The Ultimate Rice Cooker (38 page)
Wild Rice and Bulgur with Leeks and Toasted Almonds
Wild Rice with Fennel and Dried Cranberries
There is a saying that good things come in small packages. Well, when it comes to grains, including rice, that is an understatement. They come in diminutive packages, ready to contribute to your health and well-being like no other food. The cereal grasses—wheat, maize (corn), rye, millet, buckwheat, barley, and rice—are the building blocks of civilization, for with their domestication begins the history of the world and enough dependable, high-powered fuel food to feed it.
The history of grains reaches far back into the ancient, unwritten past, with humans gathering the fruits of wild grasses for food. The great cultures of antiquity grew up from the prehistoric times around cereal grain–growing areas, referred to as hearths of domestication, giving rise to the many scholarly debates about when and why our ancestors turned from being hunters and gatherers to settled agriculturalists. Surprisingly, the invention of agriculture arose independently in very diverse locales at the same time. All practical implications aside, there can be no generalizations on the complex factors that brought primitive humans to tilling the earth and domesticating principal grain crops. It is even postulated that the deliberate planting of seeds of native wild grasses was an act that had magico-religious motives. Simply speaking, life as we know it would certainly be impossible without cereal grains.
Early civilized life is mostly chronicled from the fecund environments in easily cultivated areas such as the rich river valleys of the Tigris and Euphrates, the Lower and Upper Nile in Egypt and Abyssinia, the Yang-shao in China, and the Indus in India. Based on archaeological evidence and plant genetics, by the time Egypt and Sumer on the Euphrates River were fledgling civilizations, wheat and barley were long considered the staff of life in Europe and the Middle East, rice was the central grain of southern China and India, and maize and quinoa flourished in the tropics of Meso-America and South America.
Grains have been tireless travelers, spreading around the globe overland by horseback and camelback, over and through the air by the winds and in the beaks of birds, by sea clipper, and in the carefully guarded pockets and pouches of wanderers on foot. From pots cooked over open fires and woodstoves to our plug-in rice cooker, you can safely consider these grains as a gift to us from these ancient cultures. Amazingly enough, they have been cooked in the exact same manner for all time. Only the cooking vessel has evolved.
Just as you cook rice in your rice cooker, you can cook whole grains. You use exactly the same technique, which is to press the reg-ular/ Brown Rice cycle button. The machine does the rest. Be prepared for different aromas and very different textures; each whole grain has a character unto itself. Terms such as “groat” and “berry” are references to the hulled whole grain. If the bran layer on the grain is especially tough, a soak may be in order to help with the cooking. If you end up with whole grains that are too wet, just drain off the excess water as if you were cooking on the stovetop. If your grains are too dry, drizzle them with another ¼ cup water and continue cooking or leave on the Keep Warm cycle. As with rice, if you turn off the machine and leave the lid closed, the inherent warmth of the environment will keep your grains warm for an hour.
While most of the barley grown in this country goes to brewing beer, you can still find pearled barley on most supermarket shelves. It is called pearled barley since, when cooked, it looks just like little pearl seeds. A favorite in soups because of its comforting digestive quality, pearled barley is a nice alternative to rice, works well in a grain and rice combination, and can be cooked like risotto. Barley is also great in salads or stuffed peppers. Pearled barley is hulled, so it is very white, needs no soaking, and cooks in under an hour. It is
not
the same as what is sold as “Quick Barley,” which is precooked and dried, and cooks up very mushy. You want barley to be chewy.
MACHINE: Medium (6-cup) rice cooker ;
fuzzy logic or on/off
CYCLE: Regular/Brown Rice
YIELD: About 3 cups; serves 4
1 cup pearled barley
2 cups plus 2 tablespoons water
Pinch of salt
1. Place the barley in the rice cooker bowl. Add the water and salt; swirl to combine. Close the cover and set for the regular/ Brown Rice cycle.
2. When the machine switches to the Keep Warm cycle, let the barley steam for 15 minutes. If there is water left over, drain it off; if it is too dry, drizzle with hot water, 1 tablespoon at a time, and let steam until the barley has the right texture. Fluff with a wooden or plastic rice paddle or wooden spoon, and let the barley cool in the bowl or serve hot. It will hold on Keep Warm for up to 1 hour.
Whole-grain hulled barley looks like the brown rice of barley; only its outer layer has been removed. It is also marketed as pot barley. Brown barley takes more water than pearled barley, usually calling for an overnight soak. There are strains of barley on the market called hull-less under the name of Nu-Barley; there is Black Buffalo (yes, it is black) and Bronze Nugget (golden), both from Western Trails—use these with this recipe. You can use brown barley just like pearled barley, but it is chewier and more nutritious. Cooked barley can be left at room temperature all day, so that it stays soft when you reheat it.
MACHINE: Medium (6-cup) rice cooker ;
fuzzy logic or on/off
CYCLE: Regular/Brown Rice
YIELD: About 3 cups; serves 4
1 cup whole-grain hulled barley
2½ cups water
Pinch of salt
1 tablespoon unsalted butter, margarine, or olive oil
1. Place the barley in the rice cooker bowl and add the water; let soak in the machine for 1 hour. Add the salt and butter; swirl to combine. Close the cover and set for the regular/Brown Rice cycle.
2. When the machine switches to the Keep Warm cycle, let the barley steam for 15 minutes. Fluff with a wooden or plastic rice paddle or wooden spoon, and let the barley cool in the bowl or serve hot. It will hold on Keep Warm for up to 1 hour.
Barley, wild rice, short-grain brown rice, and wheat berries all cook in the same amount of time. Here they are combined with some aromatics to make a delicious winter side dish.
MACHINE: Medium (6-cup) rice cooker ;
fuzzy logic or on/off
CYCLE: Regular/Brown Rice
YIELD: Serves 4
¼ cup pearled barley
¼ cup wild rice
¼ cup short-grain brown rice
¼ cup wheat berries
2¼ cups vegetable stock
2 thin slices red onion
½ teaspoon chopped fresh thyme leaves or ¼ teaspoon dried thyme
¼ teaspoon salt
Pinch offreshly grated nutmeg
Extra virgin olive oil
1. Place the barley, rices, and wheat berries in the rice cooker bowl and add the stock;
let soak in the machine for 30 minutes. Add the onion, thyme, salt, and nutmeg; swirl to combine. Close the cover and set for the regular/Brown Rice cycle.
2. When the machine switches to the Keep Warm cycle, let the grains steam for 15 minutes. Fluff the grains with a wooden or plastic rice paddle or wooden spoon. This dish will hold on Keep Warm for up to 1 hour. Serve hot, garnished with a drizzle of olive oil.
Cooking barley with some brown rice in a miso broth is an incredibly satisfying way to eat your grains. This would be the style of a homemade rice dish in some country hamlet in the mountains of Japan. It is distinctive and pleasing. Serve with a raw salad of leafy greens vinaigrette and broiled chicken breasts.
MACHINE: Medium (6-cup) rice cooker ;
fuzzy logic or on/off
CYCLE: Regular/Brown Rice
YIELD: Serves 4 to 6
1 cup pearled barley
2¼ cups warm water
3 tablespoons white miso
⅓ cup short-grain brown rice
3 tablespoons sesame seeds, toasted, for garnish
Pickled ginger, cold cubed tofu, and minced green onion, for garnish
1. Place the barley in the rice cooker bowl and cover with hot water; let soak in the machine for 1 hour. Drain the barley and return it to the rice cooker.
2. In a small bowl, combine ½ cup of the water with the miso; whisk to break up the miso. Add the miso water to the drained barley along with the remaining 13.4 cups water and the rice; swirl to combine. Close the cover and set for the regular/Brown Rice cycle.
3. When the machine switches to the Keep Warm cycle, let the grains steam for 10 minutes. Fluff the grains with a wooden or plastic rice paddle or wooden spoon. This dish will hold on Keep Warm for up to 1 hour.
4. Serve hot, garnished with a sprinkling of sesame seeds and a few strips of pickled ginger, tofu, and green onion.
The Berbers of North Africa have a granular semolina cereal called couscous, which is steamed in a special two-part steaming pot called a
coucousière
. We fell in love with couscous years ago, when this staple starch of Morocco began to appear regularly in supermarkets. Almost all of the couscous available in the United States is an instant refined variety, whether or not it says so on the box or bin, although health food stores often carry whole wheat couscous. Couscous is quick and easy to prepare in the rice cooker. It is a go-with-anything side dish, a bed for spicy stews, and a wonderful change from pasta or rice in hearty salads. Couscous can be prepared with apple juice and cinnamon for a sweeter breakfast-style dish.
MACHINE: Medium (6-cup) rice cooker ;
fuzzy logic or on/off
CYCLE: Regular
YIELD: About 2 cups; serves 2
1 cup couscous, refined or whole wheat
1 cup water
2 tablespoons unsalted butter or olive oil
¼ teaspoon salt
1. Place the couscous, water, butter, and salt in the rice cooker bowl; swirl to combine. Close the cover and set for the regular cycle.
2. When the machine switches to the Keep Warm cycle, let the couscous steam for 5 minutes. Fluff the grains with a wooden or plastic rice paddle or wooden spoon. This couscous will hold on Keep Warm for up to 1 hour. Serve hot.
Couscous is easy to dress up. Here we made an herbed dried fruit version. While you might think this combination offruit, herbs, and nuts unusual, this is a traditional Turkish-style treatment of the grain. It goes well with roasted poultry.
MACHINE: Medium (6-cup) rice cooker ;
fuzzy logic or on/off
CYCLE: Quick Cook and/or regular
YIELD: Serves 4
2 tablespoons unsalted butter
½ cup sliced almonds
1 medium-size yellow onion, chopped
1 cup diced pitted prunes, preferably moist-pack
⅔ cup chicken stock