Comments on: Rice to the top

By: devlyn

devlyn — Mon, 05 Jan 2009 20:20:01 +0000

I’ve never had natto for breakfast, but I have eaten it before (not on a standard rotation - it grosses out the boyfriend). For my tamago gohan, I just pile rice in a rice bowl (about 1.25 cups or so), make a small well in the middle with hashi/chopsticks, crack in an egg, break the yolk and stir it in. At first the rice is sticky, but the egg eventually coats each grain. I like mine slightly “whipped”, so I tend to stir (with chopsticks) ferociously, like you’ll see people do with natto. Once it’s done to my liking, I top it with either some good shoyu or Tiger sauce (so good!). It also goes well with bacon, which is a huge plus in my book.

By: mamster

mamster — Mon, 05 Jan 2009 01:40:24 +0000

Did the family find the rice cooker to be good enough for their son?

Do you ever have natto for breakfast? How do you do your tamago gohan?

By: devlyn

devlyn — Sun, 04 Jan 2009 23:24:21 +0000

I also have a 5-cup Zojirushi fuzzy logic rice maker - I bought it just over a year ago, and it’s the most used small appliance in my house. We often eat tamago gohan for breakfast (raw egg stirred into hot white rice), which is delicious, fast, and filling. I also tend to make a lot of Japanese-style food (with Japanese rice, of course: Kokuho Rose rice, rinsed 5-9 times), and the rice turns out perfectly every time. Also, my Zojirushi makes perfect brown rice and has a timer for rice ready for breakfast. I don’t know what I would do without it at this point. We took it with us this past week to Montana to visit the boyfriend’s family.

By: Nutrionista

Nutrionista — Thu, 01 Jan 2009 14:48:38 +0000

I upped my rice intake after reading Dr. Allen Lim’s two recipes.

A ton cheaper than PowerBars. The only downside is that mylar wrap isn’t readily available at your local grocer yet, and wrapping them in tin foil doesn’t make for a hermetically sealed package. (Good enough for a jersey pocket on a road bike, as long as you stay upright, but on a mountain bike, one good fall and you have a pocket full of mush.)

http://www.slipstreamsports.com/2008/07/16/cooking-with-allen-rice-cakes

By: Dana

Dana — Thu, 01 Jan 2009 09:22:00 +0000

Fancy Japanese rice cooker with 30 year working life, 200 dollars.

Cost of same rice cooker after 30 years of inflation, 2000 dollars.

What you could spend on rice for the next 30 years, 4000 dollars.

Cooking your first grandchild rice from the same rice cooker you use today?

Priceless.

By: Nicole

Nicole — Thu, 01 Jan 2009 00:27:14 +0000

I grew up eating a sweet rice for breakfast 3-4 times a year. I love it; Wendy think it’s just tolerable. Mine sounds sort of similar to Kathleen’s (near as I can tell, anyway).

By: Kairu

Kairu — Wed, 31 Dec 2008 22:57:20 +0000

I personally like plain rice with that dried shredded pork you get in plastic tubs at Chinese grocery stores. In college, that was my idea of dinner.

Rice tends to taste better if you let it sit for at least ten minutes after it's done (after it beeps or sings or pops, depending on your cooker), with the lid closed. The texture and flavor seems better, at least it does to me. Some people like to soak their rice for half an hour before cooking, too. I usually start my rice before I do any other kitchen prep.

By: Nutrionista

Nutrionista — Wed, 31 Dec 2008 22:04:38 +0000

Rice for breakfast? Then you have to mention how you can get a scoop of rice, a slice of Spam, and some scrambled eggs at McDonalds (or was it Jack in the Box?) in Hawaii.

And for lunch, you can go to 7-11 and get rice and Spam wrapped in nori — Spam musubi.

Fuggitabout the other 88%. Just rambling. The main point was that more than one model of rice cooker is hardly surprising in our consumption-based economy. Seriously — there are a hundred Swingline stapler models, all from the same company, and all that do the exact same thing. So 30 rice cookers shouldn't raise any eyebrows.

One more rice story: I knew a guy who was trying to save every possible dime for grad school, and he basically lived off of rice. Rice and maple syrup for breakfast, rice and butter for lunch, rice and hot sauce for dinner. He got flagged by the commissary officer because they assumed he was black-marketing it, as a bachelor in Germany buying multiple 20 pound bags of rice was quite the oddity.

By: Wendy

Wendy — Wed, 31 Dec 2008 16:43:10 +0000

I think I got my rice pudding recipe from the first Moosewood cookbook; it's really good. I have it for breakfast sometimes. I always use brown basmati rice. But I'm hardly ever able to use leftover rice for it, because I like to flavor my rice while it cooks, and rice with salt and cumin and bay leaf doesn't taste great when later mixed with maple syrup.

I've had a rice cooker for about six months, and it has improved my life. I think I almost have my mom talked into buying one. I love that it takes one element of timing out of planning the meal, because I have still found the rice to be great after 20 minutes on "warm". Now I start the rice whenever I start to think about cooking dinner, instead of basically starting the rice and whatever goes on the rice at the same time and then having to wait around for the rice to be done and probably getting impatient and ending up with slightly undercooked rice.

By: mamster

mamster — Wed, 31 Dec 2008 15:43:34 +0000

Kathleen, I’m working on a short piece about rice for breakfast, so I may ask you to elaborate on that. Sounds good! Was it made with leftover rice or rice made in the morning, specifically for breakfast?