Rice cooker jambalaya.

Feb 15, 2011

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The low-carb visitors will really be disappointed in me on this one.

Here's a new rice-cooker dinner I tried today. In general, when I say "rice-cooker dinner," I'm not always looking for meals where you throw everything in the pot and turn it on and that's it. I'm looking for meals that finish cooking in the rice cooker, and then stay warm in there indefinitely, so they are perfect for Monday night swimming lessons where we get home at 5:45 p.m. I don't mind doing some prep beforehand, as long as I can hit "COOK" right before I run out the door and have dinner ready when I get home.

If you're using white rice, apparently you can toss the raw rice and liquid and other stuff right into your rice cooker and have it all turn out okay. Brown rice, which is the only kind I buy, is a bit more finicky. I usually cook the brown rice first and then add other stuff and hit "COOK" a second time in order to have it done enough.

So, tonight I adapted a fakey-jambalaya recipe as follows:

Cooked a cup of brown rice in three cups of chicken stock with a little salt, in the rice cooker. (If you use white rice instead of brown, two cups of stock will do, and you probably don't have to pre-cook it)
Chopped up two green bell peppers and a medium onion.
Sauteed the green pepper and onion in 4 tablespoons butter till soft and a little brown.
Mixed in 2 teaspoons "cajun" seasoning (not the kind with salt added; from the bulk spices section of the grocery store).
Added this to the rice cooker, butter and all.
Also added to the rice cooker one can of blackeyed peas, drained, and one can of Ro-Tel brand tomatoes with green chilies, not drained.
Sliced up a 14-ounce ring-shaped smoked sausage. Browned that in another 2 tablespoons butter. Dumped that into the rice cooker too.
Deglazed the pan with another cup of stock and added that to the rice cooker. Mixed it all up.
Closed it and hit "COOK" for the second time. Left for the Y.
Came back and made a fruit salad to go with. Also some okra.

Very well received by 4/6 of my family. The rest had peanut butter sandwiches.

Comments

5 responses to “Rice cooker jambalaya.”

Christy Porucznik

February 15, 2011

I appreciate that L counts in the denominator for rating foods. In our house the toddler is far less picky than the preschooler.

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Kelly

February 16, 2011

What kind of rice cooker do you have? You obviously get a lot of use out of yours. I tried out three different ones a few years back and never found one that worked well.

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bearing

February 16, 2011

Mine is a 10-cup Tiger brand rice cooker that I bought in an Asian grocery store. It’s the most common kind you’ll see keeping the white rice hot at a Chinese buffet restaurant. White, plastic outer finish, with pink flowers on the side. Mine is not fuzzy logic, just on-off. But it is very sturdy. The insert is nonstick and comes out for dishwashing.
They are not often found for under $100. But totally worth it IMO. Mine might not be the best model for cooking stuff other than rice, though — when I bought it, that was all I was looking for is to cook rice. I mean, it seems to work fine to cook all kinds of things, but at the time I bought it, I didn’t research around to find the best rice cooker for cooking whole meals.

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Robin

February 17, 2011

Can you use a slow cooker (crockpot) in the same way? How does the rice cooker work differently? I ask because I have an oval crockpot and it just cooks things….wrong.

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bearing

February 17, 2011

The rice cooker is faster and hotter, but requires much more liquid. As far as I can tell, it’s basically a steamer, and it “decides” when the food is done by the temperature rise that happens when most of the water has absorbed or been boiled off. (It lets the steam out the top — so you need more liquid than in a crockpot, because the crockpot keeps almost all the liquid inside it).
For example, cooking grains in a crockpot requires a few hours. In a rice cooker, it takes about the same amount of time as the stove top — only you don’t have to stir.
Crockpot is better for soups and stews and tough cuts of meat where long cooking breaks down the connective tissue. It’s also good for cooking beans from dry. But I often think that meats in the crockpot seem overcooked (unless they are a perfect match for the slow cooking as in short ribs). The rice cooker steams food and then clicks back to “keep warm” when the steam is gone — it’s perfect for holding food for about an hour or two without continuing to cook it, which is what I need when I leave for swim lessons at 3:45 and come back at 5:45. So, like, you can cook rice in it, then dump some cans of beans in and turn it back on, and come back later to hot, if basic, beans and rice.
You definitely do different things in the two cookers. The only thing off the top of my head that I think you can make about equally well in either is steel-cut oatmeal (and even then they come out a little different).

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