I realise this is probably the least relevant comment this essay is going to get... but you can make good rice in the microwave - the only advantage a rice cooker has is that it will keep your rice warm for hours.
Get a deep microwave-safe covered dish (your grandmother probably has some old corningware lying around, also easy to find in garage sales), put 2 cups of water for every cup of rice (but don't fill more than half the dish), a bit of salt, a bit of olive oil, cover and microwave. Some microwaves have a rice setting, otherwise microwave on high for about 10 minutes and then let stand for at least 10 minutes.
If you are making white rice, it will turn out nicer if you rinse it before you start (that washes away the starch); a trick for doing this is using a sieve and a bowl. In some cultures it is traditional to rinse the rice 7 times - I find 6 is less symbolic but equally adequate.
...and be careful that the cover isn't on too tightly. We all know that water expands explosively when it boils, but every year some people get severely injured by microwaving water inside sealed containers...
Are you thinking of the superheating effect? Reasonably pure water in a smooth cup doesn't boil in a microwave. It becomes superheated, and then when moved nucleation sites form causing some of it to flash evaporate into steam and blow up out of the cup, taking lots of very hot water with it. This burns some people making tea or instant coffee.
This almost certainly would never happen in this case as the rice would provide ample nucleation sites.
No, I'm not talking about superheating -- I'm talking about boiling in a sealed container. People do this deliberately with pressure cookers, where the pressure typically reaches double atmospheric pressure; but it can happen to a lower yet still dangerous pressure by accident.
Someone please tell me how a microwave or rice cooker are better than just using a normal old covered pot with a clear lid. I seem to be able to make decent rice if I just very closely follow the correct rice/water/heat/time ratios.
I figure the microwave is faster, but I don't think the rice cooker would be. I guess if you constantly eat rice, not having to pay attention is a plus?
If you cook rice more than once per week, and you're doing it with a pot, you're a masochist. A rice cooker makes the process dramatically less error prone, and the resulting rice is better: fluffier, more consistently cooked, etc. A girlfriend bought me a fuzzy logic rice cooker (about $150, I think) a few years back. Best kitchen device ever. It cooks brown rice, oatmeal, etc. in addition to white rice, and it gets it right every single time. The pan also has measurement marks inside so I don't even have to measure the water.
The big problem with a pot is that you'll often get the temperature wrong, and end up baking the lower layer of rice onto the pot bottom, or not quite cooking it fast enough and end up with mushy rice. I only get great rice from a pot about 75% of the time. It's 100% of the time with a rice cooker.
So, yes, not having to pay attention to the rice while I work on other parts of the meal is a huge bonus. If you only need white rice, you can get a basic rice cooker that will work very well for about $25 (I've heard brown rice is possible with the lower priced devices by giving it a bit more water, and leaving it to "warm" for a few extra minutes, but I've never tried it).
A girlfriend bought me a fuzzy logic rice cooker (about $150, I think) a few years back. Best kitchen device ever.
Single-use kitchen products are silly, not to mention space-inefficient. Even if it makes oatmeal and rice, that's basically just a bunch of starch. Might as well just eat Ramen.
One can find a nice set of sturdy department-store quality cookware (with lids!) at a discount retailer (like Ross or Marshalls). They'll go much further in ensuring consumption of the variety of nutritional foods. Basics one can get for about $60 for all three: a boiling water pot for the stuff to be cooked in bulk, a saucepan (cause bland rice is boring) and wok-shaped skillet. They fit neatly inside each other space-wise, as well.
My secret to rice cooking: add a wee bit of vegetable or other oil (I also like to add a bit of cayenne pepper to the oil sometimes) in the skillet, and let it warm, but not over super hot temp. Then add the rice, and kind of "sautee" it for a little while, but keep the rice moving to make sure it doesn't burn. You really just need coat it a little little bit, to prevent it from going mushy and therefore cannot coat the bottom of the pan with the black mush that happens when the rice is added to the water. After adding the water and bringing it up to a boil, you can turn it down to the lowest temp on your stove, cover it, and let it cook for the rest of the time on the package.
I guess the one prevailing great thing about the fancier rice cookers it that they beep when they're done. So I guess if you use my method, don't forget to set a timer.
Single-use kitchen products are silly, not to mention space-inefficient.
I agree, which is why I called it out as one of the few instances where it is worthwhile. And speaking of pots and pans, Cuisinart makes a great set of pots and pans, covering everything you need, that sells for $149 from Amazon. That, and a good knife, and a few other bits and pieces, are most of what you need to have a nice cooking kitchen for dinner for a group of up to about four (and the two small ones are good for single and double meals).
To put things into perspective, I don't even own a microwave. But, I consider a rice cooker absolutely mandatory if you eat rice regularly. If you don't eat rice regularly, then obviously a rice cooker is not a useful expenditure or use of space. I consider it a good investment of both, because my most common meals are various kinds of Chinese, Indian, and Mediterranean foods that include rice as a base.
Even if it makes oatmeal and rice, that's basically just a bunch of starch. Might as well just eat Ramen.
I'm not a believer in the Atkins anti-carbs crusade, nor do I accept that all grains are created equal. Oatmeal and brown rice are both quite reasonable "slow" carbs, when combined with proteins and vegetables. Ramen is not a slow carb by any stretch of the imagination, and is actually "just a bunch of starch" (it also has way too much sodium, if prepared as directed).
Single-use kitchen products are silly, not to mention space-inefficient. Even if it makes oatmeal and rice, that's basically just a bunch of starch. Might as well just eat Ramen.
Rice cookers are also great for steaming vegetables. Growing up, the rice cooker was our most commonly used cooking appliance, even when we didn't have rice.
As I mentioned, there are several rice cookers around $25 (my first rice cooker was about $15 at K-Mart). They work very well. I don't know how poor folks the world over cook rice, as I've never had occasion to be really poor (I grew up "poor" by US standards, at least until my teenage years, but not by world standards of poverty). But, I'm not speaking to the world's poor. I strongly suspect that no one reading my post is too poor to afford a $25 rice cooker in order to be able to make cheap meals quickly.
I'm a good cook, but can get distracted when I'm working on something. I have burned up more pots than I like to think about. Now I only cook on a stove top when I'm actually going to be in the kitchen. Microwaves and slow cookers are the greatest inventions ever for someone who lives alone and actually tries to get other things done. Also, cooking a couple of pounds at a time of dry beans in a slow cooker is even cheaper than buying beans in big cans, and many supermarkets have a better selection of dry than canned beans.
Also regarding the recipe: I quibble with the suggestion not to drain the beans. Canned beans tend to be accompanied by a funky smelling bean sludge, IME; if, like me, you find that unappealing, rinse the beans in a colander.
"I quibble with the suggestion not to drain the beans"
I was a bit taken aback by that too, I always rinse heavily for the reason you mention, but I wasn't sure what the rationale for not rinsing is. I prefer frozen beans anyway - cheaper when you buy in bulk, and saves having to look for the can opener :-)
I don't rinse the beans from the can; the "bean sludge" you refer to is what makes the juice thick and hearty. Also, in beans (as in rice and other plants) a lot of the trace vitamins and etc are in the hull, and if you are on a rice and beans diet you don't want to be avoiding that.
The introduction of polished rice into asian countries caused a rise in a disease called beriberi among poor people:
Washing removes sodium. It's good for health but not taste. But canning soaks them longer, which is better for digestion. I doubt startups want to spend the time to soak manually. There's a tradeoff.
Can sludge is nasty. And other bad stuff probably seeps into canned food. The FDA says canning is fine but I doubt it's totally healthful. But who wants to spend the time?
Who wants to spend the time preparing quality food when you could be rushing back to work to build a company to earn enough money that you can break out of the ordinary working life and spend time really enjoying your life.
I guess what I'm pointing out is that you could skip all the work and enjoy your life right now by spending some time preparing some great food.
FYI there's some concern regarding microwaves heating food so quickly that they destroy much more of the nutritional value compared to conventional cooking.
Lower end microwaves are especially bad -- when you set them to half power (or defrost, etc), they modulate between full power and no power, rather than actually using less power.
What interesting timing as just this morning I was listening to a little news bit on NPR where they talked about research into the nutritional impact of various cooking methods (and of _not_ cooking food a la raw food enthusiasts.) The research has shown that you must cook your food to get the full nutritional value of beta carotenoids, lycopenes and a couple of other important nutrients. The cooking method which preserves all nutrients best is the microwave. It is equivalent to or better than other cooking methods for every nutrient they tested does not have any impact on the water-soluable nutrients.
Speed has nothing to do with it. Cooking destroys some heat sensitive vitamins, but the method is neither here nor there, and anyway you are not going to eat raw rice as an alternative.
I don't think it matters here because rice doesn't really have 'nutritional value'. :p
I mean, the claim isn't about the speed of microwave cooking, but the method. When you heat something normally, heat hits the outside surface by radiation and convection of the surrounding gas, and the heat is conducted deeper into the item at a fairly slow rate.
When you microwave an item, microwaves travel straight through it from outside to inside, and as they do so they cause resonance in water molecules, which are taken from room temp to boiling or even superheated in moments when the surrounding matter is still cold and hasn't enough time to expand. This (is claimed) to be much more violent heating and consequently much more damaging than ordinary cooking.
Also, cooking does more than destroy heat sensitive vitamins - otherwise there wouldn't be any point in doing it if that was all it did. It changes enzymes and proteins and chemical bonds and all sorts. Of course there are people claiming much of this is less than healthy - and no you aren't going to eat raw rice as an alternative, so why would you eat cooked rice? Why not eat something you can eat raw instead?
Get a deep microwave-safe covered dish (your grandmother probably has some old corningware lying around, also easy to find in garage sales), put 2 cups of water for every cup of rice (but don't fill more than half the dish), a bit of salt, a bit of olive oil, cover and microwave. Some microwaves have a rice setting, otherwise microwave on high for about 10 minutes and then let stand for at least 10 minutes.
If you are making white rice, it will turn out nicer if you rinse it before you start (that washes away the starch); a trick for doing this is using a sieve and a bowl. In some cultures it is traditional to rinse the rice 7 times - I find 6 is less symbolic but equally adequate.
I now return you to your normal programming.