This is because some of these older cookware offer factual advantages. The main reason that cast iron and carbon steel cookware have lost some favor over year is because they require seasoning and maintenance of the seasoning, yet they have never disappeared because they are still the only types of cookware which offer ability to work at very high temperature and maintain a nonstick surface. This is why the Chinese restaurants were unable to move away from carbon steel woks. Copper is even an easier argument because copper is still the most conductive (realistic) metal of all.
There is no real benefit of clay cookware for rice beside a sense of nostalgia, traveling back in time (like learning to start a fire by drilling one wood stick into another). By automating this step, then it takes away the last piece of joy. It would be like building an expensive robot to start a fire by drilling two sticks for you.
I have clay pots, and it is fun to use them. I was asking what advantage(s) you are trying to replicate. I am not sure what you want to say by posting the clay pot photo. I never said people don’t use clay pots. For the Chinese sand-clay pots: First, they are very inexpensive. Second, they create hotspots therefore easily create burned rice (because clay is a poor heat conductor). Third, they create a sense of nostalgia. Many restaurants would actually cook their rice in typical rice cookers and transfer back to clay pots – e.g. they don’t start cooking in the clay pots.
If an expensive robot is used to replicate this task, then this would definitely remove advantage #1 and #3. Feature 2 can be done with other material and certainly not the same reason as the Japanese Jiro reference you have used. In sushi, it is not a goal to create burned rice. This is why Jiro actually use aluminum pots, not clay pots – see the slightly dull, but still shiny silver pots.
I am not sure what I said is contradicting.
Can you share your thought as to what features you are trying to get from the Japanese clay pot into a modern rice cooker? If it is cheap price and nostalgia, then a high tech >$1000 machine will work against those features. If it is about the high pressure rice cooking, there are many high pressure (metal based) rice cookers. If it is about burned rice, then it is a very niche feature and one can simply go back to the early electric rice cooker models when rice were routinely burned. To build a very expensive and technological cookware to only intentional to create hotpots and poor heat conduction… is something not clear to me right away, but maybe there is a feature I am overlooking here which you can share.
So what feature are you thinking to marry between the old and new? There got to be something you can share?
This type of cheap clay pot rice is good because with the charcoal fire used, the smoke diffuse by the heat of charcoal infused in the rice, and more with pores of the claypot. The control of heat is the most essential aspect for the “burnt rice” at the bottom of these clay pot.
From the article:
The technique of charcoal cooking
And persevere he has, even in the face of changing times and the pressure to modernize his way of cooking. While most hawkers have moved on to using gas which is faster and more convenient, Choong still insists on cooking his rice over charcoal fire because he says that it imparts a smoky flavour that cooking over gas just cannot replicate.
According to Choong, the hardest part of charcoal cooking is heat control. He has to control the temperature of the fire by manually adding or moving the charcoal pieces around. There is also a fan by the stoves to circulate oxygen and maintain the live embers. “Charcoal is a living sort of fire that changes when you add or take away a single piece coal. Even the type of charcoal used changes the taste of the rice. The ones we use are considerably more expensive.”
I did get some burnt rice with fat added to a normal rice cooker. I haven’t try to cook a recipe of a pot rice in a rice cooker yet. But I did succeed in getting burnt rice with a clay pot recipe with a cast iron pot on induction.
I see. It actually makes sense that you can induce (encourage) some rice burning. I have maybe done it once or twice with an electric rice cookers, but most of the time I just use a clay pot to do clay pot cooking. I prefer a more subtle rice burn. Like a light brown, not a dark brown. Today, I just came back from a Korean restaurant where their stone pot creating much darker burns. By the way, any material can burn…just turn up the heat…even an aluminum or copper cookware can burn. It is that when you don’t want burn, then the aluminum and copper give you the control.
To be honest, I have mixed feeling with claypots, they need to be immersed in water before cooking to avoid cracks. Quality glazed claypot is more a steamer and not the same as the sand claypot. I will buy some of those cheap pots shown on Sgee’s photos for my summer barbecue grill.
I thought the water soaking procedure is just once. I have only done it once or twice when the pots were brand new or they have not been used for a long time.
If you use it everyday, the humidity will remain in the pores with the washing of the pot. I think. I have a kind of tajine in unglazed clay, they told me to immense every time in water before use.
Just one last point before you buy the pots. There are fully glazed, partial glazed and fully unglazed clay pots. Best wish. They are very cheap. As long as you have space, you should get one.
Have not posted lately
Busy pulling weeds and reseeding, some of my posting were returned? reason?
CUTE! My electric rice cooker looks the same
As for the pots, the filipinos cook their rice using claypots, they line it with banana leaves which gives it a very nice flavor.
The Iranians also like their rice slightly burnt, just light brown, and one friend of mine even add a small amount of oil and saffron to h er dish.
The slightly burnt crunchy caramelized rice on the bottom of the paella called socarrat is the best part. When one can achieve that, paella is the best. Too bad, most paella pans are not clay ( or they will break)
I had an Italian glazed clay pot for cooking onion. The instruction is to soak it in water a few minutes before being used each time. Unfortunately, the top broke ini transit, so, I have just been using my black columbian la chamba pots. I love them!
I went crazy collecting hand made tin lined copper cataplana from portugal. They are the prototype for our pressure cooker. I fell in love with copper, stating collecting them a few years ago… However, I hate to use them bec I worry about messing them up. The ones I use the most are the cataplanas as I have a smaller one for 2 people, a bigger one for a lot of guest, and one in between for my son’s outings in the boat when he sleeps overnight. It is very fast cooking, I usually do a a countdown from 15 minutes with the ones for 2, and in about 10 minutes, the food is cooked. Beware because most cataplanas from portugal or sold in the US are mass produced, the copper is thin. I learned my lesson, bought and sold . It has to be hand made. That is very thick copper which ensures fast flavorful cooking!
I did not at any point make any assertIons that my ultimate goal was to specifically purchase a clay rice cooker. Although both Korean and Japanese manufacture them so there must be some benefit I am not aware of. Apparently you aren’t either - I however have elected not to disparage this technique. Hopefully some Korean or Japanese posters will chime in and educate us.
One of things that struck me in Japan is how consistently fluffy and al dente cooked rice is, from 7-Eleven to the 3* sushi bars (with a tendency of increasing perfection at higher price points). That’s what I’m seeking to achieve specifically as it relates to preparing fluffy white unburnt rice (shortgrain, long grain and sweet rice varieties). I currently own a $200 Zojirushi cooker which 15yrs ago was the highest end model available here in the U.S. However I have not been able to replicate my experiences in Japan even when using $30/lb Japanese rice I schlepped from Japan. Perhaps I’m using an incorrect technique. My fascination with $1+k rice cookers honestly is very shallow - cool new gear and throwing $$$ to solve a problem.
My interest in old school “nostalgic” techniques and cookware to prepare rice in its many forms and origins lies in what I have experienced and observed to produce the ultimate outcomes. Examples:
Jiro’s claim that the high pressure iron kamado cooking is the only method to achieve the desired outcome for the rice he sources.
Chinese claypot rice as discussed above by @naf. I have never achieved this in an electic rice cooker - desired degree of burnt rice and you need an open fire to infuse smoke
Paella - same as #2
Fluffy Indian and Persian rice (& burnt)
Burnt Korean rice
Bamboo basket steamed sticky rice in Indochina region
Sticky rice cooked in bamboo
Risotto - time consuming
Super smooth HK style congee
Each of them requires me to tend to the stove or fire and as much as I enjoy cooking; more often than not time is a premium and I would love the convenience of a one touch contraption. I am not aware of any electric rice cooker that can achieve perfection for the items listed above. Perhaps the $1k cooker to achieve #1 or come very close. The genesis of the electric rice cooker after all was for the one touch convenience to prepare a staple starch consumed daily by a very large population of the world.
Your electric cooker looks the same? So does it come with a cute baby too?
Actually, you and I may have very similar rice cookers. Mine is a 10-year old fuzzy logic rice cooker from Zojirushi.
All civilizations at one point or another were using clayware because human understand clay much earlier than metal – which is also why several religions have gods created human from mud and clay.
Even after our ancestors mastered metalsmith, metal was still very expensive. Most people cannot afford a lot of metal. Metal cookware were shared by communities and later metal cookware were passed down from one generation to another. The idea that you can register a new set of cookware at Bed Bath and Beyond for your wedding is relatively new.
In term of the slightly burned/scorched rice, early rice cookers routinely produced this. If a person has never seen this, he/she can ask their parents and grandparents. This is actually something people tried to avoid for a long time. After the rice cooker technology has much improved, and also the introduction of Teflon to rice cookware (not many know this), that is when burned rice really started to disappear.
I still think it is counterproductive to romanticize something without understanding. I don’t see anything I wrote which is particularly contradicting. I have several clay cookware which is why I know it has shortcomings. As for the statement I wrote about “the benefits of old fashion clay/mud cooking and nonsense…” There is nothing contradicting about it. I have copied an image specifically there. That feature is undesirable to try to reproduce. So maybe you took my statement out of context and misrepresenting my stance?
In case it is unclear, this picture is suggesting that the poor conductivity is a good thing.
I don’t believe it, which is why I said it is nonsense to try to replicate poor conductivity into an electric cooker. Tell me I am wrong. Tell me that you believe a poor conductive material is better for making rice. I am willing to listen.
I have said that I recognized that the existence of pressurized electric rice cookers. Most Japanese sushi chefs use electric rice cookers. Jiro is one of the few who still uses a relatively older setup, but he doesn’t use a clay pot. Jiro believes in high pressure. He does not believe in poor conductivity. In fact, that is the one specific feature he took out. He kept the kamado setup, and he kept the wood cover, but he uses highly thermal conductive aluminum pots. You have used Jiro a few times to support your idea, but you do understand there is a good possibility that Jiro actually will agree with me that aluminum is the way to go, and not clay.
Well, that is certain weird, if not contradicting. Let me clear something here. Anyone is free to buy what they want. What I was criticizing is the marketing concept for building a very technical machine with a clay insert (poor thermal conductivity) and actually put this in the promotion picture. In short, I am saying that I don’t believe in this approach.
It is my understand that you have been criticizing my stance for more than a few posts. Now, you are telling me that you may not believe in the clay part afterall, but rather you simply want the awesome final rice product. So what makes you think I am against good rice product?
wish there is an attached baby
My poms would go wild with happiness.
I actually got my first rice cooker, a panasonic in 1968, when my mentor returned to Japan for vacation. He giftedme my first rice cooker which lasted me me thru 2003 when I had a Chinese carpenter who came and lived with me for 3 years remodeling my house. I do not know what he did but he never wiped the bottom of the inner pot dry, so it shorted out within a few months. I bought another panasonic, and within a year, same thing happened. This latest one was purchased before he left in 2006, it is a large aroma, with all kinds of buttons. It is a large one as the carpenter eats a lot of rice. Since 2012, I have stored it in the closet, just bring it out to make 5-6 cups of rice, then refrigerate the let overs with stretch tite. I use Kokuho red for cooking my everyday rice
Oh yeah, that was relatively important back then. A little bit of moisture is fine, but a lot of water droplets can kill the rice cookers. About refrigerating rice, I noticed that some rice refrigerate well, and some don’t. Some keep their texture, while others just go bad (not toxic or anything, but the texture would get pretty bad). Kokuho type of rice does well. Thai Jasmine rice does well also.
