I was thinking about getting a rice cooker, but my mom suggested getting a steamer. The impression I get from looking online is that I wouldnt be able to cook rice in a steamer. Anyone have one, or know if a rice cooker serves any other purpose than rice. Im trying to figure out which I could get more use from. Thanks.

9/11/2006 1:34:17 PM

you can cook rice in a pot - you don't need a rice cooker

9/11/2006 1:36:04 PM

my rice cooker has a steamer attachment. so it can be use as a steamer also. 19.95 @ ross

9/11/2006 1:38:45 PM

A small rice cooker is nice if you eat A LOT of rice.

By A LOT I mean pretty much every day.

9/11/2006 1:39:36 PM

You can't cook rice in a steamer, unless you take out the steam trays and simply use the base of the steamer as an ordinary pot--which is stupid if you already have a pot, which you should.

The only reason to get a rice cooker is if you cook a LOT of rice ALL the time.....

For example, if I want a coffee, I boil water and use my french press. This would get old if I did it every day.....if I wanted coffee every day I would use a coffee maker.

You can get far more use out of a steamer (steamed wontons and dumplings, softening tortillas, steamed vegetables, steamed seafood or other meat, steamed breads even....)

A rice cooker only cooks rice.


BTW, FYI, there are more rice cookers used every day in households globally than are coffee makers....

9/11/2006 1:43:31 PM

You can cook rice in a steamer, very well too. Almost all of them have a supplimental tray specifcally for rice. We have one from Oster, I believe, that we got at Target and its worked great for a good 3 years now. We actually bought a rice steamer too because we do both so much but to be honest the steamer dioes rice better than the rice cooker. Unless you spend a good chunk of change on a good rice cooker with fuzzy logic programmng you are going to get inconsistent results. Nearly every batch of rice gets burned in the rice cooker and the rice rareky turns out well regardless of recipe adjustments.

This is all you need:
http://www.target.com/gp/detail.html/sr=1-8/qid=1157996861/ref=sr_1_8/601-2547022-8012115?%5Fencoding=UTF8&asin=B000BH96AW

9/11/2006 2:19:29 PM

alright, thats the kind of information i was looking for. thanks.

9/11/2006 2:40:21 PM

Quote :

"You can cook rice in a steamer, very well too. Almost all of them have a supplimental tray specifcally for rice"

yeah we cook our rice in a steamer too, good stuff

9/11/2006 3:06:46 PM

I've steamed things in a rice cooker. I have a little wire rack that fits inside my rice cooker - I put a plate on top of the rack and the food on top gets steamed. I did this while I was cooking rice... I assume it would be the same if you only put water in the bottom and used the rack.

9/11/2006 5:10:53 PM