The Ultimate Rice Cooker Read Online Free Page A

machine, its size, and how full it is. This is a place where you have to use your judgment.

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    RICE COOKER BASICS

    Here are a few tips and basic pieces of information that will help you get the most from your rice cooker.
    Our first bit of advice is to carefully review and read the manufacturer’s little booklet that came with your rice cooker. Brands do differ. Orient yourself to the parts of the machine and the list of safety precautions. Then review the manufacturer’s recipes for any that appeal to you. You can use the manufacturer’s recipes, a recipe designed for the rice cooker on a package of rice or one using our convenient rice charts, or recipes from this book.
    Measuring Up

    Measuring the rice correctly is of crucial importance to achieving success in your rice cooker. Please read this section carefully before making your first pot of rice.
    1. Don’t throw away the little plastic measuring cup that came with your rice cooker. That measuring cup is the standard unit of measurement for your machine. When the little booklet that came with your rice cooker says to put in 2 cups of rice and add water to the “2-cup” level on the bowl, that means you are supposed to measure the rice with that little cup , not with one of your regular measuring cups. This is very important. Throughout this book, we will refer to this unit of measurement as a “rice cooker cup.”
    We must say we were a bit surprised by these measuring cups. Even the ones that come with very expensive rice cookers are made from thin, translucent plastic and seem almost like an afterthought. Don’t be fooled. These measuring cups are essential. A rice cooker cup measures out to 180 milliliters (about 6 ounces or 3.4 of a U.S. cup) and a standard U.S. cup holds 240 milliliters, so there is a difference. Measuring with this special cup may seem awkward at first, but you will quickly get used to it.
    2. In this book, many of our recipes, especially the Asian-style ones and the measurement charts for plain rice, use the rice cooker cup form of measurement. Other recipes use standard U.S. cups. We always specify the difference. But even when we measure rice with the rice cooker cup, we measure liquids using the U.S. standard cups and ounces. Why? We’ve found it most convenient to keep our rice cooker cups clean, dry, and ready to use with rice and other grains. It’s also difficult to measure liquids (especially larger quantities) precisely with the little cups.
    3. Rice cooker directions are beginning to appear on the back of packages of rice, especially on brands that are marketed to Asian-American consumers. In all of the examples that we found, the directions were given in terms of rice cooker cups, even if the directions just said “cups”. This is frequently also the case for rice cooker recipes that you find on the Internet.
    4. In case you lose your special rice cooker measuring cup, or prefer otherwise, you can measure both your raw rice and water with a standard U.S. measuring cup with excellent results. This is the case with many of the more complex rice recipes in this book.
    5. If a friend shares a rice cooker recipe with you, it’s a good idea to ask, in the case of both solid and liquid ingredients, “Is this in rice cooker cups or regular U.S. cups?”
    Making That First Pot of Rice in Your Rice Cooker

    Your first look at the rice cooker can be a bit confusing, especially with the digital face on a fuzzy logic machine. But the procedure is exactly the same with all models: Choose a recipe, assemble your ingredients, measure and wash the rice, load the rice bowl, add the water, close the cover, plug it in, and press the button. Here are the details.
    1. Measure the desired amount of rice. Don’t mound the rice in the measuring cup—level it off with a sweep of your finger or a table knife. For reference, 1 pound of raw rice is equal to a bit more than 3