How to choose a perfect rice cooker for you

I bought a rice cooker at last! It took about five years (or eight if you count from the time I started wanting it). I made an excel on their qualities already 5 years ago but didn't find a close enough match then for the European electrity. All that seemed to be right were meant for Japanese or US market (different voltage). The ones that I found to be suitable for European voltage were too big or then just too simple. As I'm mainly cooking rice for 1-2 persons, I didn't want to have a huge rice cooker taking space from my kitchen counter. (And besides, small is cute.) I started planning that once I have my own apartment, I would have an electrician to make a Japanese voltage plug for me (I'm not even sure if it's possible) and then buy a Japanese rice cooker. As it happens many times, I managed to bury my desire somewhere and didn't even question myself.

I'm actually quite sad about that: I have learned to bury my dreams so well these days that it seems I don't anymore have dreams or desires. I just go on in life every day as usual and don't question if this is what I want. Maybe it's just what happens to people when they get older. I recently read that young people tend to have dreams and as you age you tend to have them less.

So I buried my dream of a rice cooker and continued cooking rice on the stove. It's not so sad as I actually learned to cook great Japanese rice on the stove. Then this summer I finally realized that we now actually have an apartment of our own so I should start making inquiries about that Japanese voltage socket....or should I just check if they have something on the market... and that's how I got my Panda this summer.

I'm still so thrilled about Panda that I wanted to make your rice cooker trip a bit easier. So if you are considering a rice cooker, here are some points that might make your choice easier:

• The first question you need to ask yourself is: "Do I need a rice cooker?"

If you cook Japanese or other Asian type rice regularly, rice cooker might come handy. If you like to cook mostly parboiled or basmati rice, it’s quite easy to cook them on a stove, I wouldn’t invest in a rice cooker. Or if you cook rice quite seldom (let’s say once a week or less), it's a waste of kitchen space to have a rice cooker (unless it doesn't bother you). Rice cooker will require some space on your kitchen counter and you don’t want it to be another kitchen appliance you don’t use. You can cook perfect rice also on the stove. It just requires some tricks to learn but is basically quite easy. (I've previously linked instructions from Just Hungry website on how to cook Japanese rice on a stove with a pot or a frying pan. They are written with a great detail, so they are quite long, but don't be intimidated by them.

If on the other hand you want to invest some money and kitchen space for it and think it would a useful appliance, just go for it: rice cookers make cooking perfect rice easy and you can use them also for cooking porridge and baking cakes (yes!). So now you need to choose the right type of rice cooker.

I’ll give you some qualities I wanted to have in my cooker, so by no means this list is not all-inclusive but mainly written from my point of view. Consider these points:

• Where will you use your cooker?

Do you plan to use it in Japan, US,  Europe...? What is the voltage there? In Europe it’s mostly 220/230 V, so you can’t use Japanese domestic market rice cookers here (They are meant for 110 V electricity). There are transformers that could change the power from 230 V to 110 V but rice cookers use so big amounts of power (sorry, this might not be the right electrical technical term…), that you would need quite a big transformer for the operation to be safe so it's better to buy a suitable cooker with a suitable plug. For my cooker I needed to add a Euro power cord to my order (a UK one was included by default). It cost a few euros and could be ordered from the same company as the cooker.

• How many people will you mostly cook rice to?

Many bigger rice cookers are able to cook small amounts of rice too, but then again they are bigger in size. I cook mostly to 1-2 persons and rarely maybe to 4-5 persons. For 2 persons I mostly cook about 1 rice cooker cup of uncooked rice (or even less). (Note that one rice cooker cup equals 180 ml, so it's smaller than a US cup.) I think that most rice packages in Finland tell you to cook about 150 ml uncooked rice for 2 persons. So if you compare that those 10 cup rice cookers, they are just too big for my purposes; I don’t think I have ever cooked that much rice at one go. Even 5 cup rice cookers are way too big for my use. My rice cooker is able to cook up to 3.5 cups uncooked white rice (so it’s about 630 ml!) and that will give way over a litre of Japanese type cooked rice.

If, on the other hand you cook at least every now and then huge amounts of rice, then it’s most convenient to buy a bigger model, as you can prepare smaller amounts of rice in them too.

• How "technical" do you want your rice cooker to be?

There are different types of techniques how rice cookers work. I would choose a more “high-tech” one. The simplest are just like pots with an electrical cord I wouldn’t invest in. I find they are a waste of money and kitchen space if you have a stove and a pot. They don't have as tightfitting lids as the more advanced cookers have. A very tight-fitting lid is a must: Japanese rice is cooked in a very small amount of water, so you don’t want that vapour to escape as that vapour is needed to cook the rice.
Rice needs to be cooked first with high heat and then with lower heat. If you opt for a “fuzzy-logic/microcom" rice cooker, the cooker will know when to stop applying the high heat. I wanted my rice cooker to have that fuzzy logic.
Then there are also ones with IH heaters which are said to heat up very quickly. I don’t have any experience in those. I had an IH stove before and that was very quick, but so is my rice cooker too: It cooks that 1 cup of rice in under 30 mins. Usually I'm still preparing other dishes when my Panda beeps.

• How durable do you want your rice cooker to be?

The part that usually breaks or wears first is the bowl: I’ve seen many rice cookers where the surface of the bowl has started coming off (mainly they were at the student accommadation where I lived in Tokyo when exchange students had fleed after the tsunami of 2011 and left their belongings). I don’t think it’s healthy to use a scraped bowl as most are teflon-coated. Mine is said to have a durable ceramic coating, but I have used it only a month, so I can't tell how durable it actually is. The manual tells to use only wooden or plastic tools and so I will.

• How much time do you want to use for cleaning?

Rice cooker’s bowl, lid and steam vent need to be cleaned often (bowl and lid after every use). They should be easily removable and cleanable. I rinse my steam vent after every use, even though the manual states it should be done only “regularly”. It's so easy to remove and disassemble so I find it safer that way: otherwise I might forget to do it before a longer break not using it (and then it would be left uncleaned). In my cooker there is also a container for condensation water which needs to be emptied after every use. So now you might notice that rice cookers need quite a bit of maintenance. I don’t want to scare you off of buying one but I want to ensure that you know what you’re up to, so that you don’t buy it in vain.

• What do you want to cook with your rice cooker (other than rice)?

Most Japanese type cookers are able to cook different types of rice: white short grain (aka Japanese rice, rice for sushi etc…), white long grain (aka basmati etc) and brown rice; and also cook porridge and steam food and even bake cakes and prepare yogurt. So if you find those options handy, choose your cooker accordingly. My cooker should be able to cook other grains as well (quinoa, couscous, lentils...). I'm just dying to try the cake baking option but I haven't had a chance to try it yet.

Some other aspects to consider:
-Timer: Most models have a timer function which is very handy if you want to have your rice ready when you return home (or when you wake up: how about having breakfast the Japanese way with freshly cooked rice of course:)

-Size and weight: The outside measurements and weight of the cooker can actually deviate a lot between different models, so keep that in mind if you are short on kitchen space or need move your cooker around.

-Detachable power cord: The power cord can be detached from many models. That’s very convenient as the cooker looks much nicer on the tabletop without the cord and it’s also safer that way too. I hide the power cord behind the closed doors when I'm not using the cooker (we have sockets in the cupboard) and keep Panda on the tabletop. My previous rice cooker (which I had in Japan) had a sort of a magnetic holder where you inserted the cord to the cooker that made it possible to just click the power cord off but still kept the power cord in place. It was so convenient! (My current cooker doesn’t have that feature unfortunately.)

-And last but not least the cuteness factor: Maybe not so important but I wanted my rice cooker to be cute looking :D Many happy rice cooking moments!

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