My mother makes perfect rice in the microwave with this steamer lid

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Originally published at: https://boingboing.net/2019/08/09/my-mother-makes-perfect-rice-i.html

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Running a microwave for 20 minutes straight uses an obscene amount of electricity. And for less than $20, you can get a rice cooker if you don’t want to make rice on the stove.

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Pretty sure I make picture perfect rice on the stove using a pot with a lid in 17 minutes.

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is that because selling utter shit, like this lid, doesn’t make enough money to buy real food?

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It takes the exect same amount of time and effort to make perfect rice on the stove. Add rice, add water, bring to a boil, turn heat to low, cover and ignore for 20 minutes.

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I love my rice cooker, it wasn’t expensive but it’s some of the best money I have ever spent.

Add rice, water and it turns out perfect every time, there is a reason they are so popular in places that eat a lot of rice.

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Es gibt Reis, Baby!

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That was … … something.

I don’t know what, but it was something.

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The Chinese half of me is appalled.

Unless you find yourself in a place that simply has no stove, there’s really no reason not to use a pot and lid, and just measure 2:1 (white rice: water), bring to a boil, leave that lid on and turn the burner off. If you are cooking in a cold room, throw a few towels over the whole deal to keep the heat in. Rice, in about 12-15 minutes.

Brown rice takes longer. The process is a bit different.

If you find yourself in a place with no stove and you do have an electrical outlet, unlplug that microwave and plug in one of these.

You will not be sorry!

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I was greatly intrigued by the idea of steaming vegetables in my microwave once – and then I found out the excess steam was corroding the magnetron. I’ll stick with my reliable countertop appliance.

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Yep… and pre-frying up the rice with flavoring goodies in said pot just ups the game for stovetop cooking!

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My little rice cooker takes about 25 minutes, less if you start with luke warm water instead of filtered water from the fridge.
The problem with a microwave is they take like 1200W basically continuously, while a rice cooker might only peak out at 650W and a thermostat will cycle it on and off to keep the water at 100C or whatever.

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I used to cook rice with stackable steamer when I was a kid. Big bowl of rice, a bit of water over it and put it in a boiling steamer until done.

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I’m skeptical about using a microwave consuming more energy than a rice cooker or stove. Can you share data? Here’s what I’ve found so far:


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Please read OrangeTide’s comment. A microwave uses a lot of power, but since it cooks things so quickly, it isn’t too wasteful.

However, running it for 20 minutes straight just to cook rice is inefficient. At 1200 watts, it is using 20Wh per minute, so the 20 minutes at full power costs 400Wh. Smaller rice cookers (6 cups) average 350W, so even if they stayed on full power for the 30-35 minutes it takes them to cook rice(which they don’t), you are below 200Wh; this site measured one from Black and Decker as using 100Wh: https://www.kompulsa.com/how-much-power-are-your-appliances-consuming/
The microwave is using at least double the electricity, and likely up to 4x the electricity, depending on the model of rice cooker.

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I do rice in the instant-pot and it takes about 20 minutes. And probably uses way less electricity, since it’s well insulated and pressure-steams it at a higher temperature, there’s no thermal loss due to offgassing.

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Rice cookers are so flexible! I used one to reduce some juice into concentrate the other day, since it turns off automatically at about the right temperature (104C).

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People always say “rice cookers, duh!”, but I found that, at least with rice cookers from 20 years ago, they tended to burn the rice in the quantities I was cooking, around 1 cup.

I just cook white rice in a covered sauce pan at the start of cooking. 1:1.5 rice to water, bring to boil, reduce to low, set time for 8 minutes. Turn off heat. Cook rest of meal, fluff perfect rice and serve.

I don’t cook brown rice very often because I don’t like the taste, but it’s provides good chewy filler for certain recipes. For brown rice I just use the Instant Pot (and I keep the ratio + time on a sticky note by the fridge, so I haven’t memorized it).

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Thanks! This makes sense. Now to find a rice cooker.

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Wow–had not heard of this as [yet another] off-label use.

Good job!