No daughter of mine...

[azurelunatic]

After years of being dubious that any "no daughter of mine" comment would ever pass my lips, I've finally found a thing where I simply have to put my foot down.

No (fish)daughter of mine who eats rice has any business starting up housekeeping without a rice cooker.

Comments

[vass]

If my daughter had very limited bench space and was able to make rice reliably on the stove, I'd be okay with her starting up housekeeping without a rice cooker.

[azurelunatic]

It's the "reliably" bit that's important. (I just sent a care package to one of my fish to remedy a shocking lack.)

[siderea]

Hmm. Why is that? I eat and make rice, but have no rice cooker. Am I remiss? Rice cookers are outside of my experience. Please say more.

[azurelunatic]

I am not entirely sure what is involved in non-rice-cooker rice cooking, but with a rice cooker, you measure the rice, sort & wash it, measure the water, put it in, start it, and wait. Sufficient experience leads to being able to measure rice and water proportions without thinking about it.

Part of my insistence for my fish is cultural. My father's adopted grad students were Chinese, and that greatly shaped my opinions on this.

This particular round of WHAT THE HELL YOU HAVE NO RICE COOKER was because my fish Cae is in the dorms and her birth family sent her some rice. She was borrowing a rice cooker from another student for the summer. Dorm cooking is generally hilariously bad, and a rice cooker is probably safer than a hotplate.

[siderea]

Not to shock you or anything, but I don't sort or wash my rice.

Rice on stove top: For each cup of raw rice you want to cook, put 2.5 cups water in pot with lid, on stove, turned all the way up. When water is boiling, dump in rice. Stir a bit with fork to make sure everything is wet. Wait a few moments for the water to get back to a boil, then reduce heat to the lowest setting, put the lid on, and set the timer for whatever it says on the package (e.g. brown rice is 40 min, white rice is a lot less). Ignore until timer goes off. Turn off heat. Done.

If you really must, you're allowed to stir it occasionally, but this is deprecated as it causes steam to escape.

ETA: I am entirely willing to believe that my rice comes out grossly inferior. I am not a perfectionist where it comes to rice.

[azurelunatic]

Sounds like you have it down to a science! For you, a separate rice cooker would probably be extraneous. For me, it's a necessity.

[senmut]

Mine is a two to one ratio:

2 cups water, 1 cup rice.

Bring water to boil (add lemon zest if wanted). Dump rice in and rattle pan to be sure it is evenly dispersed. Turn all the way down to just above low immediately, cover, don't touch it for 20 minutes. Done.

[mfb]

I can get behind this sentiment.

BTW, culture question: What do the terms fishdaughter, fishmum, fishwife, etc. mean? I've seen them around the internet but have never been able to put them into context.

[azurelunatic]

I am sort of the head of a loosely-organized chapter of the marmalade_fish fanclub, and this particular group has evolved a sort of familial structure. Since I was both the chronologically oldest of the regulars in that chatroom, and also the most inclined to general responsible advice (like "Clothing is often a valid life choice.") I became the Fishmum, and some of the fish who needed a fishmum more than some of the others became my fishdaughters. One of my fishdaughters recently actually had a baby of her own, so I am now a fishnan, and the rest of the fish are fishaunts. (The fanclub is approximately 99% female.) Of the fish-related familial terms, I've only ever heard "fishwife" outside of a marmalade_fish context. Out of that context, it's a female seller of fish, or a woman who is loud and pushy enough to be one. In the marmalade_fish context, zarhooie is my fishwife because she propositioned internet marriage to me on New Year's.

[mfb]

Ooooh! History! Thanks for bringing me up to speed. :D

[senmut]

Hilariously, I do not like the texture of rice cooker rice most of the time. I prefer my grandmother's stove top version to all else.

[azurelunatic]

Mama really didn't make rice until my dad's grad students (they weren't actually his to teach, I don't think, but he was the one showing them around) educated us about the shocking lack in our kitchen setup. After that it was a staple.

[flyingthesky]

Sounds like my parents.

They took me down to Marukai so I could pick out a rice cooker once they realized I had not been sent up with one. Now I have two things that are labeled "rice cooker" and my roommate is perpetually confused by this no matter how many times I explain that one is actually a slow cooker I was making rice in because I didn't have anything else to do it with.

It's not very good at making rice, but it is excellent at making curry.

[azurelunatic]

My mother's Italian beef stew works excellently in a slow-cooker.

[wibbble]

We buy rice that comes in microwave packets. That's probably cheating, though.

[silveradept]

Agreed. The size of the rice cooker is important, as well as any other funcions it may perform admirably, like vegetable steaming.

[azurelunatic]

Tiny rice cookers can be surprisingly useful for a bachelor.