy a $50 Peugeot Pepper Mill. It comes up every damned week on the recommendations. I shudder to think what would happen if I bought a rice cooker.
You have intrigued me with your tales of the Pot. I think I know what I want for Christmas this year. I have never used a slow rice cooker, but I put wear and tear on my crockpot every winter. Warms up the kitchen and cooks dinner for me--what's not to love?
I know a great fudgey "cake" recipe for the crockpot--I wonder if it'll work in the Pot?
Here's the recipe: Note to readers:
Cooking time is about 2 and 1/2 hours.
Cake
1 cup all purpose flour (I have no idea if oat flour would work-interesting to try)
1/2 cup sugar
2 Tbs baking cocoa (ie unsweetened)
2 tsps baking powder
1/2 tsp salt
1/2 cup milk (I use skim)
2 Tbs vegetable oil
1 tsp vanilla
1/2 cupped chopped nuts
Syrup/sauce
3/4 cup packed brown sugar
1/4 cup baking cocoa
1 and 1/2 cups hot water
Chocolate chips/toffee bits/dried cherries/whatever
Spray the inside of your slow cooker. Mix first 5 ingredients in a bowl. Stir in next 3 and mix until smooth. Add nuts. Spread batter in cooker.
Mix syrup ingredients together until sugar is dissolved. Pour evenly over batter. Cover and cook on HIGH for 2-21/2 hours or until toothpick comes out clean. Turn cooker off and let stand--now is the time to add the choc chips or toffee etc and stir once. Spoon extra "sauce" or syrup over serving.
Great with ice cream.
Ebert: I don't think that's going to work in the Pot. In fact, I think it could catch on fire, and fill the house with the smell we get on cold winter nights all over Chicago's Loop when the Tootsie Roll factory fires up.
My god, this is a priceless entry for someone who fits TWO of your categories, college student and solitary writer. All the better because you posted this just as I was beginning to panic about my current extreme need to save money feeding myself. And what's more, you threw in witticisms and references, right down to Saul Bellow! For real, this post was crucial, thank you.
Mr. Ebert,
It seems to me that the rice cooker way of life you endorse would be perfect for the stars of the documentary "Cinemaniacs." Makes sense, since it was developed by a borderline cinemaniac (I mean that in the best sense, of course). Also, Werner Herzog could probably have used these techniques to make that leather shoe a little bit more digestible, no? Thanks so much for the years of reviews and the new joys of the blog. Happy rice cookering!
Rhett
Wow, this is a surprise. I never thought you had this side to you. Never seemed the cooking type.
I'm a girl living with a single mother, so I always had to know how to cook for myself. It's really a must. How can anyone survive on take out or eating out forever?
Maybe your post will have a good impact on men who didn't know how to use the pot before. One can only hope!
Food is the universal solvent for disolving the uneasiness during any social situation, its what brings people together, since its very nature is one of survival and personal exchange. Nowadays, in a world of packaged, nutrition deficient goodness, rice seems to be universal because you can make it with anything, eat it with anything, share it with anybody; its also quite healthy.
Personally, I was never big on gourmet food. While I've never had a personal chef like the wealthy or the famous, I think I can safely say I'd prefer ordinary comfort food to anything else.
Back when I was in the military, I never really enjoyed eating out often. When I would go to parties with friends or social gatherings, there would often be an abundance of the same old finger sandwhiches, rubbery meats or frozen vegetables (You can tell the difference between fresh and fake-no matter how fancy the presentation).
When I was deployed to Iraq, our plane had to make an emergency stop, since our jet was leaking fuel right out of the sky! We stopped in Frankfurt and were thankfully placed in a five-star hotel. We were given wonderful food, fresh fish, gourmet breads, ice-cream and even your dreaded caviar. Despite being very tasty, I think I'd still prefer eating a large pizza or just rice with some fish or fried chicken fingers. Its not that I'm underprivelaged in the mind, its simply because I know my own memories, and the memories of most people do not come from butlers serving you the greatest dishes this side of the orient express. We'd all like to believe we'd prefer fancy cuisine all the time, truth is, most of us just like a good old fashioned home cooked meal.
A rice pot is probably one of the best inventions out there, it sure made my life a whole lot easier. Most of the best meals I've had around the world came complete with a pot of rice.
One of the best meals I ever had was in Thailand, I had stopped along side a country road near the outside of Udorn, just a short distance from Bangcock. This little house on the side of the road was owned by a very old couple. The husband was a fisherman and his wife was this wonderful cook. Their restaurant consisted of mainly a counter which oversaw their living space, a small little Coke machine hanging near the side of a register (I wish I could remember the address). On their menu, was but one humble item: Enormous Jumbo Shrimp which they lightly sprinked with a touch a fresh lemon from their tree, sautaying them lightely. That's it. It would practically melt in your mouth. Best, freshest meal I've ever had. Beat that, John Travolta and your gourmet chef.
Ebert, I could not love your blog any more than I do. I clicked on the link expecting some dry reference from a pot to...I don't know, the latest Kevin Smith movie, and was surprised, hesitant, disappointed, humored, and then informed. I think I'm actually gonna go out and get one of these things now.
Thanks, and keep up my favorite blog (you pushed out DailyKos, can you believe it?)
"When I cook, I want to eat in the immediate future."
Amen, brother, amen.
Cooking humor? Who knew? We have a cooker. Have had it for at least 10 years. Used it maybe 5 times early on. Been in the barn ever since. I liked your take, so tomorrow I will pull it out of the cabinet and give it another chance. Luckily I passed on selling it on eBay.
So who has the #1 Best Written Blog on the internet?
Thanks, John
Ebert: Dan Lyons at http://realdanlyons.com/blog/. I'm happy being down here at #2. It takes the pressure off. The whole list is here: http://www.computerworld.com/action/article.do?command=viewArticleBasic&articleId=9116838&&source=NLT_AM&nlid=1
I thought this was a really interesting post! I kept waiting for some connection to a movie or for it to flow in some other way away from cooking, but it just kept on it! I don't have any recipes to suggest or anything, but I wanted to say that I thought that this kind of writing would make a great cookbook. Nice and loose, with just enough information to get one going but not so much as to glorify the authors knowledge. It was like you were glad to give the information, but didn't really have any interest in repeating it. If you missed it the first time, it's your own fault. Very compelling, good stuff!
Dear Mr. Ebert,
Whatever Studs Terkel meant to your generation as the greatest American writer, one whose words filled your heart with joy, one whose words you eagerly anticipated reading; whatever Studs meant to you, Mr. Ebert, I can say without hesitation that you mean that to my generation.
While I don't particularly enjoy going to movies often, I do turn to your website most days to read what you have to say about them. I learn so much from your reviews, because they go so far beyond the movie being reviewed. And now your blog extends that wonderful writing and great sense of perception to, well, everything from Studs Terkel to The Pot. That the above blog, about a simple rice pot, held my interest and made me smile is a great testament to your profound brilliance as a writer.
Thank you. Bless you. May you live well and write for many, many more years to come.
I love my cheap, $12.99, rice cooker. My eldest daughter has celiac disease and cannot eat traditional pastas and breads, so we live by our rice cooker and bread maker. We eat rice four days a week and I would die without it. Cut up some pork strips, add some gluten free cream of mushroom soup, put it on top the rice, add some green beans and a spinach salad with carrots and cucumber, a drizzle of Italian dressing ( also gluten free)- voila- dinner for four for less than $20.
BTW, you'd be surprised how much of our food uses gluten as a binding agent. Half the stuff we used to eat is no longer allowed in my house.
Nice Greek poetry,Einstein.
Duck-Soup?
Ebert: Take a duck. Behead it on your boulder. Remove feathers, wash, chop into pieces, cover with water and some bouillon. Add sliced celery, carrots, onions, garlic. The poultry seasonings of your choice--sparingly. Rice. A bay leaf. You will probably have to add more water midway. Warning: Shield your eyes while reading one of my forthcoming blogs from Donald Duck's Family Tree.
Ah1Absurdity!
Ah1Absurdity!
My wife and I got married two years ago and out of the few wedding gifts that were NOT towels, we ended up with a rice cooker. It was a Black and Decker 16-cup rice cooker (model RC426). We followed the instructions and the thing just ended up making a mess. It spewed water all over the place and there was so much steam that it made the cabinets wet. Was I doing something wrong? Or is this like microwave popcorn where you really can't trust the instructions?
We haven't used it since, it's been sitting in the corner of our dining room amid the stuff we will donate to Good Will while I agonize over the decision to give it to the poor and have them inherit the same problem I had.
Our old manner of cooking rice was in a metal pot that we use on the stove. It doesn't gauge itself but it sure makes less of a mess.
Ebert: Shouldn't be one drop of spew. You were pranked by your friend. Never read the instructions. This blog entry is all you need. The instructions even tell you: "CAUTION! Do not cook anything but rice in this cooker!" Yeah, like the Pot gives a damn. The bastards are just trying to sell you some other pot.
Dear Roger, sorry for putting this here, but I feel that I must comment about Erica Jong's seemingly paranoiac view on the election. The article by Michael Powell, "Obama Is Up, and Fans Fear That Jinxes It," appearing in The New York Times on October 31, may show some light into this behavior.
I call on my American friends, regardless of race or political convictions, to maintain levelheadedness throughout these last days of the election, and beyond. I exhort my American friends, from Mr. Obama and Mr. McCain to the hoi polloi, to truly grapple with the issues at hand and be responsible, because the way we outsiders see the U.S., she is in deep and dire, not to mention farcical, mess. A mess ranging from the size of the U.S. national debt to the blood of the innocents that have spilled due to belligerence borne out of dubious and/or misguided ideals. If Bertie Wooster were here, I can imagine him saying, "Can you imagine how ridic your posish is?" If these problems are left untended, what then will your posterity say about this generation?
Uphold the true spirit of democracy, and put the country first before bigotry or partisanship.
Ebert: You are quite correct, but I think I'll also try acupuncture.
We didn't cook anything but rice in our cooker, it still made a mess. Why would an appliance come with instructions that are basically useless?
The heck with it, I'll just make my tater tot casserole in the oven and be be done with it.
Mark Palmer nailed it.
We all miss Studs. It's obvious the hole in your life. No one can take up his flame. Mr. Ebert, we need the wisdom of our elders. For better or worse, you are now an elder of words. I always look forward to the next utterance. I am better for it. I'm buying one of those stupid rice pots now. For no other reason than this post.
Bless you.
Your friend you have yet to meet,
Steve
Dear Jerry Roberts, you wrote:
It spewed water all over the place and there was so much steam that it made the cabinets wet.
It spewed water all over the place? Sounds like you've put too much water into the rice (although, I have to say that it does that sometimes, even under normal circumstances.) Also, did you wash the rice first until clear (about three times)? As a personal rule, the volume of rice you put into the cooker is also the volume of water, and a bit more, you use to cook it in. Or, be sure to only use the measuring cup that came with your cooking gadget. And yes, it's supposed to steam and wet the cabinets. I put mine under the kitchen exhaust fan.
Who's interested in Chinese Radish Cake?
Ebert, you are full of crap. This is THE best-written blog on the internet.
Regarding your conundrum:
Minute Rice is a brand of parboiled rice. It takes less time to cook because it has already been boiled in the husk. I have never cooked whole grain organic rice, but I believe it hasn't be parboiled. Because Minute Rice has already been boiled in the husk, it takes less time for the rice to become saturated; I imagine that this is not the case with whole grain organic rice. Once the rice is saturated and the residual water has boiled away, the temperature of the rice exceeds the boiling point, thus tripping the thermostat in the rice cooker--the rice cooker then switches to "Warming". Since it takes less time for the Minute Rice to become saturated, it achieves the "Warming" state faster than the whole grain organic rice. Of course, that's just one theory. Personally, I'm a fan of the Intelligent Pot.
When the wedding wrap revealed a rice-cooker, I put on my best 'at-least-it's-not-another-platter' smile. Three years on, the husband's gone but the rice-cooker is still with me. Steamed vegies, quick risottos and perfect basmati every time.
What election? Where?
Sir --
This piece achieves a certain manic intensity normally found only on bottles of castile soap.
With admiration,
Geoff
As an expat living in China I can vouch for the awesomeness and surprising versatility that is the rice-cooker. And yes, it most certainly is a critical device in the average small kitchen here.
Robert in Taiwan: you are truly a wise man. :-)
And Mr. Ebert, apologies in advance but I have to ask: what's your fave rice cooker recipe for chili?
(If it's not too far off topic, long as we're talking food: I'd also ask what your favorite place is in Illinois for Chicago Dogs. Here in Long Beach CA we have a great place called Mustard's that makes 'em with Vienna Beef dogs, and they're terrific, but I can only imagine how mindblowing they are in your hometown.)
Ebert: Just how you'd figure: Beans, ground or chunk beef or vegetable protein, onions, garlic, maybe some peppers, maybe some bacon, maybe some cocoa powder, tomatoes or try stewed tomatoes (bigger tomato chunks cut up), and chili powder, garam masala or the peppers of your choice.
Did you know that the Pot is now the "in" thing with the gourmet set? In "sous vide" cookery, one vacuum-seals a protein (steak, fish, egg) and submerges it in water kept very precisely at the desired final temperature. Leave the protein in for an hour, two hours, or a weekend, and the result is still perfectly-cooked. A steak, medium rare, from the surface to the core, all the same shade of pink, AND ANYWAYS, I digress:
The pro-chef implementation of this idea is an "immersion circulator", which immerses and circulates water and I don't know anything more than that except that it costs $10,000.
The home-chef implementation is a doohickey that one plugs the Pot into that keeps water in the Pot very precisely at a desired final temperature.
I don't know if "molecular gastronomers" have yet repurposes the boulder and the stick, but there's a whole future ahead of us, so I have high hopes.
Roger:
Add a PID controller (Auberins or Fresh Meals Solutions) and a Foodsaver, and you can change your world forever with sous vide cookery.
Ok, totally not in the spirit of your post, but if you are going to limit yourself to using a rice cooker, a little bit of after-market gear can go a long way.
First off, I must say that the rice cooker my wife and I received for our wedding was, hands down, the best present we got--beating out the TV and the queen-sized bed.
Second, this definitely made me laugh out loud at least 7 times while reading it, and about 2 giggles afterwards while thinking about it. I will never see my rice pot the same way.
Reading this while watching an Iron Chef (Japan) rerun left over on my TiVo. I notice that one of them has a pot going. If it's good enough for an Iron Chef it should be good enough for all of us, no?
Aww. I thought this post was going to be about maurijuana.
"The Pot and How to Use It."
Cookbook, drug manual or guide to potty training? Who cares what your editors say, that title is brilliant.
Mr. Ebert,
I never watch a movie without first reading your review. I feel the same way you do about 99 percent of the time regarding movies, I just love how you put my feelings into words, and often read your reviews out loud to my fiance or my children.
I've just found your blog... and have been seriously contemplating purchasing a rice cooker for some time. Now I know what I will be asking for for christmas!
I can't believe you love House of Tsang sauce as much as I do! I have never found anyone else who used the sauce other than those I've turned on to it. I absolutely LOVE their spicy schezuan stir fry sauce and when it is on sale, will buy 10 bottles at a time. It is very spicy and flavored absolutely perfectly. I use their classic stir fry sauce for my children's stir fry, as the spicy schezuan is indeed too spicy for them. I don't care for the saigon sizzle, which you like, as it is too sweet for me, and i only like sweetness in my desserts. If you like spicy, try the schezuan spicy stir fry if you haven't already... delicious... have you tried it?
My children and I were rear ended in a bad car accident a year ago, and I suffered spinal fractures and other injuries. I can not presently work, and end up watching more movies than i used to get to, and your reviews mean a LOT to me!
Thank you for all you do... how cool that you have this blog!
I have long been a fan of the rice cooker. My stepfather is Japanese-American and I was raised eating rice- from a rice cooker- with just about every meal. I remember seeing ads for instant rice that advertised that it never stuck together, and thinking "that's weird, isn't rice supposed to stick together?" Anyway, when I got my first apartment in college the first appliance I wanted was a rice cooker. It was far more important than a toaster. That Christmas, my parents got me a Hitachi "chime-o-matic" with an "on" and "warm" setting. That was over 20 years ago, and I've used that very same one several times a week ever since. Unlike the dire warnings you have seen, my instruction booklet actually comes with directions for steaming veggies! (Mine has a little steamer insert that is basically a little raised disk with holes, that goes in the bottom before you add veggies and water). I have to admit, I have never tried cooking a protein in it. I will have to try that! I wonder if you could start with the flash-frozen boneless, skinless chicken breasts, or if you'd need to thaw them first?
Awesome. I really LOVE beef stew from "the pot".
Hi Roger,
Minute Rice in the rice cooker? Didn't that "very quickly" turn into mush? :) I'm reading your blog for the first time, interesting stuff!
Ebert: No, because the Pot knows.
You're probably better off buying a Japanese rice cooker. I bought some off-brand I never heard of, and it broke after I used it six times. So I bought a Panasonic, and it's five years old and going strong. I just gave it to my oldest daughter when she moved out.
I own both a rice cooker and a crock pot. I use the rice pot for steaming things. Since I am a vegetarian who borders close to vegan, I make "faux" meats. Snausages, veg patties, kielbasa, that sort of stuff. I am going to try to make seiten this week in prep for Thanksgiving. Tofurkey's are at least an hours drive for me and I need to feed at least 8, 7 of whom are omnivores. I cook no animal flesh so this will be most interesting. Otherwise, I will need to ship them all to Frankenmuth and sit myself home to watch the NBA alone (works for me!).
I have horrible insomnia. Have for years. Since nothing seems to work (circadian clock lights, night time or pain meds, tens unit (for the Fibro), I chose treatment of either paper crafting until I have decorated the dogs with glitter and ink or cooking. My pot gets all the leftovers that are showing sure signs of impending death like wilting and shriveling and into the pot they go. Soups, stews, chowders, pasta melanges, all get made in large servings, some to freeze, some were sent to hub's inner circle at GM and some I took uptown and left at various places. After 36 years of living with sofa slug, I am only on my second Crockpot and my rice pot is still the one. Crockpot has 3 settings, high, low and warm. Ricer has high, low or steam. I grow my own herbs in the laundry room using an Aerogrow in winter and outside in summer in pots on deck. All veggies and fruits are organic. Hub retired on October 31 (the trick is on me, I guess) and he is already on my nerves. There is no one to test my recipes anymore (those souls at GM were most accommodating). My brownies were made with black beans and instant coffee, desserts without any refined sugars, Italian sausage (animal free) with home made sun roasted tomatoes. All from using the crock or rice pot. If only I c0uld find a way to make tofu or soy milk in them. Any recipes or ideas peeps? I will trade you for one sofa snoring blob who thinks we can live the same on 40% less. And he is a math whiz??
I'm impressed but remain a microwave man. A malnourished microwave man. A lazy, malnourished microwave man. There's no helping me, although I do appreciate your effort here. When I die you can roll me up and stop that draught coming from under your kitchen door.
We don't want rice cooker fires, oh my! (but now I want some of that cake, so I'm going to make it tomorrow. BTW, That 'note to readers" should have "only make this in a crock pt" after it.)
What's this I read about rinsing the rice 3 times? Is that before or after cooking? I've never rinsed rice in my life. I'm a streamlined, prep-to-table better be at most an hour kind of girl. Rinse rice? What say you, O Rice Guru?
I've put the Pot on my Christmas wish list. Hope Santa's good to me!
Not to be a killjoy, because rice cookers really are convenient, but grains aren't healthy.
Just one question--when you are pulling off your culinary feats,where on your person,do you hide Remy?!...anyway, when i tried the rice cooker adventure inspired by you, imagine my surprise when the first spoonful suddenly made my mind zoom back to the good ole days when i staggered home bone-tired from hectic play and mom would comfort with a ready plate of thumping good grains!
you may also be interested to know that rice cookers and Indian films have a faithful connection..last year i watched a pale derivative of 'Lolita' starring the famous Amitabh Bacchan,and in one sequence,the errant husband tries to make conversation with his wife in the kitchen--she's silent but the rice cooker gives off a aggressive hiss!..i thought this was a neat idea until a critic pointed out that this was cliched usage!
Call me insane but I've never heard of a rice cooker in my life. Never.
Never saw one of those things before that I can think of. Not in Best Buy, not in Ikea and not in any kitchen I've been in.
Why not just get a normal pot? That's what I cook my rice in.
Ebert: You can. But oatmeal boils over a lot.
How great to see your post! I run a hotel front desk at night and go to school, and my little rice Pot has been my best friend for years. Lack of money, time, space, energy, or ideas - if you have the rice pot, you're good to go. I have carried it across country and back multiple times in multiple cars and it's become one of my most cherished possessions. Cheers!
When she was in the kitchen, she was on automatic.
My grandmother could do that, and so could all the rest of the women in my family. They couldn't actually explain to anyone how they cooked what they cooked -- they just cooked it. I have to wonder whether this is an art that will die with the generation that lived through the Depression.
I know a trick that eliminates bad after taste in foods, that is when you throw food in wherever you cook. Season the oil, but its kind of hard if you put very little, but basically, if you have any liquid ingredients like oil or water, mix all your spices in it and stir it and stir it.
Part of the trick that I like to do is when I first grab something, I toss it up and catch it twice and then let it fall in out of my hands as a third toss. If it is water, (and water travels altogether so gets no airtime), I will carefully toss up the container of water and ingredients two times (don't fill up the water more than half unless you are prepared to clean it), and then on the third toss just let the water come out in drops out of the container so every drop gets some air time (letting water come out on drops also makes easier to clean something when doing dishes). Why does it have to be three tosses? Well, It probably doesn't, but throwing it in the pot with your hip and a snap probably would help. But I do it because of kind of the coriolis effect (where something touches first depends on where its going to go--food tends to want to slip out the spot your first touch it) and kind of physics. When I was messing about playing pool, I wanted to keep spinning the ball around...I spin the pool ball one way, then I spun it the opposite way, then I spun it again the other way (hard to do) and you notice the ball takes a kind of straight trajectory on the third hit, (yes, common sense), but I just like to do a one, two, three toss because of it, So, it's kind of a mix of common sense physics and being mindful of the exact spot where your hand first touches your ingredients and the containers they are in...I usually put the ingredients in a big plastic bowl when tossing around the ingredients. I did the one, two, three toss when I was a cook at a chicken place and within ten seconds there would be customers piling in the store...don't do that though, the grease is hot, but it did earn me bonuses which is something that doesn't usually happen at fast food.
Pot Overflow: Anybody who uses pot regulary would have atleast experienced the overflowing pot once.
This phenomenon is mostly seen with new users or users who try to use a 3 cup pot to prepare a thanksgiving dinner for kith and kin. The first time it happens it is quite tense experience. It is an ugly and messy sight.
Do you the exact amount of rice and water to add to your pot, such that the rice, when it is fully, cooked just pushes the lid up without the rice or water spilling over. Until you know this, you don't know your pot !!!!! And you better know your pot.
Vijay
We shall name our next rice cooker after you, Sir.
This blog entry was excellent and timely because I've been thinking about buying a rice cooker for a few weeks. I'm curious what size cooker would be best for a single guy? 3 cups? Thanks.
I'm glad you disclose that you get a cut of the purchases you refer to amazon- I initially suspected you may have been involved in a rice cooker pyramid scheme.
Ebert: Three cups, unless you want to cook batches for later.
You've got quite a streak going Roger. I've recieved something new and interesting from every single journal entry, and cooking advice was the last thing I expected - I'll be picking up my rice cooker tomorrow :)
As for politics, I can understand why you want to keep it out of this blog. However, as an International Relations student, I've always enjoyed your political commentary. How about starting a political blog?
Two things:
One, Half-Assed Rice Cooker Potato Pancakes sound like a great "Iron Chef" dish.
Two, I had no idea that Beets are now considered a meat. My vegetarian sisters are gonna freak! I'll be using Aunt Mary's adage for Thanksgiving dinners until the end of (my)days.
Scary coincidence. I'm doing my best to eat healthier and I use two crock pots as part of that effort - a 4-qt Rival I got in college 27 years ago, and a newer 7-qt Hamilton for when I know I won't be able to cook for several days. To avoid the hassle of cooking rice properly, I've been buying frozen organic brown rice, and want to economize. So I was looking at rice cookers, trying to decide which to buy. Then my parents called me and told me they just bought themselves a rice cooker and they think it is amazing. So now they have bought me one, just yesterday. And then I bring up your blog and this is posted. Freaky.
They got me the 3-cup Black & Decker but I suspect I will soon graduate to Zojirushi. I have a couple of sizes of their thermos - after 2 decades my older one still looks like new, and those things keep coffee as hot at 3pm as it was at 8am. They know what they are doing. I haven't developed any rice cooker recipes yet, but if you keep a space open here, I bet I will soon. As for fast-grinding those flaxseeds to a beautiful and consistent texture that you control - buy a $10 coffeegrinder (Krups is fine) to use specifically for that. Mark it so your oatmeal doesn't end up tasting like coffee, Mensa candidate.
By the way, I will reveal my vote: I like your title for the book.
Whew, not talking is one thing, but not eating is another thing entirely. I of course violently disagree with you, I think Pritikin is a lunatic. Women in particular need good fats (and that includes coconut oil) for great libido. Fish fat is the best, of course, but saturated fats like steak, butter, cheese are also good, and don't be mingy with the olive oil! 40/30/30, that's what I say! And with that 40% of calories from carbs, half those carbs should be fruits and vegetables.
I know what I'm talking about, I already have written a book on food, a somewhat popular one. Tofu is an abomination. Trans fats are poisonous and polyunsaturated fats should be avoided.
If a person gets lots of omega-3s, worrying about good dietary fat and salt is much less of a health issue. When young ladies come to me asking about low libido, the first thing I ask is are they vegetarians eating lots of whole grains. Saturated fat is good for testosterone levels.
My crockpot recipe--a couple pounds of fatty stew meat. Get two bottles of good beer, I like Killian's Red. Pour one into the crockpot, drink the other. Plenty of salt and some pepper, a spoon of tomato paste, and lots of fresh thyme, maybe seven sprigs. Mix the ingredients in the beer, add stew meat. Chop up a red onion and mix in. Layer of chopped carrots, another layer of chopped celery. Turn on crockpot and let cook overnight. In the morning, make some Japanese sushi rice, maybe in your rice cooker, and then ladle plenty of the stew over it when it's done, and you've got a great lunch to bring to work for the next week, just keep making fresh rice every morning.
Can the magic fairies who bring you sustenance add some fish oil? Perhaps not with your health situation, fish oil can thin the blood and it interacts with various drugs. But I'd be curious. :)
I don't use the pot anymore, but have fond memories of it from my university days. The smells that emanated during the actual process of using the pot were only countered by the rapturous delight of consuming what the pot had produced.
These days I use a pressure cooker. Admittedly, not as much fun, but it is what it is.
Finally, I especially liked the initial recommendation of the pot to various and sundry at the top of this entry. Alas, no mention of tinker, tailor, soldier, spy. Or, in fact, butcher, baker, candlestick maker...
Dear Roger,
The taut atmosphere of this journal entry reminds me of the film "The Petrified Forest" with Leslie Howard, Bette Davis, and Humphrey Bogart. As you know, a group of hostages are awaiting their fate at a diner in the middle of the desert with widely dissimilar preoccupations and degrees of apprehension.
Thank you to Robert of Taiwan and Vijay for sending words of encouragement to us.
Robert, Even Bertie Wooster would be a welcome house guest this weekend, purely from the distraction posish.
The Zen of the pot by Vijay
...such that the rice, when it is fully cooked, just pushes the lid up without the rice or water spilling over. Until you know this, you don't know your pot!
Thank you Mr. Ebert...I am finding you to have more talents and hidden depths than first realised. I have never used a rice cooker, but am definitely looking forward to my first purchase. I believe you have found your open window!
Besides cooking up oatmeal, soups, and stews, how about using the rice cooker to poach fish or eggs? Maybe adding a small colander or folding metal basket might enable the rice cooker to work as a steamer, too. Would be interesting to see if it's possible to steam cook a cake or quiche.
Ebert: Can be done. Some of them come with a little insert for holding an egg.
I have maintained for years that the two appliances most needed in my kitchen are a slow cooker and a bread machine. With them, I can make any dinner hours in advance.
Wonderful entry! I may end up buying a Pot. Since my husband boils over his oatmeal in the microwave 50% of the time, it might be just the thing. Our slow cooker needs replacement, anyway.
Oh, and when your book about The Pot is published, I'm buying several copies--for myself and friends.
Jerry: I've had luck putting a handtowel over the little hole in the top of the Pot while it cooks. Keeps down spatter, but lets out enough steam to cook the rice anyway. (After it switches to "warm" you should certainly do this to keep the nice warm moist air in.) Also you might be trying to cook too much rice. I never fill mine more than halfway, mostly.
The more expensive Pots, I learned in Japan, are pretty amazing devices. They're all sorts of magic--they can do the "how do I know your rice is done? you never know when your rice is done..." trick, as well as the make-rice-in-the-morning-and-it's-still-sticky-and-warm-for-dinner trick. It's majestic.
For tangy sticky sushi-style rice:
Rinse white short-grain rice carefully. The water should be clear, and long-grain rice is for communists.
Add a little (maybe a third by volume) more water than rice. Let it soak for a good half hour or so.
Cook in the Pot.
While the Pot goes, prepare a solution of approx. five parts rice vinegar, one part sugar, and a bit of salt. Call it a third of a cup total for 2-3 cups of rice. Microwaves can help with this, or you can cleverly harness steam from the Pot to assist dissolution.
Remove the rice to a large shallow bowl-like thing. Have a friend fan the rice while you drizzle vinegar concoction and gently turn the rice. (Fanning helps with the stickiness.)
Delicious!
Extra fun:
- Add (low sodium? perhaps.) soy sauce and wasabi for a cheap cheap cheap alternative to waiting in line at a sushi restaurant. All you really wanted was the soy sauce and wasabi, right?
- Make rice balls! you can put things inside them. I suggest using a piece of saran wrap to keep your hands clean if you're making more than a few. Make a hole with the thumb to insert fillings--lox, tuna, maybe something sweet, bits of pickle, anything.
- For added points shape your riceball into a fat triangle and wrap with seaweed. Eat while the nori is crispy.
- (Rice balls are notoriously hard to keep more than a day; they dry out in the fridge very quickly. I've had some limited luck microwaving them a bit.)
More Pot!
Dear Roger,
Salty Rice﹝鹹飯﹞, or Soy Rice, to be cooked in the rice cooker:
INGREDIENTS:
A.) For the rice
1.) 1/2 (rice cooker measuring) cup of glutinous rice﹝糯米﹞
2.) 3 1/2 (rice cooker measuring) cup of ordinary rice
3.) one handful of dried shitake mushrooms, the small variety. If large ones, scissor to strips
4.) half white onion, slice into half-rings
5.) 2 cloves garlic, squashed
6.) 3/4 (rice cooker measuring) cup of soy sauce
7.) 3 tbsps of soy sauce
8.) 2 tbsps oil
9.) 4 1/2 (rice cooker measuring) cups of water
B.) For the chicken
1.) 1 thin slice of ginger, cut into thin strips
2.) one handful of chicken pieces, nibble size, preferably thighs and deboned
3.) 2 tbsps soy sauce
4.) 2 tbsps oil
PROCEDURE:
1.) Wash glutinous rice and soak thoroughly in water for half an hour. Put aside.
2.) Soak dried shitake mushrooms in 3/4 cup soy sauce. Put aside (soak until soft).
3.) In a non-stick pan, heat 2 tbsps oil, then saute ginger. Quickly add in chicken pieces with 2 tbsps of soy sauce (to give chicken color). Stir-fry until chicken is cooked. Set aside on a plate and let cool thoroughly, this is important.
-----
4.) Drain glutinous rice of water. Wash ordinary rice clean and drain of water, too. Remember to drain both rice well.
5.) Using hand, squeeze shitake mushrooms of soy sauce, but mind that you do not waste the soy sauce because it will be used afterwards.
6.) In the selfsame non-stick pan, heat 2 tbsps of oil. Saute garlic, then the onion, and then the mushrooms.
7.) Put in all the rice, the glutinous and the ordinary, and also the 3 tbsps of soy sauce. Stir fry until rice is evenly coated with oil and soy. Don't take too long in stir-frying the rice (less than a minute).
-----
8.) Pour your rice mixture and the chicken into your rice cooker. Pour in 4 1/2 (rice cooker measuring) cups of water. Also pour in the soy sauce that you used to soak your dried shitake mushrooms.
9.) A bit dash of salt (only a teeny bit) and MSG (skip MSG if undesired).
10.) Let stand to cool for about 5 minutes or more, all the while stirring to dissipate the heat. Dissipating the heat is important so as not to mess with the gauging system of your cooker.
-----
11.) After cooling, begin to cook the usual way in your rice cooker.
TIPS:
1.) Remember that by 'cup,' I refer to the plastic measuring cup that came along with your rice cooker.
2.) My father liked to add taro bits into this recipe. This is optional. You may also try canned water chestnuts.
3.) Add only a little salt for reasons that are already obvious.
4.) If you don't have chicken meat, use 1 chicken cube (bouillon cube).
5.) Too much glutinous rice CAUSES indigestion and constipation. Use only small amounts as I do here, and drink plenty of water.
6.) Different brands of soy sauce produce different tastes. It is not advisable to use the Kikoman brand as I cannot vouch for the resulting taste, but use the ones that come from Taiwan. These I can vouch. Remember not to be fooled into buying soy sauce paste. There is a distinction between soy sauce and soy sauce paste.
7.) This recipe is actually easier than it looks.
Well, this is all...faintly hallucinatory. Unfortunately, in the present if-not-depressed-then-at-least-increasingly-dispirited economic climate, purchasing something like a rice cooker is probably out of the question, especially for an impoverished Englishman who's never even seen £1000 in his life. It'll have to be an old-fashioned, insentient Western saucepan I'm afraid.
I am Spanish, but in thirty-seven years the secret of how to cook rice properly was never revealed to me, so don't ask me about paella. Nevertheless, I managed to get the formula for perfect steamed rice from our grumpy lady teacher of Chinese cooking at the evening classes in Edinburgh. Here it is, for those with as little countertop space that we manage with a couple of stoves and a variety of saucepans carefully stored away:
Rinse the rice well in cold water (we use basmati or jasmine Thai rice). Place it in the bottom of the saucepan (amount of rice proportioned to the size of the saucepan so the rice is about 1 to 2 cm deep) and add enough cold water to submerge the rice under another centimeter of water. COVER. Bring to a simmer, and as soon as the water is about to start boiling, turn the fire down, to the very minimum. KEEP COVERED on this slow fire for 8 min. READY.
I have been reading your website for over fourteen years, from Spain, England and Scotland. I cannot thank you enough for the insights, personal experiences, humour and soul searching that you share. I cherish your movie reviews, as I did the ones by Julian Marias on the Sunday edition of Spanish newspaper ABC. Two true "humanistas" and masterful writers.
PS: It is not so easy to find a voice that speaks to you personally. My other favorite film critic: Jose Luis Guarner, who used to write for Fotogramas.
Roger, I buy these organic broccoli florets that come in packs. I take a handful out, wash them a bit, and just throw them on top of my rice while it's on WARM inside the rice cooker (the veggie cooks in about twenty minutes, coming out still green and fresh-looking). Very convenient, no need to steam them separately. I also reheat my overnight viands this way, to take to work as packed lunch, or what we call "bien-dang"﹝便當﹞.
Um, Roger..... where did you get minotaur meat for your stew? I tried asking around a Cretan market today , but all I got from the people there were wide-eyed stares of disbelief. One of the vendors even hurled a basket of Rotten Tomatoes at me, opprobriously calling me a "potty" (you know, it's funny that she should use that word....) Of course, a fracas ensued immediately afterwards, and more tomatoes. The whole market was thrown into turmoil.
Ebert: Quiet! It's a protected species. Tastes like chicken.
Chickenandoullie
This chicken has a wonderful blend of tastes. Not too hot, but a sweet, spicy flavor deep in the liquid.
4 chicken thighs (use breasts if you must)
2 sliced andouille sausages (even the packaged ones in the weiner section)
4 star balsamic vinegar, about a half cup (you need the good stuff...pop for it)
maybe 3/4 cup orange juice (don't start tasting yet. this changes flavors)
sea salt, maybe a table spoon
one bottle mushrooms (i use the fancy ones, but it doesn't matter)
half onion, red, sliced and diced
one tomato, fresh, a little mushy, diced (doesn't matter if mushy, but saves a lost tomato(e?, dan quayle?)
two tablespoons peach preserves
give it time. you'll know from the aroma when it's done.
Ebert: From my favorite Libertarian! You indicate this is for a crock pot. I wonder if it would work in a (large enough) rice Pot it you added the right amount of liquid-- maybe just water, to not throw off the flavor. Singular, tomato. Plural, tomatoes.
My cooking started with a pot, and today I cook almost everything in it, even pickle. I love the pot. I haven't tried cooking fruit and meat though.
Turning to the snakier,murkier realities,and as an individual who would fit into more than one of the sub-categories listed in para no 1 of above,namely one cornered to cook now and then,and would be more than content to devote less time and energy to the same,I really wonder how a device(ref almighty Wiki} comprising a heating element,a thermostat--I hope you know what that is--and a pot--excuse me-can function as a combination of Houdini and Alladin?Does it really?--short of being a devotee and convert to the gospel of the pot----if that is permitted----(perhaps the brilliance lies in the simplicity)
What a wholesome and unexpected treat. Your posting reminded me of a scene from 1973's "Payday," in which the plot is put on the back burner--for a spirited debate on the merits of Teflon!
About 56 minuutes into the movie, the chauffer of country singer Maury Dann (Rip Torn) has a bizarro conversation with Maury's latest groupie, while both wait in the limo for the star that they serve (albeit in different but oddly analogous ways).
It all begins with a seemingly innocent question from the front seat...
"CHICAGO" (Cliff Emmich): Do you like to cook?
ROSAMOND MCCLINTOCK (Elayne Heilveil): What?
CHICAGO: Do you like to cook?
ROSAMOND: Oh, um...well, a little bit. I don't know too much about it.
CHICAGO: Men make the best cooks. So I've heard, anyway. All your chefs are men...all your big chefs.
ROSAMOND: Um, well, I just never learned very much about it. We just mostly ate in restaurants. You know, Colonel Sanders and McDonalds. I swear, I've ate three thousand McDonalds hamburgers--
CHICAGO: (shocked) Doesn't your mother cook for you?
ROSAMOND: (laughs) My momma cook? Lord, she'd rather die!
CHICAGO: (glares at her in stunned, offended silence)
ROSAMOND: (finally, after staring out Cadillac windows) Say, where are we?
CHICAGO: (uncomfortable, quickly changing the subject) Do you like omelettes?
ROSAMOND: Omelettes?
CHICAGO: Sure.
ROSAMOND: Well, I never ate one, I don't think.
CHICAGO: (stares in disbelief) Well, I make good omelettes. It's all in the timing. That and your frying pan.
(At this point, CHICAGO shows off a cast-iron skillet, which he's actually carrying around in the front seat with him.)
(admiringly, lovingly) You look at that old devil, huh? (caressing the skillet) Well, it's black as your Uncle Dick's hatband! You see, the trick is you never wash the pan out. I just wipe out all the trash with a wadded-up paper towel. Although some say you'd be better off with cloth, but I've never had no complaints.
ROSAMOND: Well, it's real nice.
CHICAGO: (smiles in return)
ROSAMOND: Hey, have you ever used one of those...um, uh, non-sticky things?
CHICAGO: (alarmed) Non-sticky? You mean "coated pans"?
ROSAMOND: (nods)
CHICAGO: (angrily) You can't cook eggs on coated pans. They get all brown and crusty. Look, the trick to omelettes is you've got to cook them just until they're done and not one second more.
(looking dejected, angst-ridden) You can't get that kind of timing with a coated pan. You might as well cook on an electric stove.
ROSAMOND: (explaining herself) Well, uh, we sure sell a lot of them, uh, non-sticky things in the dimestore. Hundreds and hundreds.
CHICAGO: (accusingly) Yeah, that's what I mean. Most people don't know how to cook.
ROSAMOND: (trying to defend herself) Say, what are you? Some kind of chef or something? I thought you were a driver.
CHICAGO: (solemnly, after a long pause) Chief cook and bottle washer.
EPILOGUE (Spoiler Alert)
By the film's end, mediocre country singer Maury Dann will be dead, "Chicago" will be arraigned for second-degree murder, and Rosamond McClintock will have been exposed to any number of venereal diseases that plagued the rural South during the early 1970s. The whereabouts of Chicago's skillet remain unknown, to this day.
Roger, you know by now that I trust you, right? I've never disagred with your review of a film you've rated as good (although I've liked a few, such as the immortal The Coneheads, that you didn't care for). So I need you to tell me this: Will the pot cook my rice until it's done and then turn off to "warm" where I live, here at nearly 5000 feet above sea-level? If you tell me it will, I promise to order the pot. The only reason I haven't is that I've doubted it would know when rice (or dried beans) are done at this altitude because (if I could phrase this as a question, I would call this a trick question) at this altitude, whole grain rice and dried beans never do finish cooking. I don't want to hassle with a pressure cooker, and I'm a whole-grain kind of gal, so I live with unsatisfactory brown rice and sort of crunchy dried beans. Can you assure me that this miracle device, The Pot, will solve my high altitude cooking problems?
Ebert: It worked for me as expected in Park City, Utah, elevation 7,000 feet.
When my husband and I first married, 16 years ago, I wanted to buy a rice cooker. Like the United Nations, we shared veto power and he used it. (The Swiss don't spend money they don't have.) But that started me on the path I am on today. I adapted and even thrived in my quest to grasp the elusive secret of rice cooking.
When I traveled to Japan, I was the house guest of a very gracious woman who attempted to teach me the secrets of rice cooking, albeit in Japanese, but to no avail. I carried on with my quest. Through the years I've attained a certain proficiency to the point where my failures are also satisfying in an odd way.
It has been at least 10 years now that my husband has attempted to buy me a rice cooker on a bi-yearly basis. It never makes it to the cash register. I would certainly miss my encounters with the rice, water, fire and salt. I want to know what the pot knows.
Thank you for the Rice Cooker post. I have often wondered the same thing. And why anyone would cook rice on a stovetop now is beyond me, unless he enjoys guessing games.
My favourite rice cooker--oh I wish I had a camera on me at the time--I saw in a Korean grocery store. It looked normal, but was for expensive, for it had a special dial with three or four settings according to type of rice.
I don't quite recall the names of the settings, but for the fourth, the most clockwise: DELICIOUS.
You can see why I forgot what the earlier settings were.
I got one of these a few years ago. My first thought was "Why the hell didn't I know about these when I was living on Mac-n-Cheese and Ramen Noodles?"
To the people who don't want to risk the money, spend the fifteen or twenty bucks at Target (or K-Mart or whatever). It's totally worth it.
And I know Ebert already answered the guy who asked what size to get, but the sizes are listed for UNCOOKED rice. So a 3 cup cooker will have about 9 cups of cooked rice. Do the math on a 16 cup cooker. Too much rice for a single guy!
i think you should insist on your choice of title. it's brilliantly cheeky. it matches the cheekiness of the instructions you give. you and aunt mary cook the way cooking was meant to be done. it's the anti cookbook cookbook. run with your title.
Are you suggesting the pot is to cooking what the wheel is to machinery?
Glad to hear that others use it for something other than rice.
I use it to make something resembling my grandmother's gumbo. (mostly it involves small amount of pan-made roux, a few spices that depend on my mood, many canned tomatoes, andouille sausage, frozen okra about halfway through, and then some shrimp at the last minute.) Now I just need another Pot to make the rice to go with it...
Roger:
I am looking for a white kettle on amazon.com right now to go with the cooker, because the saying about the pot and the kettle does not hold true with the above example.
Also, if you put minute rice is a slow cooker, I think the fabric of time starts to unravel. Not risking it.
Loved your peon to the rice cooker.
But the Slow Cooker goes it all one better. It nearly as simple but can do much more.
However the Slow Cooker does have a High and Low setting as well as the Cook and Warm settings. Maybe too complicated?
Stick with the rice cooker if [said in screaming Jack Nicholson voice] YOU CAN'T HANDLE THE SLOW COOKER.
Yessssssss. I've been waiting for this blog post.
Amazon doesn't ship kitchen crap gadgets to Canada, which is probably for the best because I don't have twenty bucks to spend on a rice cooker or the space to keep it.
You HAVE to use that title, though. Best title ever.
I posted this on Emerson's blog too. You do realize that Changeling in fact has several gunshots in it, right? Did you see Changeling, or is this Tru Loved again?
Ebert: I don't recall gunshots. Wait. While they were running away from the ranch? I'll correct it. Thanks.
Completely unrelated, but I thought you may enjoy this listing on the Onion's "TV Schedule" for this week, if you have not already seen it.
10 a.m. EDT/9 a.m. CDT
As former cohost Roger Ebert's curse starts to take effect, a light crashes to the ground from the rigging above, narrowly missing new cohost Ben Lyons.
After all the talk about the pot I bought items to make a roast in my slow cooker!
Love the post!!
Cheers!!
I know you said you like to eat in the immediate future. However...have you tried the slow version of The Pot - the Slow Pot? Here's one I use: http://shopping.yahoo.com/p:Proctor%20Silex%2033040%204%20qt.%20Round%20Slow%20Cooker:2002405311
It has one more setting than the Pot...warm, low and high (I know!). It takes longer to cook, 8-12 hours on Low or 4-6 hours on High. But fret not, you put everything in the pot before bed and wake up to a full meal. Good things come to those who wait. The Slow Pot is just like the Pot...but cooks slower, using lower heat, to bring out juices and flavours that you never knew existed within the ordinary ingredients in your kitchen...like red bean and whitefish porridge, or pork rib and wintermelon soup (where the meat falls off the bone).
The Pot is irreplaceable. The Slow Pot is also irreplaceable. Having both, you will be complete.
Thank you, Roger. Knowing that your pot "performed as expected at 7000 feet," I have, as promisd, ordered "the pot."
From what I've seen and read of your lovely wife Chaz, I'm sure she's right about most things, but in the matter of your cookbook title, I believe The Pot and How to Use It is a fine, understated title that humorously matches the type of shoot-from-the-hip cooking in your book. I hope you will stick to your authorial guns, in this case, while continuing to heed her advice in all all other areas. When do you expect this book to be available for purchase?
Ebert: Probably not before it is published. Although in these hard times, Amazon, in addition to its pre-order program, should add a half-price choice at for a book not yet written, to give starving authors some hope. Or a humanitarian program where you could send them the Pot.
I remember a few years ago you promised an article on cooking oatmeal (and anything else) with the cooker. Thank you! I wish you the joy you've brought to me with your writing (which is much).
You mention the two best steak sauces: make room for another. My wife invented this as a chicken marinade, but it makes the best beef kebabs, too: Soy Sauce, Balsamic vinegar and minced fresh garlic. About 4:1 Soy to Vinegar, and enough garlic to matter.
Roger Ebert - I love you. This blog is awesome. Thanks so much for being rad.
I'm more of a Crock Pot person, but I bet that your Pot is better at cooking grains than any Crock Pot is. The lid on a Crock Pot is not as tight as the lid on a rice cooker, so it loses a lot of moisture in cooking. No good for rice, oatmeal, or wheat berries.
I might be sold on a rice cooker now.
My rice cooker was indispensable the years I lived in Japan.
In Japan I cooked rice in it, of course. In the morning I used it to make hot rice to eat with nato. In the evening for the meal's rice. I also made miso soup in it. I cooked cracked wheat in it when I wanted an American-style breakfast. I warmed up cabbage and onions in it, steamed hakusai cabbage or Chinese broccoli. I made a Chinese dish called mama-dofu -- kind of a spicy sauce with lots of tofu in it.
We got one for a wedding present here in the States. It was the best gift and lasted much longer than the cash we got at the reception.
My daughter is moving to Germany in December. She'll live in a small apartment with no counter space. Now I know what I'm getting her for Christmas.
I think I will be getting the pot, and be doing my magic on it, as I call it. I have a crock pot that has multiple settings and doesn't know jack that the orient knows, if you know what I mean...I have to do all the settings myself ::spits on floor like Craig Ferguson plugging another tv networks show:: But seasoning the oil you put in with seasoning adds another aroma.
Along with rice and crock pots, many of the same culinary feats mentioned above could be accomplished in a couscousiere. The only added danger is appearing elitist.
Mr. Ebert, you mention that this rice cooker is for everyone imaginable... but you forgot to mention starving filmmakers who forgo food to purchase a ticket for Flight of the Red Balloon.
Urbana born, Potomac bred, I had never even HEARD of a rice cooker until I was 22 and in college, when I met my Taiwanese born wife. When I introduced her to my parents, they did their best to make her feel welcome by serving the only rice based dish they knew - Pork Chops, with Cream of Mushroom Gravy on Minute Rice.
She was appalled - APPALLED - by the Minute Rice, but didn't let it show. To this day, a rice cooker has served as the mainstay of our lineup of Kitchen appliances. I don't get to eat as many potatoes as I'd like (Irish/German), but well made Rice is like wonderstarch - you can do anything with it.
But stay away from Minute Rice if you can - for the widest selection of quality rice (and rice cookers) in the Chicago area, my wife recommends Mitsuwa Grocery in Arlington Heights, on Algonquin and Arlington Heights Road - go for the groceries, stay for the many Chinese/Japanese food counters in the food court.
The potato poem is another gem which points to the beauties of the life less encumbered---I always love Van Gogh's painting of his "Room",in fact I have a small print of it hanging in my own place--just a bed and a table and a towel hanging from the peg.I visited once Mahatma Gandhi's place of detention in the Agha Khan palace in Pune in Western India---his posessions amounted to his wooden footwear,spectacles,his favourite Bhagwatgita and another item or two..Even films are valuable insofar they enable us to explore and polish the grandeur of the inner universe which is the common heritage of a human being.The pot which you have so eloquently and poetically described also has a certain austere technological and utilitarian beauty with its relative simplicity like the pots of olden times.Long live pots !
The best voice to hear your piece in is Samuel L. Jackson's. This blog entry is the kind of stuff Tarantino busts his ass over. Watch for it in the trailer of Pulp Fiction II--The Revenge of the Raped Timeline!
I stopped eating meat a year ago. You know how I feel now? Bored. Dullest thing I ever decided to do. Oh sure, my health is better, I've lost weight, I look younger, can exercise more--so I'm a real healthy boring bore. I don't have the snap left to even put in an more interesting modifier for 'bore' than 'boring.'
And the rice cooker is my pal, too.
What's struck me over last year, after I had my taste buds and wit removed, is that there is no need to spend a lot on food. If you're willing to eat dried legumes and rice, the world is--well if not your oyster, let's nod toward Val Kilmer and say it's your huckleberry, or daisy, or whatever other piece of flora he was spouting off about as he coughed up parts of his lung in Tombstone. But I'm serious about the dried beans and other grains. Cheap as can be, nutritious, and even a lunkhead like me can soak beans overnight.
You know--and this is none of my business, so feel free to tell me to screw off if it's too personal--but how have your dietary habits changed since the surgery? You mentioned that you haven't tasted food for more than a year. I'm with you on that as well. Anosmia, they tell me mine's called. Better than anhedonia, I guess. I've laid off things that might spoil in a secret way, like milk, which looks OK. I can't tell 'til it's coming back up that it's no good. More than that, I eat as much chili pepper and curry as I can get my hands on, as that sweaty reaction is something close to taste.
Thanks for not sending me off to Willams Sonoma for some fancy dancy thing. I hate being in there as much as I hate waiting in Victoria's Secret, her secret being that no one cares how the present's wrapped, so long as there's easy access.
Ebert: I haven't eaten a bite for two years. I give myself liquid nourishment through a g-tube.Thus I have been a perfect vegetarian without a single slip for 24 months, on low fat and low salt. Today my cholesterol is 145 over something, my blood pressure is low-normal, and I have never felt more clear-minded or zestful.
"The Pot and how to use it" would ideally be a cultivation/cooking guide for Marijuana I think.
Has dollar signs written all over it.
Roger,
I was not going to submit a comment for this topic because there is not much that I can say about rice cookers. The only time I eat rice is at Chinese restaurants. I guess I need to eat it more often, and one day I will try to purchase an inexpensive rice cooker.
I just wanted to say that this is a good idea for a topic. It is quite innocent, especially during election week which makes it nice. Internet bloggers do not always have to talk about serious subjects like politics. They also do not always have to discuss popular topics such as those related to entertainment. You do not always have to start topics on film.
I would like to see more topics about what you are interested in that have nothing to do with movies or anything serious. Tell us about your favorite books, what music you enjoy, other foods you like to eat, lessons on life that you have learned (I am sure at 66 there is much that you can say about life), or anything you do each week that makes your life simple, enjoyable, and meaningful.
Oh, and do you and Chaz own a bread maker? If so, tell us about it. If not, please get one. I have always loved the one my dad and step-grandfather have at their place in LA.
I think Chaz should start her own blog. Your readers might want to know something about her.
Jake: Now look you... them pheasants are for his pot. These eels are for my pot. Now what makes you think I should give you something for your pot?
Withnail: What pot?
I: Cooking pot!
Jake: He knows.
Dear Roger,
I dove into your blog tonight thinking I’d get some last minute campaign stumping–surely this will lead into “a chicken in every pot” line sometime soon. Nope. I got something far better. Your ebullient tone in this piece is charming and utterly hysterical. “Musing my mind” indeed. This piece deserves a second Pulitzer for you.
You can save time and skip to my antepenultimate and ultimate full paragraphs. Between now and then is just ramblings and a heartfelt coda.
I must mention that once, by mistake, my girlfriend tossed the rice into the cooker without the metal lining in place. I had to unscrew the bottom array and shake each grain out, but I marveled at the simplicity and functionality of the rice cooker’s inner workings. On, warm, and off. If only everything in life could be so clear. (Incidentally, my girlfriend swears by the expensive Japanese rice found at upscale markets. You can taste the difference. She also told me her grandmother would quote a popular Japanese aphorism: “Don’t disturb the rice, even if the baby is crying.” I suppose by that she means that one shouldn’t lift the lid, stir or do anything once the rice is simmering. This explains why my fussed-over stove top rice used to always turn out like gruel. It’s not surprising that I’ve never seen my gf cook rice with anything but her trusty rice cooker (she got it free with her Honda). Another point worth mentioning, Japanese restaurants that make rice in the old stone pots make a rice so wonderful, your faith in your trusty cooker may diminish. It’s also common knowledge that rice should be washed. Just put the rice in the cooker liner, fill it with water, swish it around with a clean hand, and pour out the water. Repeat until the water runs clear. It’s a technique like panning for gold. Then do it with filtered water a time or two if you don’t trust your local DWP (and who should?).
Yes, I, your constant reader, recalled your Aunt Mary’s extra helping “for fear of company” recipe, although I’ll be damned if I can remember the context in which you first mention it. I believe it was within the last two years that I read it, but hyperlinks to such arcana would be appreciated by your acolytes.
I spent no small amount of my free time writing without posting about your “Musing” and “Little Rule Book” blogs. Both of those blogs are absolutely genius. And by that, I don’t mean great or brilliant, I mean abso-friggin’-lutely genius. What lit the proverbial fire under my derriere to actually write in about your latest posting was this line: Any fruit except something like watermelon. I shouldn't have to be telling you this. I almost put on the brakes with a “klang” of disbelief sound effect but fortunately I was already online and could learn that a watermelon is, indeed, Virginia, a fruit (some on the web make the argument for “fruigetable,” perhaps further enhancing your status as the second best best blog on the web). Okay, no weirder to this city boy than the fact that a tomato is also a fruit. I don’t want to know on which side the cumquat falls, but it is my favorite sounding fruit or vegetable in the English language. One side bar: I don’t want to ask you a question and make you think you shouldn’t answer this because if you answer every question you are asked, you’ll have no time left, but you, Oh Wise One, being the journalist that you are, can probably help me out: Does the above comma used for “fruigetable” belong inside or outside the quotation marks? I think it should go on the outside, it clearly being jargon or a word used for ironic intent, but I’ve never used a wordprocessor (or teacher) that didn’t insist that all punctuation belongs inside the quote marks. Even the web is conflicting on this. What’s your take.
And while I’m asking questions (and I know it’s always been your policy to never explain why you didn’t review such and such a movie ((except recently for “Fireproof” and “An American Carol.”)), and I know it probably came out during your convalescence, when are you going to review David Gordon Green’s “Snow Angeles?” (I want to put that question mark outside the quotes for some reason–maybe the question mark is throwing me off–damn, I nearly ended my sentence with a preposition–what’s the official rule on that?) I just watched it on DVD last night and was completely enthralled by it. Honestly, I thought the director, lead actors Sam Rockwell and Kate Beckinsale, and the adapted screenplay should all be up for Oscars. You know... if the Oscars didn’t completely suck so often. I was surprised to learn that the movie’s copyright was 2006, because I remember recently wanting to see it but not finding the time to do so. Huge mistake on my part. Anyway, please review it, damn it. Reaffirm for me that it is awesome. And not awesome in the way that you thought the new Indiana Jones movie was awesome. I mean “awesome” awesome.
I’m sorry to blather so long. It’s your fault for having such a damn good blog.
Much love.
Now give us a pro Obama blog before Tuesday! You know, please.
Ebert: I purchased the Green film and will watch it, of course. What I know about commas I have learned in two ways, under the tutelage of Jari Jackson in the UPI Style Book at the News-Gazette state desk, 1958-66, as a student of journalism at the University of Illinois, 1960-64, and as a graduate student of English at the universities of Illinois, Cape Town and Chicago, 1964-1967. The comma goes inside the quotes.
Daniel Quiles -
"This place has become impossible. Nothing to eat, freezing cold and now a madman on the prowl outside with eels."
Here's an oatmeal variation: use steel-cut oatmeal -- like the Oirish stuff in the cans, but about 1/7th the price in bulk. Take a 10oz wide-mouth thermos bottle, add 1/3 cup of oatmeal, raisins, butter, a pinch of salt, whatever twirls your squirrel. Sometimes miso does it for me. Top up to where the bottom of the cap is (figure it out, Feynman) with boiling water. Cover and let sit for maybe an hour and a half -- this works great if all you can eat when you wake up is coffee and dark chocolate.
Apparently using larger vacuum-thermos pots for cooking like this is big where rice cookers come from.
Dear Roger, under my Salty Rice recipe, Tip #4, I wrote: If you don't have chicken meat, use 1 chicken cube (bouillon cube). This is ill-advised. I should not have included that line because, as you know, we should always go for the real thing. Besides, it escaped me yesterday that using bouillon cubes would further salinate the rice. Only upon recollection today did it dawn upon me. Apologies.
Instead of chicken meat, pork chunks also do well in this recipe. Additional onion, garlic and ginger aren't out of the question; though, one may substitute shallots with the white one for more pungency. Chopped spring onions may also be fancied. To decrease salinity, go easy on the soy sauce.
Talking of pots:
"While greasy Joan doth keel the pot.
When all aloud the wind doth blow
And coughing drowns the parson's saw
And birds sit brooding in the snow
And Marian's nose looks red and raw,
When roasted crabs hiss in the bowl,
Then nightly sings the staring owl, Tu-whit;
Tu-who, a merry note,
While greasy Joan doth keel the pot."
(This song,towards the end of "Love's Labour Lost",as sung in the BBC Shakespeare series,by a singer whose name I could never trace out ,is one of the most heart-rending pieces of vocal music I have ever come across.)
I just wanted to let you know I appreciated/enjoyed the Augie March riff:
"I am a practical cook. An American, Urbana born, and go at things as I have taught myself, free-style, and will make a cookbook in my own way."
Well done!
I have 4 boys and a wife. I use the pot every Sunday. This is what to do:
1. Purchase whole chicken, unwrap and put in the pot.
2. Add 2 cans chicken broth.
3. Add 1 can cream of chicken soup.
4. Add 1 can cream of mushroom soup.
5. Set to low.
6. Wait 5 hours.
7. Remove chicken, place meat back in the pot.
8. Add 1 bag egg noodles.
9. Stir. Wait 1/2 hour.
10. Eat.
The pot knows, it understands, it loves.
What a loving paean to the rice cooker! I've yet to get one myself. Though I always botch rice. Have to add water or turn up the heat and try to finish it faster. So I suppose I ought to get one.
I like your sauces. Myself I can't live without Sriracha hot chili paste in the house, or Peter Luger's steak sauce. I even put them in tuna salad. Now that I'm commingling with a Louisiana gal, Tony Chachere's Cajun Seasoning has become my salt. If you're gonna have salt, you might as well have some flavor along with it.
Roger,
I know you asked for no political commentary, and it could be fun with those with the right sense of humor to see this as a survival guide when Obama's economic advisors tell him, "you know that tax cut / tax increase thing....we got the decimal point wrong...."
"Dear Readers: November 4 is Election Day. Let's all try to keep to our senses and limit the comments on this blog ONLY to recipes and tips about using the Pot."
I'm torn: I have a receipe that calls for a liberal amount of salt, and I am not sure how to say it without breaking Roger's edict.
Ebert: Okay, let's get into it. I say, be conservative with the salt.
Even this post has illicited a bunch of clever little comments from your readers.
Was this your intention, to test how easy it is for them to find something interesting to say?
Either way you should feel pretty proud.
This made me laugh out loud here at work:
"You can die of a heart attack during a perfect bowel movement."
Genius.
I like your book title but am worried it might find a spot in the home plumbing section instead of the cooking section.
The key to cooking rice in a regular pot is to cook the dry rice over heat until translucent, while stirring constantly, and then add the water. It cooks in a few minutes using this method.
And what happened to the piece about electing the grandma? Did you decide not to publish it? I was looking forward to it.
Ebert: Grandma deep-sixed. See if you can figure out where she was going to appear. Not in a blog right away.
I'm going to need a second rice cooker to try these experiments. My Chinese wife would stab me to death with her chopsticks if I attempted any of this with her prized possession. It's nice to see whimsy in your posts, Roger.
Ebert: Ooooo! Didn't Takshi Kitano kill someone like that? In the eyeballs. I hate it when that happens.
Roger,
This is a wonderful blog. It is practical. It is useful. It has been road-tested. And I cook a great deal like Aunt Mary. Sure, I have recipes--have actually been known to use one, but I can make food happen without them.
Two observations:
(1) It seems written in the (outstandingly smart-assy) spirit of Rick Blaine. "You're right, Ugarte. I am a little 'impressed' with you." and of course, "Are my eyes really brown?"
(2) It's so beautifully anti-elitist. It's a Pot. It's simple. buy it. It works. The Pot knows.
All right, another observation. So perhaps you are the #2 best-written blog. (OK, your blog, not you)--you're the still the best-read. Einstein...
Hi Roger,
I read with great pleasure and amusement your blog about THE POT. It was, for me, a moment of peace and laughter because my husband and I are locked in a state of limbo and anxiety. We are doing the worry dance to a tune set by others. However, The Pot was a way for me to transport myself back in time to the early days of our marriage. As an inexperienced bride, that darn pot came in handy. Not knowing much about spices and cooking, I would throw caution aside and just dump everything into the pot. My husband had other things on his mind and would eat everything, smiling and talking without a clue as to mess he had just consumed. Oh, but later after an hour in the bathroom and the pink stuff wiped from his lips he would say,"Are you trying to kill me." No late night in the bedroom that evening!
The Pot can also be thought of as symbol for throwing everything in and hoping beyond hope that we discover the magic of a Julia Child, to stimulate our culinary senses, or in this case our desire for a CHANGE OF MENU. I for one have lost my appetite for the chaos that surrounds the rooms of one's life.
Neither the kitchen nor the White House needs to be a mess anymore. Let us surround ourselves with fresh and gorgeous ingredients which make for a good life. And lastly, STUDS we will miss your unique and genuine voice. Rest easy.
If we forget the great voices of the past we are locked into a space the size of our pot with only two switches and very little options for a full and satisfying life.
HAPPY COOKING ROGER
Judy Shuster
Ebert: This is none of my beeswax, but, Jeez, sounds like the Pot might have contributed to anxiety in your marriage.
This took me back to my undergrad years when I was in Japan.
A typical girls dorm room had a rice cooker, a hotpot (strictly for boiling water although soup and hotdogs also worked) and a toaster oven.
A really nice room would have had a rice cooker, hotpot, toaster oven, an electric skillet and maybe, a microwave.
These were all against school fire safety policies. It really is amazing what kind of meals we could make, including miso shiru from scratch.
I later lived in apartments or was invited to apartments where all they had was a rice cooker and an electric skillet and sometimes a hibachi. We steamed potstickers and buns (nikuman or baozi).
Traditional Japanese homes do not have ovens so baking was sort of a challenge. I did manage to make banana bread by steaming.
My last time in Japan, I don't quite remember how, but I did make a turkey stew, cranberry sauce, tapioca pudding, wild rice stuffing in Japan. I don't think I used the hibachi. That was a Japanese Thanksgiving, of course.
Last time I used a rice cooker, it was to make rice for sushi. I always add 1/4 to 1/3 of brown rice and then toasted sesame seeds for added nutrition and taste and prefer honey instead of sugar.
Growing up, I learned how to cook rice in a regular pot--without butter. Rice should stick together if it's Japanese-style.
Now, I prefer bread, from scratch. I have my own breadmaker. I understand I can use it to make jam. Mostly, I like to make marmalade from scratch. I understand I can use my breadmaker for that. I tried my crockpot, but that didn't work. Maybe, I can use my rice cooker for that.
Ebert: Love those toasted sesame seeds! We have a bread maker, which can be timed to awaken us with the aroma of fresh-baked cinnamon bread. A confession: The Pot may be all you need, but it needn't be all you want. As every Realtor® will tell you, nothing smells more like home than cinnamon.
Finally, Roger Ebert breaks his 30 year silence on rice cookers! Now that he's showing his cards, I'd love to hear his thoughts on the Foreman Grill and teen pregnancy!
Ebert: The Foreman Grill! Ah! Even for grilled asperge.
Whenever I was sick as a child, my mother would mix up some eggs plus a tiny bit of water, and steam the mixture in a rice cooker. You get a soft fluffy mixture of steamed egg. It's even better with a bit of soy sauce on top. I just about lived on this after I had my wisdom teeth out.
Roger - I have always suspected you were a pothead . . .
Thank you SO much for the most excellent entry regaling us with advice and humor, Oh Pot Guru (Sensei?).
This helps, as I've had angst for years regarding which Pot to get (though I've always known it would a Zojirushi, so it could bond with my Zojirushi bread maker) and how to use it. I appreciate your sharing cooking suggestions even more learning that you, yourself, can't eat solids these days (however, I AM glad to hear that your health is good and you're feeling so well).
In other news - as to Tony Sosa's post and your response . . . as my wise mother says, "It's all fun and games until someone loses an eye."
Roger:
I usually use a Dutch Oven for this one, but it would probably work with a Pot as well. You might need to cut the recipe in half or adjust the cooking times, depending on the size of your Pot.
PUMPKIN SOUP
1. Chop up 2 carrots, 2 celery stalks, and a small (baseball-sized) onion.
2. Saute these with about 2 tbsp butter in the bottom of the pot for a few minutes.
3. Add one 29 oz can pumpkin, three 14 oz cans chicken or vegetable broth, and five whole cloves.
4. Simmer until the vegetables are tender. (I don't know how you "simmer" with the Pot, but I usually give it about 30 minutes on medium-low with the Dutch Oven.)
5. Remove the five cloves.
6. Puree the soup in batches in a blender, about 1 1/2 cups at a time.
7. Add some skim milk, cream, or half-&-half (your choice), a couple of tbsps of honey, and salt & pepper to taste.
8. Drizzle a little milk or cream on top of the soup before serving.
Any idiot can make good rice using a simple rice cooker, but it takes a special kind of idiot, such as me, to screw it up. In an attempt to make the meal even healthier, I used filtered water with the rice. Unfortunately the water came from my Brita pitcher straight from the refrigerator, and apparently near frozen water has a way of tricking the cooker into thinking it is prematurely done. I still use filtered water with my rice, but now I let it warm to room temperature before cooking.
Mr. Ebert,
Your comments about your Aunt Mary reminded me of one of my favorite vignettes from Ray Bradbury's "Dandelion Wine". Douglas Spaulding's Grandmother's kitchen is organized, tidied up, and filled with all possible measuring devices - and the meals that come out of that kitchen are terrible!
Roger, thank you so much for this post and for sharing such an unexpected side of yourself. I am a gourmet who loves to cook with Julia Child and will happily dirty 17 pots and pans in the pursuit of a velvety sauce. That said, I have written a cookbook that I give to my nieces and nephews as they leave home on how to cook the inexpensive basics (rice, baked potatoes, oatmeal, frozen vegetables, eggs) in the hopes that they'll learn that some meals need not come in a styrofoam box. With your permission, I'll print and include your essay in the revision for this year's high school senior - just as soon as I purchase my own Pot and mess around with it, too.
I pursue food the way I think you pursue film - as long as there are some real ingredients, we will learn something by the way someone else is telling the story. Thanks for your thoughtful film criticism and your honest approach to real food.
i love rice cookers! it's the most genious invention in the world! how much rice do you eat sir? and have you seen snow angels yet? it's so good!
umm... wow!! how long have you been writing cooking blogs?!! this is crazy!!
I've never used a rice cooker myself, but as a student of Japanese I am very well aware of its many blessings and my friends never stop extolling its virtues. Did you know that you can make bread in your regular rice cooker?
Thank you for this post. My boyfriend brings up the idea of getting a rice cooker periodically, but I always shoot it down because I have never had any trouble making rice. (My method for white rice such as basmati or jasmine: place 2:1 water:rice in a covered saucepan over high heat. As soon as the water is boiling -- you should be able to see the lid rattling, but I have been known to lift and take a quick peek -- immediately drop your burner to the lowest setting it can handle. Wait about 10 minutes for one cup of rice, 15 for 2-3 cups. Take a very quick peek, and if you see a few "holes" in the mass of rice -- due to escaping steam -- remove rice from heat. The step of knowing when rice is finished is tricky, but once the upper grains are clearly dry you can risk letting steam escape while you take a fork and probe the bottom of the pan. If you want to err on the side of caution, remove the rice from heat while there is still a bit of water in the pan and leave the lid on so steaming will continue while you prepare your other food.)
The problem with stovetop rice is that you have to keep your mind on it. When you have kids and writing deadlines and other distractions, a rice cooker does sound nice. I thought I was saving money by keeping myself tethered to the stove (since I couldn't argue that rice from a Pot would be better than my own rice), but now you have shown me the light: I can cook many things in a steamer, and free myself up to write until I'm damn well ready to deal with the food again. The possibilities seem endless.
I'm still quite confused about some of the recipes (if I am putting raw meat in with rice and veggies, does the meat go in after the rice is done or somewher in the middle? Do the veggies go on top of raw meat or go in later? Also, when I cook on the stovetop I like to saute in order to get oil and seasonings into my mushrooms, and I can't tell if the Pot will achieve a similar result via steaming), but I figure I'll go check out some of those cookbooks you mention to see if they'll give me some more detailed guidance.
Maybe it's because Halloween was last Friday--more personally, because we had our annual at-home film festival, the Halloween Roundup (seven movies later, and everything's scary)--but there seems to be an indie horror film hiding in here, about a college dorm where students--and packages of Ramen noodles--are mysteriously disappearing, while a delicious aroma emanates from the room of that creepy guy down the hall who showed up last fall lugging a bunch of rice cookers. "Eating Roger," indeed!
Mr. Ebert,
I would love to hear your thoughts and suggestions for avoiding the horrible scourge of Scorched Pot Bottom. I have the Panasonic 10 cup pictured above, and I have never not lost a small handful of rice at the bottom of my pot. I've tried oil, non-stick cooking spray, more water, less water, prayer, and pleading. Any wise words from the pot guru?
Ebert: My Pots have never scorched, not once. Are you using enough liquid? The Pot should turn off before that happens.
The book should be called: The Pot: How it can help your munchies.
Ok, I'm sold. You'd be a demon on QVC or HSN, Roger, even with your primitive sign language. Santa (me) is bringing this for Christmas. I've never used Minute Rice (I had a Wacky Pack as a kid that had a pic of "Minute Lice" and that did it for me), but tell me this:
Do I need to rinse good old Uncle Ben's before I cook it in The Pot? I've never rinsed UB's in my life, but I'm open to new things. Ta.
And now I'm lusting after a breadmaker! God help me if you talk about cars....
Ebert: Forget about rinsing rice. What you need is the turbocharged 1957 Studebaker Golden Hawk.
What I know about commas I have learned in two ways, under the tutelage of Jari Jackson in the UPI Style Book at the News-Gazette state desk, 1958-66, as a student of journalism at the University of Illinois, 1960-64, and as a graduate student of English at the universities of Illinois, Cape Town and Chicago, 1964-1967. The comma goes inside the quotes.
I know the comma is supposed to go inside the quotes, but it just doesn't look (or feel) right to me. The same goes for periods placed inside quotes. I always put both on the outside. I know this is wrong, but I do it anyway. I'm just a grammar maverick, I guess.
I have yet to try the Pot for anything, but it has inspired me to try the crock pot we have here. I'm wondering what the difference between the two is exactly..? Google, here I come.
Ebert: You like the period outside the quotes? Won't it roll away?
Too many words. Just skip to the important question: How many stars would you award each pot?
(Muah ha ha ha ha ha ha)
For shame, Roger - you turn down millions of dollars from Mayor McCheese and his roving gang of happy, child-pleasing artery cloggers, but you happily take money from the Amazon.com rice cooking lobby?
I have a friend who has a rice cooker. Until this post, I thought that they were stupid, useless things. This friend got the micro-zirconium fuzzy logic happy song playing things. I ate at his house once and waited (and waited and waited) for the food because he insisted upon hearing of the happy song.
Now that I find that these things are one touch and wonderful, I find that my college has banned them! Dumb question, but is it worth it to sneak one in? Food here on the weekends is notoriously awful, and the cooker would come in a plain old box.
It would be easy...
>b> Ebert: Maybe this is not the kind of Pot they banned?
After so many thoughtful and delicious posts, I hesitate to add my two cents worth, but here goes; recently I found out that you can put leftover rice in one of those ziploc bags, then freeze it.
OK, that is not the exciting part. Hear me out.
Later on, as it might be for lunch the next day, you can fish out that bag, put a little water in it if it looks dry at all, and then microwave it for about a minute until it's hot. And it's really good. It isn't all sort of weird and dry the way rice gets if you leave it in the fridge. I should say that I've only tried this with basmati, my table rice of choice if I'm not eating East Asian food.
Give it a try. And I will buy a Zojirushi rice cooker -- I love my Zojirushi bread machine.
I made it through college and grad school wihtout ever touching pot. Still don't have a microwave. And still cook rice in a stovetop pot.
To persuade Mrs. Ebert on your book title show her these:
Crit, Or Get Off the Pot
If The Pot Smokes You're Doing It Wrong
Roger Ebert's Overlooked Rice Papers
I made it through college and grad school wihtout ever touching pot. Still don't have a microwave. And still cook rice in a stovetop pot.
To persuade Mrs. Ebert on your book title show her these:
Crit, Or Get Off the Pot
If The Pot Smokes You're Doing It Wrong
Roger Ebert's Overlooked Rice Papers
Peace in. Peace out.
Ebert; The Perfect London Pot? A Pot is Just a Pot? Pot in the Dark? The Movie Pot Man? Roger Ebert's 4-Star Pot? Behind the Pot's Mask? Ebert's Pot Yearbook 2008? Two Weeks in the Midday Pot? The Great Pots? The Great Pots II? Pot by Ebert? War and Pot? You Can't Go to Pot Again? Gone With the Pot? I'm busy, I'm busy!
"A vessel is a kind of utensil. Because the great earth is hollowed out, water collects on it; and because the blue sky is pure, the moon shines in it. When the moon rises, the water glows with a pure light; and when the rain falls, the plants and trees flourish.
A vessel is hollowed out like the earth, and water can be collected in it the way water is stored in a pond. And the reflection of the moon floats on the surface of the water ......
But a vessel is susceptible to four faults. The first is being upset or covered, which means that the vessel can be overturned or covered with a lid. The second is leaking, which means that the water leaks out. The third is being defiled, which means that the contents can be contaminated. Though the water itself may be pure, if filth is dumped into it, then the water in the vessel ceases to be of any use. The fourth is being mixed. If rice is mixed with filth or pebbles or sand or dirt, then it is no longer fit for human consumption.
The vessel here stands for our bodies and minds. Our minds are a kind of vessel, and our mouths too are vessels,
as are our ears. ....."
It's My Pot and It Freaks Me Out
I like Pot by Ebert, and Ebert's Pot Yearbook 2009.
Ebert: Oh my god, Ronnie! You're a Pot! You've been a Pot all along!
If I might add, Roger:
David CopperPot
Pot & Prejudice
Of Pots and Men
Potty & Pottier
Pot Wars
Robopot
Lady Chatterley's Potter
Harry Potter, (... no, erase this)
School of Pot
Nosferatu the Pot
Kind Pots and Coronets
Dead Pots' Society
Around the World in Potty Days
Dr. Strangelove or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Pot
I think ...
British Usage: periods and commas outside the closing quotes.
American Usage: periods and commas inside the closing quotes.
I am happy to be corrected, but that's my understanding.
I, by the way, am guided generally by the Chicago Manual of Style.
Ebert: The University of Chicago Press has [U.S.] have [U.K.] published two of my books, in which you will observe that I follow the Chicago Manual of Style in even the smallest details, without exception.
Let's touch 500--it's a matter of life and pot.
(And we owe it to the pot, after all it's done for us.)
smrana, you hypnotized me and then my pot stovetop floated away...
Oh no, the Pot is banned here at the College of Mount St. Joseph, as are all electronic cooking devices, minus the school-supplied microwaves in the lobbies; evil, monolithic relics of a by-gone age where Hungryman dinners were considered a good decision.
To quote:
"Toasters, toaster ovens, microwave ovens, George Foreman grills (or similar versions), popcorn poppers are not permitted. A kitchenette, equipped with a microwave, is available on each floor."
It says nothing of rice cookers, but surely if they're against knocking out the fat, they're against the Pot.
What to do?
Ebert: Switch schools.
Doesn't matter if you are poor cause you're in college, or poor cause you don't get paid enough. The number one ingredient is your honey. What you have to remember is that it takes a little TLC. And if nobody is volunteering some of it, then take a nap, but before you fall asleep, tune into an AM station- you haven't visited that part of the dial in awhile- and drift off in the afternoon. Nap.
Wake up. It feels good. We're going to be okay.
This was fascinating, but also all true. As a person raised in the West but now living in India, I have two pots - one by Morphy Richards and one by Black and Decker - and they both cost around the same. In fact, they look spectacular - the Morphy Richards especially has this amazing steel sheen to it - almost futuristic.
I must state here that I do not use any other cooking utensils other than the pots. Why? Its easy, convenient, and you can actually whip up fancy meals with these, once you spend time getting to know it. For example, I make the BEST bacon and cheese fritatta using the pot, even better than in any other equipment I've used. They do omelettes spectacularly, and they boil water at lightning fast speed. Seriously, I never saw water boil that quick.
What is especially nice is when I leave for a long day at work - I just put in a couple pounds of chicken on the bone in, cover it with water, add some seasoning, and let it cook. Since it switches to 'keep warm' automatically, I am treated to a spectacularly delicious meal when I get home around 10 hours later. In this aspect it does rival crock-pot cooking.
Rice cooks perfectly, potatoes cook perfectly, and since all pots usually have non-stick bottoms, you can cook virtually anything, or fry anything, without worrying about cleaning up or making a mess.
Ebert, I do think though that this piece of equipment is not just meant for 'solitary writers' or single people on a budget. On the contrary, my own demographic is removed from this, and I have specifically chosen the pot to replace my traditional pans and woks and frying pans, only because it does the work of ALL of those equipments, plus more.
Thanks Roger, for making this divine piece of technology better known in the West. I was afraid it would remain an Eastern secret for far too long! If you can, seek out a Chinese brand called Koryo - they make the BEST pots, not much to look at, but they LAST, and their cooking times are always on point.
I wonder what J.K. Rowling would think when she sees this:
Harry and the Sorcerer's Pot
Harry and the Secret Chamberpot
Harry and the Potty Prisoner of Azkaban
Harry and the Pot of Fire
Harry Orders the Pot from Phoenix
Harry and the Half-Pot Pot
Harry Potter and the Deathly Dutch Oven
Thanks for the grammar lessons. I will no longer put periods on the outside of the quotes.
Rog: Aside from movies, I have not read a topic from you that you are so passionate about other than Steak N Shake restaurants. You are the proverbial peeling onion, each layer revealing another facet of your life experience that I cannot avoid reading, for fear of missing another classic sentence or observation that compels me to say to my wife "You've got to read what Ebert wrote today!" I'm off to purchase my Pot. While viewing the many models to choose from I will adhere to the credo "WWED."
Ebert: Uh,WWED?
Dear Roger, here's a limerick I thought of during my leisure time:
Mr. & Mrs. Pot
My next door neighbor Mr. and Mrs. Pot,
Whose sex lives are way over the top!
From night till morning,
It's BANG CLANG BOOMING!
Will somebody please ring for a cop!
The principle of the ricecooker is like that of the toaster. First, you push down the button. The heater element then reaches a certain high degree for some length of time. After the rice has absorbed all the water ( the Vietnamese measure the water level by the 3rd phalange of the middle finger from the rice ) & the heater element has reached a certain point, the heat inside will be either cut off or lower down to a minimal level ( depend on which button you hit - off or keep warm )
The principle of the ricecooker is like that of the toaster. First, you push down the button. The heater element then reaches a certain high degree for some length of time. After the rice has absorbed all the water ( the Vietnamese measure the water level by the 3rd phalange of the middle finger from the rice ) & the heater element has reached a certain point, the heat inside will be either cut off or lower down to a minimal level ( depend on which button you hit - off or keep warm )
Lonely Mabel
There was an lonely pot named Mabel,
Who cried night after night to a bundle.
Until came a pan,
By the name of Dan.
But alas! He was a pan with no handle!
Ebert:
A Pot that was named Sarah Jane
Achieved a measure of fame
By tipping its cooker
Like a flatulent hooker
And tooting out "Lili Marlene"
Richard Kaufman -
According to the BBC's Writing Style Guidelines, "(P)unctuation at the end of a sentence comes inside the quotation marks if the quote is a full sentence." Otherwise, the BBC tends to place punctuation, including full stops, outside of the quotation marks. If the punctuation is part of the quote, it remains inside the quotation marks. The full stop, by the way, cannot end a quoted sentence when it does not also end the actual sentence, in which case, the replacement comma is inside the quotation marks as per the above rule.
Case in point.
Personally, I use typesetters' quotation because the alternative, logical quotation, just doesn't feel right.
Roger,
You truly are a renaissance man!
As a bachelor with little to no cooking savvy whatsoever, I have printed your wonderful cooking instructions and am on my way to buy said Pot. I will not purchase through Amazon.com however... no reason to further line your pockets with more dirty rice money!
Regards,
Chris
Garlic Chicken on Fragrant Rice
Great as a side dish with stir fry, chicken, etc.
INGREDIENTS
3 cups uncooked jasmine rice
3 cups water
2 tablespoons sesame oil
2 cubes chicken bouillon
1/3 cup olive oil
1 green onion, chopped
2 cloves cloves garlic, smashed
1 (2 inch) piece fresh ginger root, crushed
1 chicken thigh with skin
1. Place rice, water, sesame oil, chicken bouillon, olive oil, green onion, garlic and ginger in a rice cooker. Stir, and then place chicken thigh on top. Turn on rice cooker.
2. When the rice is done, mix the rice so that the oil will be evenly mixed with the rice. Serve.
"If a vessel is free of these four faults of overturning, leaking, being defiled, and being mixed, then it can be called a perfect vessel. If the embankments around a moat do not leak, then the water will never escape from the moat. And if the mind of faith is perfect, then the water of wisdom, the great impartial wisdom, will never dry up."
A pot is something you can't become rich by sitting the whole day on.
Gus Van Sant told you once that he made certain films "So that no one else would have to." In that spirit, and seeing that no one else has done it yet, I shall make the first and hopefully ONLY marijuana/weed/blunt/chronic/endo/grass reference in this post...
Ebert said pot. A lot.
That was it.
I'm hungry.
And, strange to tell, among that Earthen Lot
Some could articulate, while others not:
And suddenly one more impatient than the others cried---
Who is the Potter, pray, and who the Pot?
FITZGERALD
Mr. Ebert,
I was impressed to hear from a former student that you are proponent of the Pritikin eating plan and a healthy lifestyle. Two books which might interest you and your journal readers are The China Study by Colin Campbell, Ph.D. and Prevent and Reverse Heart Disease by Caldwell Essesltyn, M.D. They are both excellent reads and proponents of whole-food, plant based diets for disease prevention and treatment. I wish you all the best.
Eric
If you desire fame, please sign your name and home town, or at least some name and some home town, so I can rip you off when I publish my stinking cookbook. Chaz has been after me to write this book for years, but for some reason she objects to my title, "The Pot and How to Use It." So do my publishers. You have to Use the Pot to love it.
Hmmm, they don't like the title eh... Well, the one you've chosen 'is' a little rough. How about "Everybody Cooks"
My parents picked up one of those microwave Rice Cookers from Japan eleven years ago. We've never been able to understand the instructions completely, but it's always made the best rice. It's also not even close to wearing out. Amazing technology.
Also, I knew I forgot something when I moved into my apartment- I'll need to get a rice cooker now. At least I got a cheap food processor, which does wonders...
Oh Roger that was hilarious! I LOVE the title and I'm ordering my pot NOW.
Princess Dragon Mom's Rice Recipe:
2 cups of rice, preferably Mahatma long grain, go figure.
Add one tentacle of orange spider thingy, the zest from a slinky fisted robot thingy, flavor with dollops of skull-faced minion to taste. Four cups water (collected from a spewing fire hydrant if possible. (There really is a difference.) Cover pot. Bring to boil using rocket fists. Then reduce heat to warm. Go conquer Earth. Enjoy.
PS. Never ate Minotaur but I dated a Harpie once. Does that count?
Hal, open the pot bay doors. Hal? Do you read me?
I'm fairly skeptical on this magical pot that you speak of. I lived for more than two years with nothing but the smallest of all the George Foreman grills and a hot plate. There wasn't a single thing I couldn't do with those things. If I have a chance though I may pick up one of these rice cookers and see if there's anything I can do with it on my very limited budget. Thanks for the advice!
Ebert: Unlike the hot plate, you can walk away from it, take a shower, walk the dog and read the paper and your house doesn't burn down.
Thanks, Roger - very serendipitous. Our trusty rice cooker's timer crapped out a couple of months ago after about 14 years. I was occasionally remembering to have a look at rice cookers when in various stores, but all of them had way too many features, were too big, or something else equally grotesque.
So my order went in yesterday, and the big brown truck will deliver the new pot tomorrow morning. With just two settings it will fit right in with my cooking credo - when the smoke alarm goes off, it's done.
Totally random question for you, Roger: I'm making my way through your (utterly superb) book on Scorsese, and I don't see anything on his 1970 documentary "Street Scenes." It remains the only film by him that I haven't seen (except some of his early short films - "The Big Shave," etc.). It's damn near impossible to procure. Have you seen it? What's the reason for it's omission? Thanks.
Ebert: No reason. Didn't do the Big Shave, either.
Thanks for the non-rice ideas! As for how the magic pot works, it's just like that old science demo where you put some water in an unwaxed paper cup and hold it over a candle. The water boils but the cup doesn't burn until it boils dry. In a rice cooker, once the moisture is gone, a bimetallic strip (invented by the great English clock maker John Harrison) bends with increased temperature and flips the cooker over to "warm" mode. Simple and elegant.
Ebert: Wrong! It's an occult mystery.
Dear Roger, I seem to be spouting like a limerick fountain these last two days. Here is a not-evidently-naughty, but still very bawdy, limerick that I dedicate to you:
Roger Ebert
Filmdom's great critic Ebert Roger,
His panache just gets better'n better.
Though voice has fled,
He still keeps his head,
And it's oojah-cum-spiff and spiffer.
Hi Roger, this is very strange. I could have sworn that the limerick I passed to you early today (my morning time), the one about Lady Maven who's a Dutch oven, did appear here in your blog. And yet now, it's nowhere to be found. ??? I'm having question marks over my head. In case it was accidentally deleted, here it is again (I'm reconstructing by memory):
Lady Maven
There once was a dignified Dutch oven,
Who annointed herself as Lady Maven.
Se won't be scrubbed,
By steel wool and sud.
"Use sponge or I'll sue you for misdemeanen'!"
By Dan W, Owosso, MI on November 4, 2008 4:26 AM
While viewing the many models to choose from I will adhere to the credo "WWED."
Ebert: Uh,WWED?
Naive and humble one... What Would Ebert do?
Just have to point out that you lucked out with the gift from your Japanese assistant, Roger. Although you may not be certain of the fact, I can assure you (as could anyone else who has lived in Japan) that Zoujirushi is the Lamborghini of rice cookers. (Well, maybe the Acura. I don't know if they make obscenely unnecessary and expensive small electrics).
Rice, rice, everywhere rice...I'm holed up in my improvised mansion with 200 pounds of rice. I've come a long way from living under the bridge... to a pontificating pundit in- exile. "You talking to me?" Travis Bickle as anti-hero, a role model one emulates at their own risk.
Yes, Roger Ebert talks to me all the time, and now he has instructed me on how to better prepare my end of the world stash. Travis is a seething pot of diffuse rage, ready to boil over, like an over-done pot of Basmati without any seasoning...
Roger, I bought The Pot. You were right. It does work here at 4700 feet. I was astonished at the much higher proportion of water to rice that it called for in contrast to what's recommended on the whole grain rice packaging. It cooked for about an hour and ten minutes, shut itself off, and I let it sit for another ten minutes. Perfect, fluffy rice. For the first time since I moved to this altitude, perfect, fluffy rice. Thanks, Roger!
Roger, I write reluctantly. My wife says I should. I'm not sure what I can say that the 177 previous posters have not, but I tend to do what she says. We all know why. Why does she think I should post? Because I am a blind follower of all your reviews, for starters. She says, "Let's go see this movie" and it strikes her as cute that my response is invariably "What did Roger think of it?" (You going to review "The Secret" soon? I had to go see it without knowing your opinion.)
I have taken to reading less of your reviews (not fewer) because I find I like being more surprised by the story. But I always check your rating. She says you are "one of my father figures" and I can't disagree but I've considered you mainly the great movie reviewer of our time. Anthony Lane could take a few notes
But it is this rice cooker piece that tips the scale and moves me from passive fan to active respondent. I love the tone of your journal; the darkness, the feigned snarkiness. I've got the 5 cup Sanyo myself, a gift from Mom. Being Japanese-American (Happa) I've respectfully limited my use to Japanese white rice up until now. OK sometimes I go crazy and add sauteed onions, or fresh spinach. But now, the sky's the limit and I thank you for that. In an Obama presidency, why not make lamb stew? Yes we can.
My daughter is a college freshman and turns 18 this week. I just bought her the Sanyo 3-cup pot. The Zojirushi 3-cup lacked the "warm" setting and the cord wasn't detachable. She hates soup, but she's getting a 10 lb bag of rice and the link to your entry here. I trust she'll figure it out.
Thank you for the decades of writing, the movie advice, and now the journal. I am so happy you are recovering your health and know I'm a big fan over here in the SF Bay Area.
I just downloaded some John Prine too.
I wish there were some pots without teflon cooking bowls. Many come with stainless steel steamer inserts, but they all seem to have nonstick bowls. Sigh...
Roger, I don't have a proper kitchen, so I use my pot to cook pasta, rice and lentils. The only bad thing about the pot is that it is limited to boiling. This means that you can't create the fried base of onions and garlic that classic soups usually have. Apart from that, the pot is perfect. I couldn't live without it.
Ebert: I have done this. Spray the Teflon pot with low fat Pam (olive oil type). Add a little olive oil and chopped onion and garlic. Close and heat. Don't allow onions to burn. You can open briefly to stir onions a little, and check on progress. Monitor closely, and have other soup ingredients all ready to add.
Miss Ina’s Beef Stew for Rice Cooker
1 lb of beef stew meat (may substitute with other meats – chicken or ox tails)
can of Hunts Garden Tomato Sauce
¼ cup of chopped onions
¼ cup of chopped bell peppers
1 cup of celery
½ cup of carrots (frozen or fresh)
½ cup of peas (frozen)
½ cup of diced potatoes
½ cup of lima beans (frozen or fresh)
1 package of Lipton onion soup
teaspoon of garlic
½ teaspoon on salt
½ cup of water
Brown stew meat in skillet then combine all ingredients together in rice cooker for approximately forty-five minutes or until cooker turns off..
Serves 4 – 6 cups of soup
Uncle Roger: Miss Ina, why were we ordering out from Father & Son when you could have made this for us in less time than the pizza took to arrive? Can I put a little Worcestershire in my serving, please? You don't mean to tell me your boys would rather have pizza than their mom's stew made with beef, veggies and love!
Miss Ina’s Down Home Rice Pudding
2 cups of rice
Three cups of water
½ stick of butter
Tsp. of cinnamon
Tsp. of vanilla extract
½ tsp. of nutmeg
½ cup of pet milk
¾ cups of brown or white sugar
Combine all these ingredients in the rice cooker. The cooker will turn off when done.
Heat oven to 350 degrees
Pour the cooked rice into greased baking casserole dish; cook in the oven for about thirty minutes or forty minutes.
The pudding will serve about four to six people.
Uncle Roger: Or three other people and me.
I got up today, made coffee and rice cooker oatmeal, and then read this. Coincidence! It made the oatmeal all the more delicious. Another way to make the oatmeal delicious is to put raisins in right at the beginning with the oatmeal. They get all plumped up and sweeten it and then you don't need sugar.
I don't care what they say, you are the best, Roger Ebert.
ps Minotaur is so last year. Griffin is the new hot mythical meat.
Have you ever used the Hitachi rice cooker? I have one and like it. I've steamed veggies and cooked rice. But, your suggestions make me want to try some one pot meals!
Also, best teriyaki sauce ever: Soy Vay Veri Veri teriyaki!
Have you ever used the Hitachi rice cooker? I have one and like it. I've steamed veggies and cooked rice. But, your suggestions make me want to try some one pot meals!
Also, best teriyaki sauce ever: Soy Vay Veri Veri teriyaki!
What movie is this for?
Ebert: The Black Cauldron. Ideal for pig soup. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fojNooSRccA
Another wonderful kitchen gadget that helped me survive the college years was a 1970s fondue pot. Yes, a fondue pot. To this day, it makes the best omelets - the angled sides reflect heat back down on top of the cheese and veggies... spaghetti, sautéed items, oatmeal... it was my stovetop.
Is this a case of desperation/poverty breeding creativity? Certainly in my case! But now I have a new thing to explore...
We have a 12 year old 3-cup Zojirushi from a local asian grocery. I love the elephant logo (selling point for me). Have always used Basmati or Japanese sushi rice. I thought it was a bit of an extravagant item to buy but we eat a lot more rice now than we used to and it's one thing I don't have to worry about or time or coordinate with the rest of the meal. My husband won't let me add anything - even seasonings to our rice - while it's in the cooker... I will have to show him this post and change his mind! Does it affect the flavor of plain rice when you cook in it in such a way? Or is he paranoid like those coffee fanatics who won't grind flavored coffee in their coffee grinders?
OK, I know I'm a little late to the party but... I love our rice cooker too! We once went camping for two full months and cooked most of our breakfasts and dinners out of our rice cooker.
However, due to the amount of cooking we do on it, we invested in a fuzzy logic Zojirushi. Not only can it cook brown rice very well (which our old one can't do), it has a much-loved, much-used feature: the timer. For blood-sugar reasons I have to eat within about 20 minutes of waking up. My Zojirushi is timed so that every day I have slow-cooked oatmeal waiting for me upon waking. And it's great to set up rice cooking in the morning, with it timed to be done at dinner. My rice cooker has two timers, actually, so I have one automatically set for breakfast and one for dinnertime.
They are expensive, but I actually worked out the price for buying the rice cooker and cooking with cheap organic oatmeal versus the cereal we'd been eating every day-- and the cooker paid for itself quickly.
It might be worth mentioning the timing feature in your Pot book. Some folks may not think a Pot is worth it if they have to set it after coming home from work in the evenings. The only drawback about the timer is the annoyingly cheery "Twinkle theme" that plays when it's finished. My husband opened it up and removed the speaker.
Great to discover this side of my fav film critic. I just got a rice cooker and was looking for a recipe. Happy that I found you instead and/or with.
At the risk of revealing the man behind the curtain, the rice cooker is actually very simple technologically. There is a thermostat that touches the bottom of the pot which switches off (or to 'warm') when all the water has boiled off. This prevents the rice from burning. This is a great convenience because, as others have noted here, you can make rice on the stove but you have to mind it.
Since the boiling stops when the water is gone, the main thing that controls the softness of the grains is the ratio of water to rice (or other ingredients like oatmeal.) There is also the slight complication that the rice in the pot needs to be deep, that is, a 10-cup cooker works best with 7-10 cups but would not work well with only 3 cups.
While it is in cooking mode, the rice maker is the same as any electric pot. So, you can make pasta in a rice cooker (though you cannot cook rice with a pasta maker!)
posting a recipe:
If the world were ending tomorrow I'd still make a rice cooker meal for dinner. The most recent consisted of sauteed onions, andouille sausage, cooked leftover chicken and bok choi, a sort of 94121 jambalaya. serves 4 or so
1. chop 1/2 onion and saute it in olive oil, in the pot.
2. add 3c rice and mix in til coated and moist
3. throw in some white wine if your wife isn't looking. 1/2 c
4. add water to the 3c line, salted. chicken bouillon wouldn't hurt
5. brown one sausage, chopped into round slices, separately
6. after 10m add bok choi and the sausage and the cooked chicken
additional things you can add:
Worcestershire sauce
piment d'esplette or red pepper flakes
anything new orleans-y: shrimp, bell pepper
the cooker should flip off after 15m or so. toss ingreadients and let sit another 10 - 15m. serve.
Mexican Rice
like in the restaurants, only with flavor:
serves 4
chop 1/2 onion, sautee in pot with olive oil
add rice (3 c) and stir into the oil until well coated
add some tequila, 2-4 oz. taste it first to make sure it's OK
add hot water to the 3c line, add salt to taste
add any or all of: cumin, cinnamon, oregano, cloves
add a can of tomatoes (in winter) or fresh skinned tomatoes. if canned, consider the 'Mexican style" with flavorings.
stir the pot after the cooker finishes, let sit 10m more. serve.
The fat man in the red suit did not bring this to me for Christmas. I just ordered it online. And then we shall see....
Based on some advice given on your blog, I have finally figured out have to get my rice cooker to work without having to wipe water off the crown molding.
I’ve been working with some things such as taking my chili recipe out of the Dutch oven and trying it in the rice cooker and it is delicious. I don't know if you can eat chili but here’s my recipe anyway:
Ingredients:
* 2 teaspoon of Tabasco sauce
* 1/2 cup water
* 1 clove of minced garlic
* 1 teaspoon of pepper
* 1 tablespoon Italian seasoning
* 1 tablespoon olive oil
* 1 medium-sized onion, chopped
* 1-1/2 teaspoon of ground cumin powder
* 2 lbs. ground round, brown and drain
* 2 teaspoons salt
* 2 cans of kidney beans, drain
* 2 cans (14.5 ounces each) whole tomatoes - drain and chop
* 4 tablespoons chili powder (I use six but only when I am the only one eating it.
Prep:
* Brown and drain the ground round in the skillet.
* Combine all ingredients in slow cooker and mix thoroughly.
* Put on low and cook for eight to ten hours.
* Stir occasionally (this is optional, varying results have occurred).
Enjoy!
Jerry Roberts
Birmingham, Alabama
This is a bit simplistic but here's my chicken soup recipe:
Ingredients:
32 oz. Carton Chicken Broth
1 cup of baby carrots
1 small can Chicken Breast Chunks
1 small onion chopped
1 stalk of chopped celery
Prep:
Put all into rice cooker
Simmer 15 to 20 minutes until the pasta is nice and tender
Ebert: No garlic?
D'OH! I left out the chopped garlic. Sorry, I was typing from memory.
Yes, one clove of chopped garlic.
I also left out the pasta, I usually just use regular pasta noodles, nothing fancy.
I didn't think to post this here, so I just cut and pasted from my last entry.
Tomatillo sauce, aka Salsa Verde
I've never been very precise with this.
Makes a lot - good for two or three pans of rolled enchiladas, with some left over for dipping.
Ingredients:
2-4 lbs tomatillos, with outer paper removed, and rinsed. Can be kept whole.
one large white or yellow onion, quartered.
1-3 serrano peppers, depending upon how spicy you like it. Some like it hot. I prefer classical music. I usually use two.
handful of fresh cilantro, finely chopped.
6 Oz. plain yogurt or sour cream.
water.
salt and pepper to taste.
Hardware:
A rice cooker.
A blender or food processor.
A colander or slotted spoon. The type for pasta, with the teeth, works best for this purpose.
Usually, I just toss the tomatillos, onion, and serranos in a pot with the water and bring them to a boil. When the tomatillos turn a shade of pea-soup green, they're done. It'll just take a bit of extra vigilance to get it right.
When the tomatillos are cooked, strain the contents of the pot, or scoop them out with a slotted spoon, and put the contents in the blender or food processor, with the cilantro and yogurt. If you don't want as much spice, remove one or all of the serrano peppers. Blend until smooth.
I usually make this sauce for enchiladas, like my mother always did when I was a kid. It's a nice change from all of the red chile sauces that most everyone else uses for theirs. Next time I make a batch, I'll tape it and post it on youtube for all the world to see. Until then, I hope that this works.
Of course, this now gets me thinking about food movies. My favorite is "Big Night," with Stanley Tucci and Tony Shalhoub. The entire movie is delicious; I watched it in film school, and my desk was practically soaked from my drool. I immediately went to the grocery store and spent a couple of hours making an Italian dinner for my roommates after that. Plus, the final scene is one of the finest I've ever seen. If a book or a movie has a title related to food, I'll pick it up, no matter the subject. Most interesting discovery: on a friend's recommendation, "The Cook, The Thief, His Wife, and Her Lover." "Try the cock; it's a delicacy." Helen Mirren is amazing. Do you have a food movie that gets your juices flowing?
Just doing some backlog reading.
"Ian Fleming's James Bond, 007 in:
"ThunderPot'"
or
"From Russia, With Pot"
"Dr. Pot"
"On Her Majesty's Pot Service"
"Rice Cookers are Forever"
"You Only Pot Twice...A Day"
"Live and Let Pot"
"PotRaker"
"For Your Pots Only"
"The Man With the Golden Pot"
"The Potting Daylights"
"Pot Say Pot Again"
"The Pot is Not Enough"
"Casino Pot" or "Pot Royale"
Getting away from Bond, now...
"The Day the Pot Stood Still"
"Pot of the Damned--How I Exorcised the Rice Cooker Demon"
"I Knew Rice Cooker, I Worked With Rice Cooker, Rice Cooker Was a Friend of Mine. You, Sir, Are No Rice Cooker."
"Soylent Pots are Made of Cookers! It's COOKERS!!!"
"The Dark Pot"
"Pot Begins"
All of these titles remind me of an episode of "The Simpson's," wherein the family is preparing to host a party. They decide to do their shopping in the local mall, at a cookware shop called "Stoner's Pot Palace." As they walk into the store, Otto, the perpetually confused school bus driver, walks out shaking his head, muttering, "Man, that is FLAGRANT false advertising!"
Excerpt:
"It was the best of pots, it was the worst of pots, it was the pot of wisdom, it was the pot of foolishness, it was the pot of belief, it was the pot of incredulity, it was the pot of Light, it was the pot of Darkness, it was the cooker of hope, it was the cooker of despair, we had everything before us, we had nothing before us, we were all going direct to rice heaven, we were all going direct the other way - in short, the cooking period was so far like the present period, that some of its noisiest authorities insisted on its being received, for good or for evil, in the superlative degree of kitchen comparison only.
Yes, Like Dickens before me, I had discovered the age-old misery of choosing the perfect rice cooker."
Or not...
A little something for those interested in preparing "Le Feast Holiday!" http://www.hulu.com/watch/3523/saturday-night-live-the-french-chef
Oatmeal in a Pot
1-1/3 Non-quick oats
3/4 Cup of water
2 cups of Apple Juice
1/2 cup of raisins (or the fruit of your choice)
Add all ingredients. Cover and cook about 15-20 minutes (unless cooker shuts off first). Stir only once during the cooking process to prevent sticking. Cover and let stand for 5 minutes. Serves 4.
I have been told that you have to spray the cooker first, but I haven’t used it and it has turned out fine.
Dear Mr. Ebert,
Our rice cooker is the most used appliance in our kitchen. Here is my favorite recipe. It's easy, tasty and very good for you.
Make a pot of rice. I prefer Basmati. Place a layer of raw spinach and arugula at the bottom of your rice bowl. Pile on the rice. The heat from the rice will wilt the greens to perfection. Top with a sprinkle of toasted sesame oil and soy sauce. You can also add Albacore tuna and walnuts. Then get cozy on the couch and dig in. This is my favorite comfort food. I call it "Cozy Rice Salad". There is no better kitchen invention then the Rice Cooker. The next best appliance is the Bread Machine. Got one at a thrift store for $5! It's saved us a small fortune. But that's another book for another time.
Thanks Mr. Ebert!
Rice Cooker Rule #42: "Cooking with beer in the rice cooker sounds like a great idea, or an awful one. You'll try it."
You made this sound easy! I've used it twice since I bought it, once it hardened, the next time it was boiling so much i couldn't let it keep on going, and was forced to eat wet and mushy rice. What am I doing wrong?!
Ebert: First time, not enough water. Second time, too much.
You said we could cook minotaur. Where do you get Minotaur meat? Do you buy it in crete? Or wild boar? Do we have to go hunting? Or am I just being too gullible?
I want you to know how much I'm enjoying the rice cooker you recommended. It isn't fussy and it makes perfect rice every time here at 4700 feet above sea level. I've recently discovered Basmati (sp?) rice, and really like it long then texture. My husband and I have rediscovered the joys of eating rice, after thirty some years at this altitude, and we have you to thank! How's the cookbook coming? I don't have any recipe's to contribute, but I can tell you that following the instructions that came with the cooker gives me perfectly cooked dried beans and whole grain rice. My husband tells me just about every weekend how glad he is that we bought the cooker. Just thought you'd like to know.
Ebert: Final warning:
Readers, this is your three-day warning to get those recipes in for the cookbook inspired by my entry "The Pot and How to Use It."
Here is your chance at gourmet immortality. Include your name and where you are. Just a first name or handle if you insist.
They can be amateur, seat-of-the-pants recipes. We will polish them up. You can just list the stuff that goes in and let me figure out how gto concert for the Pot.
I especially would like to hear from the many readers in India, South Korea, China, Japan, Chile, Argentina, Turkey, Germany, the UK, Ireland and Sweden. Also from Marie Haws.
http://blogs.suntimes.com/ebert/2008/11/the_pot_and_how_to_use_it.html
Roger
Is the cookbook going to take the form of a blog post, or will it transform into a real, tactile thing?
Ebert: A real actual book.
I tried this one over the weekend:
Seafood Jumbalaya
1lb. of peeled and deveined shrimp
1 cup of white rice (use the rice cooker measuring cup)
1 stick of softened butter
4 oz. sliced mushrooms
8 oz. crab meat (it tastes better with is real not imitation)
8 oz. beef broth
1 medium onion - chopped
1 medium bell pepper - chopped
Put all raw ingredients into rice cooker then turn it on.
Cooks approximately 30 minutes.
Some add drained oysters to the mixture, but I'm not a fan of oysters.
Rice cooker chicken spaghetti
Ingredients:
2 cups of spaghetti noodles
2 cups of pasta sauce
1 cup of chopped mushrooms
1 cup of chopped grilled chicken
1 half a cup of shredded cheese
salt
Instructions:
* Snap spaghetti in half so it will fit into the cooker and cover with water
* add just a dash of salt
* Start cooking until pasta softens
* Drain the pasta
* Add Chicken, sauce and mushrooms
* cook five minutes
* add cheese
* Enjoy!
I have one question: will it cook grits?
Not those terrible imposters, the so-called "Instant Grits" or even the dreaded "Quick Grits," but honest-to-God, stone-ground, tender, yummy, real grits?
Because that would be awesome.
Ebert: No problem. Adapted to rom http://startcooking.com/blog/360/How-to-Make-Grits:
1/2 cup of real stone-ground grits.
2.5 cups water, maybe a splash more.
One T butter and dash of salt.
When grits have boiled 60 seconds, switch to "hold" and leave along for 45 minute.
If grits are too firm, they needed a little more water or a little more boiling or both. Experiment.
Now, for this advice you owe me a recipe for grits and something. Black-eyed peas, shrimp, anything.
OH! You meant a "crock" pot or slow cooker! (Laughing!) I thought you were looking for recipes using pot - and for medicinal purposes!
Gee, I'm not sure if I have a crock pot recipe - unless you count mushroom risotto?
And no, not magic mushrooms! Chuckle! That would actually be totally gross, as they're disgusting and taste like dirt (so I've heard.)
I need to get the recipe though, as my friend Cheryl actually made it. But once I've got it, I'll share it in here, as it was super creamy and yummy!
Ebert: Gotta have it.
Hello Roger, I just noticed that I have to give my buddy Marie my mushroom risotto recipe so she can post it here. In the meanwhile, I'm going to tell you and your hundreds of friends here how to grill the best damn CHEAP steak you ever had.
First of all, buy flank steak, it is inexpensive but flavourful.
Slice a nice big fat Red Onion into 1/2 inch slices and run a skewer or two through the slices. The skewer may seem fiddlely, but it makes turning the onion slices much easier.
Take a big handful of asparagus (asparagi?), snap off the woody ends, and throw into a flat dish with olive oil, balsamic vinegar, soy sauce, a spoonful of brown sugar and some red pepper flakes.
Get your flank steak out of the fridge, salt and pepper it (I like Hy's seasoning salt) and let it come to room temp, at least an hour, an hour and half to two is even better.
While the steak is getting to room temp and you're prepping the vegetables, start heating your barbeque. Now you want it hot, I mean really, really, hot; hotter than Johnny Depp, hotter than the hell that the makers of the Transformers movies deserve to roast in. Really fire that sucker up.
Now throw everything on the the barbie, the steak, the asparagus, and the onions. Give your steak about five minutes on one side, flip it and give it two to three minutes on the other. Your steak should be rare, at the very most medium rare. At the same time the steak is cooking roll the asparagus around on the grill and flip the onions. You will be glad that you ran the skewers through the onions when you flip them. After the seven to eight minutes that it takes to cook the flank steak, remove it from the barbeque and place on a platter. Now this is a very crucial part; let the steak rest for ten minutes. Do not poke it, do not cut it, do not shake it, do not tease it. Just leave it alone, to meditate for ten minutes. Do not even talk to the steak, let it rest! Now while the steak is resting, you can start pulling the skewers out of the onions, separating the rings and placing on your serving dish. Your asparagus can go on another serving dish with the marinade (the marinade was only on your asparagus not the meat so it is safe). Now have you waited ten minutes? If you have you can start cutting the steak, on the bias, against the grain of the steak in 1/4 slices. The grain or fibres on a flank steak will be very obvious and you will be cutting your slices opposite to the fibres. Take your thin slices of steak and place on top of your grilled onions rings. I make a sauce of a couple of generous handfuls of parsley, 4 or five cloves of garlic, 1/2 cup of extra virgin olive oil, and 1/4 cup of red wine vinegar. Buzz in a food processor. If you don't have a food processor, then start chop, chop, chopping the parsley and garlic and just mix the oil and vinegar in. You also could use the mortar and pestle. A spoonful of this with your flank steak slices is very good. Serve with baby new potatoes or rice made in the pot and a big friendly red wine. Your one cheap steak should feed four people.
Ebert: Doesn't sound like it would work too well in the Pot, but otherwise delicious.
Gah! Got beaten with a jambalaya recipe! Uh, here's mine...
Ingredients:
1 cup of rice.
4 oz. chicken.
8 oz chicken broth.
1 can of Rotel tomatoes.
1 medium bell pepper, chopped.
1 medium onion, chopped.
1/2 stick of butter.
2 tsp. cajun seasoning.
1 tsp. Worcestershire sauce.
1 tsp. hot sauce.
1/2 tsp. salt.
Directions:
While I guess you could saute the vegitables or whatever, man up and throw everything in the pot, mix it together, and start cooking it. If necessary, use water to cover the mixture. You can add sasuage, but I'm a college student working in a small dorm room, and Smokey Links don't sound like something I'd put in jambalaya.
When the rice cooker clicks over, you're swell.
Oh, and as far as rice cookers go, mine fails to have a warm setting!
This is the one my aunt bought me for Christmas: http://www.amazon.com/Toastmaster-3-Cup-Rice-Cooker-TRC3/dp/B001LGGF1K/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=home-garden&qid=1246542602&sr=8-1
Should I upgrade?
Ebert: Not if it does the job for you. Does it stop cooking and shut off? Still stays warm for a period, I suppose.
Chicken and Vegetables, adapted from memory of my Scout Master Dominick Caridi's recipe (so what I use now at home).
Rice (cover the bottom of The Pot about a half inch).
Boneless Chicken Thighs, skinned (I usually have room for 2 or 3).
Black Olives, pitted, to taste (the nice ones if you can).
Pearl Onions (to taste).
1 small jar Marinated Artichoke Hearts (use the liquid too).
1 small jar Roasted red peppers, sliced if you like.
1 small jar Capers.
1 can stewed tomatoes, drained.
1 small can marinated mushrooms (use the liquid too).
Vegetable stock, enough to submerge everything (can be cut with water).
A few bay leaves.
Optional: Red Pepper Flakes, to taste (to spice it up if you like that).
Cook time: Till it's done.
Note: feel free to substitute fresh vegetables in for canned/jarred if you like. Be sure to add Italian dressing (or similar) to add flavor if marinated artichokes/mushrooms are not used. Just be sure to season it somehow.
Wild Mushroom Risotto
Ingredients:
2 tsp butter
1 cup of diced onions
1 tsp minced garlic
1/4 cup of fresh Sage, chopped
2 cups of wild mushrooms (I use Chantrelles for their taste and color)
2 cups of Italian arborio rice (it's widely available)
1/2 cup of white wine (Chardonnay works best)
4 cups of chicken stock
1 cup of heavy cream
1/4 to 1/2 cup of Parmesan cheese, grated. NOTE: buy a chunk of Parmesan. Do not use pre-grated unless you have to.
Salt and pepper
Directions:
Low temp. Using a wooden spoon to stir, melt butter and sweat the onions, garlic and sage until almost clear; do not burn. Add the mushrooms and saute until lightly colored (ie: usually takes about 4 minutes, they'll get a little brown.) Add the arborio rice, and once the grains look slightly transparent, season with salt and pepper, to taste.
Now add the white wine and stir (ie: this is called deglazing.) Next, add enough chicken stock to cover the rice with 1/2 inch of liquid and let simmer; stir frequently, and when the rice has absorbed most of the liquid - add more chicken stock. Repeat process when more liquid is needed.
NOTE: the secret to a great risotto is patience. And it can only truly be made with love. For it can take 45 minutes to make this and you can't walk away from it or rush it. In that sense, it's actually not a "slow cooker" recipe - rather, you can simply use one to make it! So schedule this with doing your laundry or waiting for a download to finish; basically, whenever you need to kill 45 minutes. But it'll be worth it; trust me. :)
When the rice is 90% cooked (it's still got a little bite to it or al dente) add the heavy cream and Parmesan cheese and continue cooking until the rice is creamy and thick enough to make a slight "mound" on a plate. Ie: not too loose, not too thick.
The reason it takes 45 minutes to make this dish, it that you're essentially releasing the starches inside the arborio rice, while allowing it to absorb all the flavors and become "one with pot" so to speak. The rice will have absorbed the very soul of your ingredients and if made correctly, you WILL see God. :)
Mr. Ebert,
I bought a rice cooker solely because of this article and have used it often since. I never imagined that when I started reading your movie reviews that one day you would also positively influence my culinary choices. I look forward to the book!
(I would submit a recipe but so far have not come up with anything on my own that is very interesting beyond the basic grains/meat/veggies. I've been meaning to try a soup or stew...)
Here you go, Roger!
The best shrimp & grits recipe comes from the late, great Bill Neal of Crook's Corner in Chapel Hill, NC. They also sell their own grits: http://www.crookscorner.com/
The recipe: http://www.dukemagazine.duke.edu/dukemag/issues/030405/south-specialty1.html
"Shrimp and Grits
Serves four
Cheese grits (recipe below)
1 pound fresh shrimp
6 slices bacon
Peanut oil
2 cups sliced white button mushrooms
1 cup minced scallions
1 large clove garlic, peeled and minced
4 teaspoons lemon juice
Tabasco sauce
Salt and pepper
2 tablespoons chopped fresh parsley
Prepare grits and hold in a warm place or in a double boiler
Peel shrimp, rinse, and pat dry
Dice bacon and sautè lightly in a skillet until edges of the bacon are brown, but the bacon is not crisp. Remove from heat, drain on paper towels, then crumble.
Add enough peanut oil top the pan to make a layer of fat about 1/8 inch thick. When oil is quite hot, add shrimp in an even layer. Turn shrimp as they color; add mushrooms, and sautè, stirring, for about 4 minutes.
Add scallions and garlic. Heat and stir for about a minute more. Season with lemon juice, a dash or two of Tabasco, salt and pepper to taste, and parsley.
Divide the grits among four plates. Spoon the shrimp on top, sprinkle with crumbled bacon, and serve immediately.
Cheese Grits
1 cup stone-ground or quick grits
(not instant)
4 cups water (or milk, for creamier grits)
1 cup grated cheddar cheese
1/4 cup grated Parmesan cheese
4 tablespoons butter
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/8 teaspoon pepper
Pinch of cayenne pepper
1/4 teaspoon Tabasco sauce
Cook grits according to package instructions for 1 cup of dry grits. Turn off heat and add remaining ingredients to sauce pan. Stir until just mixed and serve."
I find that I don't need peanut/vegetable oil; the bacon makes enough grease to cook the mushrooms, scallions and shrimp. The recipe (as printed on my package of Crook's grits) also calls for a pinch of nutmeg with the pinches of cayenne and white pepper.
And beware any version that requires chicken broth--if your shrimp are fresh, chicken broth is an abomination!
No idea how to do that in a pot, but you could possibly make life easier by cooking the grits in a crockpot/pot while doing something else--cutting down on labor, essentially :)
Ebert: You surely could. Anson Mills advises for their Carolina Gold Rice Grits :
Time: 20 minutes on the stovetop or in an electric rice cooker
More plump and round than the term "grits" suggests, rice grits cook beautifully in an electric rice cooker, finishing like a million little beads with a magnetic attraction to each other. They are made to be sauced. Freshly cooked and plain, rice grits become profoundly comforting with a ladle or two of Sea Island red pea gravy thrown over them. Cooled slightly, sautéed with aromatics, and served with chicken and gravy, they approach a transforming experience.
Hey Roger--
What was your opinion of the Chicago fois gras ban a few years back?
I'm just curious because I've recently been viewing YouTube videos of farms and slaughterhouses (interest not caused by the release of Food, Inc., although the timing certainly coincided). Although I've been disgusted by what I've seen--particularly in the poultry business--I am optimistic that retooling certain processes could, yes, raise the price of meat, but also result in actually treating these animals with due respect.
The production of fois gras, on the other hand, I believe is inherently cruel and unnatural, no matter how "pleasant" the farms are, as Anthony Bourdain (whose opinion I respect but frequently disagree with) would have us believe and focus on.
Any thoughts?
I tend to be moderate and cautious with most issues but I confess to a bleeding heart when it comes to animal rights...although I'm a hypocrite on the matter, since I still buy my meat from large grocery stores. Ideally, the only fair meat to eat is wild game--at least they lived a real life and had a fighting chance before the end.
Ebert: This is a funny, fascinating book about foie gras and the nature of humans and geese, written by a friend of mine at the Tribune:
http://www.amazon.com/Foie-Gras-Wars-000-Year-Old-Delicacy/dp/1416556680/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1246916531&sr=1-1
It cooks and then shuts off. It retains heat for as long as metal usually does, but by that time I've already eaten some of whatever I've made and have the rest packed away in the fridge for later.
The Mark Caro book on Foie Gras was very interesting. It taught me a lot about the process, more than humanized the farmers, and makes me want to retract my original "bleeding heart" comment because, should I tolerate that from myself, I may end up like some of those ridiculously uninformed protesters that are described in the anecdotes. Thanks for taking the time to recommend it.
PS. When you ask a rhetorical question and then answer yourself with "Well, sir..." (a la the review for the guinea pig spy nonsense), it always cracks me up because one of my smartass friends talks like that. I don't think you care, but it cleanses my spirit to mention it.
Take care.
Why oh why did I just now find this? You mean I could have saved us from high-fat/high price takeout while we were moving if only I hadn't packed the rice cooker? We got ours for 2000 tickets at Dave and Busters two years ago, and it's still going strong. I've just never thought to cook anything besides rice in it. Heck with unpacking the pots and pans- the rice cooker's next!
As I understand it, a rice cooker monitors temperature. Once the water boils off, and the temperature begins to rise above 212 F, it switches to Warm.
Ebert: Aw...you gave away the secret!
Hey, can't wait for the book to come out, as I love my rice cooker, but have never gotten around to trying anything "adventurous" on it yet. Not sure if this is at all helpful, but it's my basic rice recipe that satisfies my craving for something slightly salty, but which is better for you than, say, pizza or a cheeseburger.
1. Make white rice, but use less water than normal and instead add some soy sauce, and a squirt of that spicy red chili sauce in the bottle with the green lid and the Chinese characters on it. [Optionally, you could just make the rice normally, and add the sauces later]
2. At some point while it's cooking, add a drained can of tuna (or don't drain it, whatever).
3. When it's done, sprinkle sesame seeds on top.
4. Eat it. I usually have a salad with no dressing and piece of fruit on the side. Enjoy!
Darn. I almost got one at Walmart today for thirteen bucks or so, because when I saw it (we were looking for a waffle maker, actually), I told my wife that there was this article on your blog about The Pot, but I hadn't read it yet. She told me "So, get it" and I said, "You know, let me read that article first and then we'll come back and get it".
To tell you the truth, I was expecting to find recipes... but, ¿textured soy protein? ... I guess I'll wait for the book.
(Oh, but I'm getting The Pot, nevertheless. I just love making perfect rice.)
Roger,
This reads like a beat poem, alternate title could be "The Howl of Rice"... I bought the zietgehsta 3 pot version, replaced my coffee maker with it I did... Think you hooked a big fish with this one, hope to see a full book, you're going to pull up the stuff of dreams. Not kidding.
Thanks,
Mark
Glad to see someone who actually uses the rice cooker for other things aside from just rice. I've never really gotten around to experimenting with it yet, aside from trying my hand at making congee. As a college student, however, being able to toss a frozen fish and adding an egg and soy sauce have proven to be quite handy with rice, among other delicious alternatives.
Zojirushi's fancy rice cookers are actually quite spectacular. My mom has only just upgraded our rice cooker from the previous one (ten years strong from almost DAILY use). I've seen wondrous things concocted. I have to ask my mom, but one of the things she makes quite well is steamed fried rice. I have to ask her for the exact recipe, but it involves chopped duck and liver sausage, shiitake mushrooms, bok choi, and some type of sauce. To be continued...
Ebert: Got to have that recipe!
When my Mom married my Dad, he apparently missed his mother's (my Bubbie Zelda's) home cooked tongue. Wanting to please him, my Mom sought the recipe from the source. Finally Bubbie Zelda surrendered it, and I share it, in its entirety, with you below:
"Put it in the pot with the ingredients and cook it 'til it's done."
I know it's past your cookbook deadline but I bet this would work with a rice cooker too. You're welcome.
P.S. I'm a vegetarian so I've never tried it.
Ebert: I like my tongue with a little English mustard, just like my narwhal.