Panasonic Rice Cookers - Technology and Quality

Cooking rice can be amazingly tricky. I am half Japanese, although not raised in Japan, and my mother likes to judge the quality of a restaurant by checking if the rice they serve is tasty.

Normally, a person would cook rice on a stove. You can either do it the Japanese way (soak the rice in water, leave the pan boiling until all the water is gone, and leave the rice on the stove for a little bit longer to dry it up a bit more) or in a more Western way (fry onions and garlic on a sauce pan, fry the rice for a while, throw boiling water on the rice, and finish it off like above).

Rice

But the tricky Japanese have invented a third way. Actually, it automates the process from the manual way. You wash the rice, add water and press the Start button. Once the rice is done, your rice cooker automatically switches to warming mode, so the rice is never undercooked or burnt. Instead, it is always warm.

I don't know if you are aware or not, but the Panasonic rice cookers have been receiving good evaluations from satisfied customers. That's right: not only they make laptop computers, high definition televisions and digital cameras, but they also make home appliances such as rice cookers. In fact, I live in Japan and my refrigerator is also made by Panasonic.

You can find these cookers in several sizes. Typically, they come in sizes that I like to call "small", "proper" and "gigantic". My small 3-cup Panasonic cooker is good enough for individuals or couples, which is my case. I have received two guests once and I think I could feed up to five people who eat a lot of rice with this tiny rice cooker. It has all the basic functions, like I described above, plus it also comes with a vegetable basket to steam cook vegetables, fish and chicken.

The proper size is a rice cooker with a 5 or 5.5-cup capacity. By the way, these cups are Japanese rice cups, not an American cup. You will receive one of these cups with your cooker. A family of 4-5 people will be well served by one of these cookers. Plus, you will be able to cook other dishes too, such as a morning oatmeal (which can be programmed on the evening before) or brown rice, sushi rice and so on.

The gigantic cooker has the capacity to 10 cups of rice. That's enough rice for 20 people, in case you were wondering. I only recommend this size for people who entertain a lot and, most importantly, are already used to a rice cooker. The operation is the same throughout all cooker sizes, but a person should not spend so much money before actually knowing whether they will use a machine or not. I eat rice every day and my family has owned these cookers for the past 20 years, but all we prepare there is white rice, sushi rice and brown rice. My mother has made experiments to use a rice cooker to boil water (it's very fast), make pasta and even fry eggs. It all works, as long as you have imagination and respect the limits of the products. But do not buy the biggest cooker available just because, otherwise you run the risk of leaving it gathering dust on your garage.

I hope this article has shed some light on better ways you can cook rice, as well as on how you can use a rice cooker and other ways a rice cooker can help you.

Panasonic Rice Cookers - Technology and Quality

Max White lives in Japan and maintains BestRiceCooker.org, a site devoted to help foodies choose their rice cooker on Amazon. Feel free to visit his guide on Panasonic rice cookers as well.

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