The Ultimate Rice Cooker (49 page)
There’s a Thanksgiving joke in many Asian-American families that goes something like this: “Forget the turkey. We don’t even like turkey. We only have turkey so that we can make
jook
afterward.” And, even though it’s a joke, there’s no question that turkey
jook
is terrific, a substantial yet healthful meal-in-a- bowl that tastes especially good after an over indulgent holiday dinner. In fact, you don’t really have to wait for Thanksgiving. Julie’s friend Grace Liu suggests making it any time a big party leaves you with a turkey or duck carcass, a big ham bone, or some other leftover that is just too good to throw away.
MACHINE: Medium (6-cup) rice cooker ;
fuzzy logic only
CYCLE: Porridge
YIELD: Serves 4 to 6
STOCK
1 medium-size turkey carcass About 12 cups water
1 small onion, quartered
One 1-inch piece fresh ginger, cut into 4 pieces and each piece lightly crushed
RICE
¾ cup (1 rice cooker cup) Japanese-style short- or medium-grain white rice
2 cups shredded Napa cabbage
1 cup diced carrot (about 2 medium-size carrots)
Some or all of the following, for topping: sliced green onions, chopped fresh cilantro leaves, peeled and grated fresh ginger, sesame oil, a few drops of soy sauce, salt
1. Make the stock. Put the carcass into a soup pot, breaking or cutting it into 2 to 4 pieces if necessary to fit. Add the water, using more if necessary so that all or most of the carcass is submerged. Add the onion and ginger. Bring the water to a boil over high heat, cover the pot, and let the stock simmer for 2 hours, until the meat is falling away from the bones. If you are not making
jook
right away, let the stock cool, uncovered, then cover the pot and refrigerate it for several hours or overnight.
2. When you are ready to make the
jook
, skim off any fat from the surface of the stock. Strain the stock. Dice or shred 1 cup of the turkey meat and reserve it. Discard the rest of the meat. Discard the turkey bones and skin, onion, and ginger.
3. Wash the rice. Place the rice in a bowl (or use the bowl of your rice cooker) and fill the bowl about half-full with cold tap water. Swirl the rice in the water with your hand. Carefully pour off most of the water, holding one cupped hand under the stream to catch any grains of rice that are carried away with the water. Holding the bowl steady with one hand, use the other to rub and squeeze the wet rice, turning the bowl as you go, so that all the rice is “scrubbed.” The small amount of water in the bowl will turn chalky white. Now, run cold water into the bowl, give the rice a quick swish, and carefully drain off the water as before. Repeat the scrubbing and pouring-off process two more times. By the third time, the water you pour off will be nearly clear..
4. Place the drained rice in the rice cooker bowl. Add 4½ cups of the stock, or use a combination of stock and water if there is not enough stock. Add the cabbage and carrot. Close the cover and set for the Porridge cycle.
5. When the machine switches to the Keep Warm cycle, stir in the diced turkey; let the
jook
steam for 10 minutes. Serve immediately, with any or all of the toppings.
OATMEAL AND ROLLED OATS
Rolled oats are comfort food and have been gracing the morning table throughout the Western world for centuries. Food writer Elizabeth Schneider aptly describes the flavor of “lusciously rich oats” as “a cross between wheat and brown rice—with no trace of stickiness.” The flattened little flakes with the pale brown seam down the center have had a revival in some new diets, since the compounds in oats have been found to lower serum blood cholesterol. It seems like everyone is eating oatmeal these days, both in summer and winter.
Rolled oats are one of the easiest, and most familiar, grains to find on a super market shelf in the breakfast cereal section. Commercial oats—such as Quaker Oats, and McCann’s Irish Oatmeal (which is unbelievably sweet and delicate) in a fetching green-and-gold box or can—are very easy to find in super markets in both regular and quick-cooking varieties. Natural food stores carry organic brands that will amaze you with their texture and nutty flavor, such as The Silver Palate thick-cut rolled oats. Our local dairy and grain specialty grocery carries a large barrel filled with delicious fresh rolled oats from Grain Millers in Washington State.
Since oats are rich in antioxidant fats, they have an indefinite shelf life; you can keep them in your kitchen cupboard for a year in a closed container.
Oat groats
are whole hulled oats still containing the bran and germ. Prepare these as you would cooked rice, or eat as a rugged hot breakfast cereal.
Steel-cut oats
are groat kernels cut into two or three uniform chunks by steel bits and are used for making breakfast porridge. Scotch-cut, Irish-cut oats, or Irish oats, are the same size as steel-cut oats and are cut by stone buhrs; they make a creamier porridge than the bits cut by the steel bits. Finely ground, this style of oats is similar in texture to polenta after a long, slow cooking.
Rolled oats
, “old-fashioned oats” to the Quaker Oats people and thick-cut “oatflakes” in Britain, are crushed and pressed from whole hulled and steamed oat groats by mechanical rollers into uniform flakes. They come in a variety of thicknesses, from medium to thick, to make the familiar slick and rich oatmeal breakfast cereal. Of the three types of rolled oats, these take the longest time to cook properly.
Quick-cooking rolled oats
are made from groats that have been cut into small pieces, then thinly rolled and slightly toasted during rolling so that they cook really fast. We are passionate about the imported McCann’s Quick-Cooking Irish Oatmeal, which is made from whole-grain groats.
Instant oats
, which are different than quick-cooking oats, are cut groats that have been rolled, precooked, dried, and mixed with sugar, flavoring agents, salt, and wheat germ. These become a very different ingredient than just rolled oats, so do not use them in slow-cook porridge recipes.
Hearty Split Pea Soup with Turkey Sausage
Yellow Split Pea Soup with Fresh Lemon
Turkey Chili with Baby White Beans
One of the best ways to consume complex carbohydrates, fiber, and vegetable protein in a low-calorie, no-cholesterol package is with beans and legumes. Along with cereal grains, beans are part of our earliest culinary roots, reaching back over 8,000 years. Easily dried for preservation purposes, beans were eaten extensively during long sea voyages and winter months when fresh food was at a premium. They pack a lot of protein into a little package. They are as much a staple today, and for good reason: They are a very versatile food. Beans are notoriously economical: 1 pound of dried beans (approximately 2⅓ cups) will yield about 5 cups of cooked beans. They tend to show up mostly on winter menus, although that is fast changing; there is nothing quite like a cold cabernet vinegar and olive oil vinaigrette–marinated white bean salad in the summer!
In every cuisine, in every climate, there are delicious and excitingly flavored bean dishes: Indian dal, Mexican refried pinto beans, Middle Eastern chickpea falafels, Cuban black beans, Southwest chili, the New England maple-infused baked beans, Italian
pasta e fagioli
, even the beloved British baked beans on toast. The lima, native to Guatemala and called
haba
in Spanish, was found in archaeological digs of Incantombs, making it one of the oldest cultivated vegetables (limas were exported from Peru during the California gold rush to feed the miners). Lentils—the oldest cultivated Old World legume and a nonmeat staple for European Catholics during Lent—come in a variety of sizes and colors, from the red lentil (a favorite in India) to the lovely, diminutive French green lentil,
lentilles vertes
, imported from the lentil capital of the world, Le Puy, and great in salads. And what would cassoulet be without navy beans along with the sweet Italian sausage and confit of duck?
Heirloom seed growers dote on many old varieties of beans that were enjoyed long ago. Beautiful, delicately flavored Christmas limas, black runner beans, Swedish bush beans, and appaloosas end up alongside commonplace red kidney beans, pinto beans, and black-eyed peas. The fava bean, an Old World bean that was as prevalent in early Rome as it was in colonial American home gardens centuries later, is the darling of the restaurant scene.
The term
bean
refers not only to regular beans, but to other legumes and peas as well. Beans can be consumed in both the fresh and dried forms. The fully mature ones are never eaten raw, as they are completely indigestible uncooked. Once you embrace the world of beans, you will be amazed at the vast variety available and the wide range of flavors and textures. And, of course there is a veritable cornucopia of shapes, colors, and sizes! During the summer months you may also come across fresh beans—always called fresh shell beans—in the produce section of the supermarket or your farmer’s market. Fresh beans will always cook much faster than dried beans and need no soaking. Many discriminating cooks use only organically grown dried beans since they claim that they taste better.
While canned beans are convenient, home-cooked beans have a completely different texture. Cooking beans takes time, not effort, and the electric rice cooker does a great job in lieu of cooking them in a pan atop the stove, where the risk of sticking and scorching is ever present. The rice cooker acts like a slow cooker; simmering the contents rather than boiling it makes for a more tender bean that will hold its natural shape. And there’s no stirring! Since beans should always be completely covered with water during the extended cooking time, the rice cooker environment conveniently provides a minimal amount of evaporation, just like the
olla
, the traditional earthenware bean pot of the Americas. As with all the rice cooker functions, cleanup is a snap.
CLICK TO SEE THE BASICS : SOAKING BEANS
Beans can be cooked alone and then used as an ingredient in other dishes, or you can add onions, garlic, celery, herbs, and salt during the last half hour of cooking and have a ready-to-eat entrée. Since the rice cooker is also conducive to making soups, split peas and lentils can easily be made into yummy slow-cooked potages and chilis. One of our favorite ways to eat freshly cooked beans is simply to drizzle them with a fruity extra virgin olive oil and a squeeze of fresh lemon juice, sprinkle over some coarse sea salt and freshly ground black pepper, and serve them in a shallow soup bowl with an oversized spoon, with fresh tomatoes and some fresh country bread or fresh flour tortillas on the side to sop up all the thick juices in the bottom of the bowl.
HOW TO COOK BEANS
1. Place the beans in the rice cooker bowl and cover with the amount of water specified in the Cooking Beans chart. Some cooks like to add a bay leaf, a leaf or two of fresh sage, or a teaspoon of epazote (an herb found in Latin markets) to help break down the natural starches while cooking. Please, no salt or acid ingredients (tomatoes or wine) at this time, as they toughen and shrivel the beans, as well as increase the cooking time; salt will inhibit cooking.
2. Set the rice cooker for the regular cycle in the fuzzy logic or on/off machine. The rice cooker will bring the water to a boil, then stay at a rolling high simmer. You will set a timer for the amount of time specified in the recipe. When the timer sounds, check the beans; you want them to be tender, yet a bit firm at the same time. Don’t worry if you need as much as an hour longer than the cooking time specified. You want enough liquid to keep the beans submerged the entire cooking time, turning into that wonderful thick, velvety sauce. If you have to replenish the water at any time, be sure to add boiling water.