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metaloha

Rice cookers. Totally ingenious.

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So what am I missing using a pot on the stove?

Not much; you just have to be a bit more careful to manage the heat and time appropriately.

Most used kitchen item by far in my house, almost used daily.

Not sure this counts as "simple".

My dad still uses the family (his dad's) rice cooker from the mid 1950s, so they aren't that complicated, they're basically a heater and thermal cutoff

PSA for anyone who doesn't: Wash your fucking rice

> Wash your fucking rice

Even better: use no-wash rice. It's easier for you, and better for the environment:

> [...] believe it or not, the cloudy water consumers pour off when washing their rice has been identified as a significant source of water pollution in Japan. In the B.G. method [used to make no-wash rice], the bran comes out dry, so instead of going out with the wash water and ending up in rivers and streams, it can be diverted into fertilizer and animal feed.

and:

> It’s considered enough of a problem that the Tokyo Metropolitan Government urges residents to water plants with their togijiru [cloudy rice water] rather than sending it down the sewer. And Shiga Prefecture, in an effort to protect Lake Biwa, has asked its citizens to switch to no-wash rice.

https://www.japantimes.co.jp/news/2009/04/16/reference/no-wa...

I've literally never seen no wash rice in my life (in the UK)

-> Wash your fucking rice

What? Sure, if you want to remove some of the starch, but what if you don't? I don't really know why you should if you don't want to, unless it was dirty, but rice today comes pretty clean of debris and bugs. Plus, it's going to be cooked, so no problem there.

It's not for safety: it's because starchy rice sticks together and makes clumpy bad-tasting rice, it's also much more easily seasoned in my experience if you wash it first.

Rice is full of arsenic. Washing it may help a little, but even better, use more water to cook it and then dump the water.

https://www.bbc.com/news/health-38910848

A basic rice cooker is a very simple device.

Then I'd like to submit the Bialetti (Mokka-)style coffee maker :)

Rice cooker = hipster Instant Pot.

Isn't that reversed? Instant Pot === hipster Rice Cooker

Well i'd say dossy is right. Because he's assigning "Rice cooker" to equal "hipster Instant Pot". Thus we know that they are the same value. You are only doing a test. We don't know for sure if your conditional returns true.

Rice cookers came out in the 1950s, instant pot was 2009

Sorry, yeah, I got them mixed up in my head when I was typing it out - I think you understood what I meant, thanks for correcting.

My comment got downvoted, but come on, the Instant Pot _is_ just the hipster version of the old rice cooker ... and the rice cooker is a really important but simple modern invention.

You can cook chicken in 23 minutes in a rice cooker?

I'm sure you could. Not sure why one would want to.

I don't know about 23 minutes, but: https://www.allrecipes.com/recipe/218739/rice-cooker-chicken...

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