Steam rice cooker
New Products ( 24 )
Panasonic’s SR-SJ1/SK1 rice cooker series feature a new continuous high-temperature system of steaming rice, enhancing the distinct sweetness and flavor of rice by approximately 10% compared to the current model. Four versions, price to be determined. On sale June 1.
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24 Comments
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outofmydepth
i am sure not too many people will want to pay the price. if it is not mentioned i am sure it will be very high. i saw a rice cooker at a big chain elec store for over the equivalent of a thousand dollars. who pays that?
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noborito
10% better. Who came up with that crap? No one can tell the different in 10%. My 3000 yen rice cooker does just that, cooks rice and keeps it warm. Rice is Rice people. Very strange.
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delihle
Still none of the cookers beat an old fashioned Japanese rice pot over an open charcoal fire. Even here in Florida, we can taste the difference in quality and methods. But I've been eating the stuff for 40+ years . . .
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ebisen
I bet none of the critics actually eat rice daily, and more, they don&t have the chance to taste rice made in a proper way in a really nice cooker. I used to think the same "rice is rice, it doesn't matter how you make it" until my 5000 Yen cooker broke and I had replaced it with a 30000 yen one (yes, a pretty nice one, with induction cooking).
Believe it or not, the rice made in the new cooker tastes much better (sweeter and I can detect some distinct aroma in it.
Unfortunately, I think it takes more than 5 years of daily rice eating for one to be able to distinguish the difference between properly cooked expensive rice (Niigata's Koshihikari for ex.) and ordinary rice cooked in a cheap cooker.
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DjAntomattei
How the hell can you enhance the taste to something by 10% without adding any additives or condiments to it? Especially something as bland as rice. Rice is so overrated here but people be taking offense to it like you are talking bad about their mother and father. The rice cooker is the biggest money making gimmick/scheme there is here and people are so gullable. Just steam it in a pot and call it a day.
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cleo
You can do all kinds of things to change the taste/texture of something, but whether that's an improvement or not surely depends on the person doing the tasting.
My mil is very particular about her rice - gets it direct from a relative who grows it, polishes it herself (to within an inch of its life) just before she cooks it, and cooks it in a posh state-of-the-art rice cooker. She thinks it tastes great. I find it too soft, too sweet, too bland.
I cook unpolished brown rice in an ordinary rice cooker that was on special offer in the discount lekky shop. I think it tastes great - something to bite on, lots of flavour. Mil refuses to even taste it.
Neither of us is wrong.
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likeitis
Anyone who refuses to try brown rice is wrong. Not liking the flavor would be ok, but not trying is wrong. Its not a smart policy either. Brown rice is far more nutritious, and I like the flavor and texture too. And its not like it reeks like natto or blue cheese either.
Anyway, all credit to you for mentioning texture. No matter how bland anyone might think rice is, I think everyone can fathom the fact that reconstituting dried up rice via automatic cooking by a machine can either be done well or not by that machine, and that it might cost some cash to get a machine to do it just right.
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cleo
likeitis -
To be fair to mil, it isn't like she never tasted brown rice in her life. I think she probably got what she considered more than her share of it as a girl in the war. To her mind, the whiter, the better. My Dad was the same with bread - didn't want to know about anything wholemeal.
When it comes to taste (I'm not talking nutrition here), there are no rights and wrongs. Except for natto and mozuku, of course.
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some14some
true, the price will take away the steam i.e. whatever strength left in ordinary family's budget.
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GW
At our house we have been using a dounabe for making rice, mostly the over polished white stuff but genmai is fine as well, after using this baby for the last several years I have no need what so ever for any electrical rice cooking suihanki thingamajig, no thanks!
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AlffromWapping
I reckon Japanese rice is horrid. Me daughter bought some and when it were cooked it was like semolina, and didn't have any nice taste.
I reckon this rice cooker is a rip off like. I'll stick with me Uncle Bens rice thank you.
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Badsey
The Uncle Ben's instant microwave in a pouch (pre-cooked) rice meals are very good and the SteamFresh (steam in a bag) are also a good choice.
The knock on the Panasonic ($100-150 3 sizes rated in cups) has been that there was no steam/water drain = more clean-up. You may want to get the bigger models with the basket on top (steam veggies and rice at same time)
Steam is very powerful and can even soften up broccoli stems (good for fiber). Fish with small bones (bones will turn liquid). Slow cook soups.
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soldave
How the hell can you say something tastes 10% better?! You've got to love the press releases on here for their comedy value.
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likeitis
You have 100 people eat the two and they rate them from one to ten. One gets an average score of 75 percent, and the other 85 percent. The other is 10 percent better. Next!
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likeitis
If you cooked it like Uncle Ben's, I bet it was horrid. I think you should accept the fact that from the isolation of your Appalachian mountain hut there might be a great many things about the world you simply will not be able to suss out for yourself. Other cultures have done a great many little things you should have some more reverence for, and an appreciation that you may not know it all after all.
Next time you want to know about Japanese food, ask a Japanese to make you some. And no, the local Japanese restaurant knock-off run by Chinese will NOT do.
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Richard_the_First
Comparing boiled rice is like comparing the 'taste' of mineral water in my opinion. Both tasteless.
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likeitis
I am thinking it is not so much your opinion as your lard laden diet. A lot of Westerners seem to have their tongues so coated with fat that they cannot taste anything but fatty foods that exceed the layer already on their tongue. This is part of Ebisen's theory I believe:
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JeffLee
True, mine is "coated" by the fat from tonkatsu and tempura.
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Patrick Smash
I love this thng about westerners not appreciating the flavour of rice because their tongues are too coated in fat. Try walking down a road in Japan and have a look at what the Japanese eat. Every station area has a mass of hamburger bars, cake shops, ice cream parlours, donut shops and so on. The supermarkets are full of high-salt fatty rubbish and the Japanese adore their tonkatsu and tenpura. I reckon the average Brit has a healthier diet these days.
My in-laws have eaten rice every day for nearly 70 years and to them rice is rice. They can't tell one brand from the other, and even if you can, this idea that something tastes 10% better than something else is total nonsense. You can't decide on foods that way; only nutters and culture-vultures think anything different.
Varying the amount of water you use in a rice cooker is the main thing, not the actual rice. Different types of rice need slightly more or slightly less water, so if you change brands you can notice the difference ever so slightly. The age of the rice (how dry it is) has probably just as big an effect, but we're still talking about rice and guess what; rice tastes of rice.
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bdiego
Wow, all the rice experts here don't sound like they eat much rice to begin with. The key with cooking rice is water, whether you heat it by contact or infrared, and the breed of rice you use. Saying that there's no such thing as good or bad rice is like saying there's no such thing as good or bad BBQ technique. Saying that without ever having BBQ'd means you're a JT troll.
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bdiego
Hey Patrick, go to Japan, then go to the US. When you land at the airport, tell me the people don't look fatter.
A few weeks later this effect wears off. Interesting.
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motytrah
I'm going to assume the folks posting the Uncle Ben's comments are having a laugh. The whole rice in a pouch craze is just horrid. There's a lot of off "flavors" get from that junk.
That being said, a good rice maker really does matter. But only to a certain point. A nice 3-cup Zojirush in the $100 range does a fantastic job for all kinds of rice. Certainly better than some of those cheap no-name Chinese brand rice makers. Beyond that price point the law of diminishing returns starts to apply.
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ironchef
HAHA Uncle Ben's?? rice in a box?! what a joke..and who uses "reckon"?
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