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Tuesday, June 1, 2010

Frugal College Cooking: My First Rice Cooker Success

I was cruising through Roger Ebert's rice cooker blog the other day and discovered some words of wisdom. He was discussing Asian dishes, and said that, no, you can't make a stir fry, but you can throw a bunch of Asian type stuff in the pot--he specifically mentioned pineapple--and see what you will see.

As I had half a can of pineapple in the fridge, I was inspired to try, especially since I knew the pineapple would be en route to the compost pile pretty soon.

Here's what I put in: about 1 cup of rice, 1 1/2 cups water, small handful of chopped leeks we have in the freezer. A little salt. Turned on the pot.

After a bit, I added 1 chopped pepper from the garden, some of that moldering pineapple, and some of that Asian mini corn that comes in cans. I had an open can of that too, from the clean out the pantry project I've been discussing for several months now. I added a bit of soy sauce and some hoisin too.

The switch flipped to warm, and I had an idea: why not break an egg over it, as in that Korean dish whose name escapes me*. So I did. I flipped the switch on again.

I checked to make sure the white was cooked and hoped the yolk would be runny. Then I bestowed the dish on Lucy M, the reason for all my experimentation. The yolk was runny.

We added some of that neat hot sauce with the rooster on it.

And, Readers, it was good!
Thank you, Mr. Ebert, you are right. The pot knows what to do.

P.S. Lucy said the only part she didn't like was the pineapple.
*The Korean dish is called bibimbap.

P.P. S. I've already linked to this, but will do so again, in case you missed it. My mentor has a cookbook coming out:

5 comments:

Crystal Stemberger said...

I love how easy a rice maker is! We throw in all the ingredients of fried rice (peas, onions, soy sauce, egg, etc) in slightly different quantities and set it to go. We scramble the egg a little first...cooked about halfway. Always yummy.

Funny about Money said...

Wow! What a good idea. So, I gather you can take the cooker apart to clean it? This sounds so tasty and so easy!

Duchesse said...

Pineapple isn't very Korean but you could call it Hawaiian? Anyway it sounds good, and I like the scramble a little first technique too.

Frugal Scholar said...

@Budgeting--What else do you make?
@Funny--You just take out the inner pot and wash it. No trouble. Nothing to take apart.
@Duchesse--Maybe--but then I think of "Hawaiiian pizza" which sounds so awful I won't try it.

Shelley said...

Hi - Just back from hols in Italy and catching up with posts! When I was a teen I worked in a pizza parlour and made ham and pineapple pizzas per the menu. They were surprisingly good to eat...but not Italian. I've never owned a rice cooker and probably won't go out and buy one anytime soon, but I'm fascinated by what you manage to do with them. Great ideas for frugal college cooking!