What's the Most Heavily Used Tool in Our Kitchen? Our Rice Cooker.

It's about time I wrote about the most heavily used tool in our entire kitchen: our rice cooker.

If you don't already own one of these, consider getting one. Rice cookers are 100% idiot-proof, and making rice with them is such a snap that you'll want to have rice with practically every meal.

Have you ever bungled a batch of rice made in a pan, or worse, suffered through eating a batch of Uncle Ben's? With a rice cooker, there's absolutely no risk of having the rice come out poorly: just dump in a measured amount of rice (they even give you a little plastic measuring cup) and then fill the dish with the corresponding amount of water.

And there's no need to watch the clock either--the rice cooker will shut itself off automatically when the rice is ready. Flick the switch, go do something else, and before you know it, you'll have perfect, delicious rice waiting for you.

Parallel Processing
The rice cooker is also a great tool for multitasking. Fire it up and you've just bought yourself 20 minutes of time to work on other food prep. That's parallel processing at its best and it can make you a faster, more efficient cook. In fact, my Chicken Mole recipe, once you get the hang of it, can be made in exactly the amount of time it takes to fire up a batch of rice in your rice cooker. That can't be just a coincidence--it has to be fate.

Here's yet another advantage: if you have leftover rice after a meal, not to worry. The rice cooker pan is a perfect storage container. Just put the lid back on and put the whole thing in your fridge. You won't have any extra storage containers to wash, and you can use the remaining day-old rice for a quick mini-batch of fried rice.

A Laughably Cheap and Easy Side Dish
How about using your rice cooker for a mindlessly easy side dish? Flavor the rice with some cayenne pepper and a bouillon cube or two, or try a little olive oil, a couple of pressed garlic cloves and 1/2 teaspoon of coarsely ground black pepper. Just drop your spices into the rice cooker along with the rice and water, and in just 20 minutes, you'll have delicious side dish with almost no effort.

What to Buy
What's the best kind of rice cooker to buy? My advice is the same as I give for crockpots: go for simple. If you see a rice cooker with fancy dials and knobs and all sorts of settings, put it down and slowly back away. Instead, get the kind with exactly one switch that lets you choose between on, off and warm. I've linked to a good example of such a rice cooker below.

Retailers always offer an overly-complicated version of even the simplest tool in order to capture the so-called high end customer. Avoid the $183 computerized rice neuralizer, and stick with the $29 simple version* that actually won't break. Don't get needlessly separated from your money.

Even after the recent price increases we've seen across many foods, rice remains an inexpensive staple that complements almost any dish. And eating rice with your meals can be a meaningful money-saver. Here at Casual Kitchen for example, we eat many of our favorite laughably cheap recipes like Groundnut Stew, Crockpot Chili or Garden Gumbo on top of an extra serving of rice. Doing this helps us get at least 30% more mileage out of the typical meal. Not only do many of our recipes go from being laughably cheap to being preposterously cheap, we get an extra side benefit of not having to cook quite as often!

Thus, a $29 rice cooker can bring you and your family some compelling economic benefits. Those extra servings leave you with more food for other meals, extra leftovers to bring to work for lunch, and of course more money saved at the grocery store. Under my "30% more mileage" assumption above, just a month or two of regular use should be enough to recover the full cost of a reasonably priced rice cooker.

So if you don't own a rice cooker already, consider getting one! Make this tool one of your critical few.

Related Posts:
How to Apply the 80/20 Rule to Cooking
How to Make Fried Rice
How to Make a Mole Sauce: Intense, Exotic and Surprisingly Easy to Make
Eight Tips to Make Cooking At Home Laughably Cheap: The Economics of Cooking, Part 2
The Rice Cooker: Addendum



* Full disclosure: if you enter Amazon via a link on my blog and buy something, I'll get a small commission on that purchase. Please think of it as my "tip jar"--and thanks so much to readers for all of your support.

CK Food Links--Friday July 11, 2008

I'm going to try a new feature here at CK and run an occasional links post of any particularly good recipes and other food- (and non-food) related sites I think are worth passing along.

Many of you already know that I have just a little bit more time on my hands these days--hopefully I can put all this extra websurfing I'm doing to good use by helping locate some of the good stuff out there in cyberspace.
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Two spectacular and highly original margarita variants from Well Fed:
1) Smoky Grilled Grapefruit Margarita
2) The Sueño
To borrow a quote from the late, great George Carlin, "One tequila, two tequila, three tequila, floor."

CheapHealthyGood: 20 Cheap, Healthy Dishes Made From 10 Pantry Staples
With limited space in her pantry, Kris at CHG shows how she can make a preposterously wide range of dishes from a modest stash of inexpensive staples. This is a classic example of 80/20 thinking, and her post makes for pragmatic advice that anyone can put to good use.

Bacon Chocolate Chip Cookies with Maple Cinnamon Glaze from Never Bashful With Butter:
What's fascinating to me is the variety of reactions to this recipe, ranging from horror at the blasphemy of combining bacon with a chocolate chip cookie, to intense curiosity at such a bizarre food combination. I'm still reeling from reading it.

The Human Mirror:
Nothing to do with cooking, and admittedly this has been picked up by some other sites already, but this is a world-class prank. And it's so New York.

Lord of the Wings
An Ontario-based blogger in search of the perfect chicken wing. Could there possibly be a better idea for a blog? Includes wings and hot sauce reviews with an elaborate ratings scale--including "burn chronology" (I can tell I'd like this guy). I particularly enjoyed reading about his pilgrimmage to Buffalo, NY, and his intense disappointment with his visit to the restaurant that was supposedly the birthplace of the chicken wing:

So, like with all religions, my faith was somewhat shattered. Fortunately, I have had excellent wings elsewhere in the world. Don't get me wrong, The Anchor Bar is a cherished site, it has given a gift to the world that the world can never repay. But in the evolutionary chart, the wing has definitely grown up since leaving Buffalo.

And I thought he'd complain about the weather. Anyone who's ever gotten their hopes up a bit too high and had them dashed should sympathize.

Beef and Beer Stew

Today's recipe, from the Wall Street Journal a few months ago, fits most of Casual Kitchen's key constraints for new recipes: it has to be relatively easy to make, it must contain relatively easy-to-find ingredients, and while it doesn't have to be laughably cheap, it should be reasonably inexpensive.

However, it's even better when the dish has an original or unusual combination of tastes. And that, in my opinion, is the key strength of this recipe with its rich and hearty combination of beef and beer--two of cooking's most glorious ingredients!
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Beef and Beer Stew
(moderately modified from The Wall Street Journal)

Ingredients:
6 strips bacon,
3 lbs beef chuck, cut into 2-inch cubes
Ground black pepper to taste

2 onions, halved and sliced
8 whole garlic cloves
1/4 cup tomato paste
1/4 cup white flour
1/4 cup red wine vinegar
2 Tablespoons brown sugar

2 12-ounce bottles of dark beer
2 cups beef or vegetable stock
1/2 teaspoon ground thyme

Vegetable bundle:
2-3 carrots
2-3 celery stalks
6 sprigs fresh flat-leaf parsley
2 bay leaves

Directions:
1) Fry bacon in a non-stick pan on medium heat until lightly browned. While bacon is cooking, season beef with black pepper (you can prep the veggies here also to save time). Set bacon aside. Increase heat to high, add the beef to the pan, and brown beef on all sides. Set beef aside.

2) Transfer any remaining fat and cooking liquid from the non-stick pan into a large pot. Turn heat down to medium, add onions and cook until they are limp and browned. Add garlic and cook for 2-3 more minutes. Add tomato paste and cook for another 2 minutes, stirring regularly and scraping the pan bottom to prevent sticking. Then add the meat and flour and cook another 2 minutes, stirring constantly.

3) Add the vinegar, brown sugar, beef (or vegetable) stock, ground thyme, and all but 1/4 cup of the beer.

4) Using twine or several loops of thread, tie the carrots, celery, parsley and bay leaves into a bundle and add to the pot. Bring to a boil, reduce heat and simmer, covered, for 90 minutes. Stir occasionally to prevent sticking.

5) Remove the carrot-celery bundle from the stew (but feel free to eat these veggies as a side dish!). Add the remaining 1/4 cup of beer and season to taste with additional pepper if desired. Serve into bowls and garnish with the cooked bacon, broken into pieces.

Serves 8
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Three brief recipe notes:
1) Be sure to use a good quality dark beer. No cans of Bud. We used Yuengling Black and Tan in our stew and it came out ridiculously well.

2) The original recipe instructs you to discard the veggie bundle. Utter foolishness. You haven't lived until you've eaten carrots and celery soaked in a beer and beef bath for an hour and a half. These tender little guys (especially the carrots) tasted almost as good as the soup itself.

3) Once again kudos to the Wall Street Journal for another home run recipe. Who says corporate tools can't cook?

Related Posts:
How to Tell if a Recipe is Worth Cooking With Five Easy Questions
How to Modify a Recipe Part 3: Granola Before and After
A Can of Bud

How can I support Casual Kitchen?
If you enjoy reading Casual Kitchen, tell a friend and spread the word! You can also support me by purchasing items from Amazon.com via links on this site, or by linking to me or subscribing to my RSS feed. Finally, you can consider submitting this article, or any other article you particularly enjoyed here, to bookmarking sites like del.icio.us, digg or stumbleupon. Thank you for your support!

All-Time Least Popular Posts of Casual Kitchen

Just for fun, here's a list of the least popular posts on Casual Kitchen. These are the posts that have the highest bounce rates, lowest time on page and least pageviews.

How to Make Your Own Tabasco Sauce
Be sure to read the captivating discussion in the comments section about being careful what you touch (your eyes, nether regions, etc.) after working with hot peppers.

Chocoholics Anonymous: The Chocolate Fast, Day 13
I thought my attempt to go 30 days without eating any chocolate would make for great blogging material. I mean, you don't understand what a monumental exercise of personal willpower this was! Unfortunately, the entire project was essentially met with a collective yawn from readers. Laura's theory was that the series of posts made me look like a wimp. Which I was.

Chocoholics Anonymous: Salmonella?
Eww. What was I thinking posting this?

Corned Beef and Cabbage
I think the problem with this post was that I lacked the credibility (on many levels) to write it. First of all, I'm not Irish. Second, I spend a lot of time on this blog celebrating healthy, inexpensive food, part-time vegetarianism, and cutting back on salt. And then I post one of the meatiest, fattiest, saltiest and most expensive recipes out there. But let me tell you, this recipe is so good that I'll put up with being called a hypocrite if I can have it just once a year on St. Patrick's Day.

Chocoholics Anonymous: Day 31 and the END of the Chocolate Fast!
Ironically, these "chocoholics anonymous" posts were so unpopular that May 2007 turned out to be the lowest trafficked month of the entire history of Casual Kitchen.

How can I support Casual Kitchen?
If you enjoy reading Casual Kitchen, tell a friend and spread the word! You can also support me by purchasing items from Amazon.com via links on this site, or by linking to me or subscribing to my RSS feed. Finally, you can consider submitting this article, or any other article you particularly enjoyed here, to bookmarking sites like del.icio.us, digg or stumbleupon. Thank you for your support!

How to Make an Arrabbiata Sauce

This spicy and delicious sauce can be made in a few bare minutes, making it a classic heavy rotation recipe for us here at Casual Kitchen. An arrabbiata sauce (often mistakenly spelled arrabiata) can be served with practically any kind of pasta, although it goes particularly well with penne to make the classic Italian dish penne all'arrabbiata.

The word arrabbiata means "angry" (or even better, "enraged") in English. But that's about the opposite of how you'll feel after you make this preposterously easy, yet distinctive, sauce.
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Arrabbiata Sauce
(modified from 365 Ways to Cook Pasta*)

1/4 cup olive oil
2 cloves garlic, minced
1-2 teaspoons crushed dried (hot) red pepper (note: if you want a milder sauce with just a hint of heat, use 1 teaspoon. For a more meaningfully spicy sauce, go with 2 teaspoons)

1 28 ounce can whole peeled tomatoes (see modifications below)
Fresh parsley for garnish
Salt to taste (optional)

1) Heat oil in a non-stick pan over medium-low heat. Add the garlic and red pepper. Saute, stirring until garlic turns golden.

2) Put the whole tomatoes into a food processor or a blender and pulse briefly until smooth. Add to the garlic, hot pepper and oil mixture.

3) Simmer, stirring occasionally, for 20-25 minutes. Serve over the pasta of your choice.

Makes enough sauce for approximately 4-5 servings. Can be easily doubled or tripled.
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This is the type of simple elegant sauce that can cause Italian food purists to wax rhapsodic. Although Casual Kitchen is perhaps more likely to rhapsodize over Chocolate Mousse or food-wonk concepts like applying the 80/20 Principle to cooking, we will happily admit that there is truly something arresting about a simple, delicious sauce like this.

All the better that it's healthy, inexpensive and--best of all--ridiculously easy to make.

And if you really want to wow your audience, you can take this sauce up to heavenly heights by using fresh (preferably garden- or locally-grown) tomatoes, preferably pressed through a strainer or a food mill (this strips out the tomato seeds, which can offend the sensibilities of many Italian sauce purists).

The last time I made this dish was in a quadruple batch for a 20-person family reunion dinner. Obviously for a group that big, one has to go for expedience, and straining fresh tomatoes is out of the question. But this sauce, even when made with canned tomatoes, still tastes divine. And best of all, because this sauce scales well and tastes even better the next day, it's simply perfect for dinner parties. Enjoy!

Related Posts:
Pasta Puttanesca
Italian Sausage and Tortellini Soup
The Dinner Party: 10 Tips to Make Cooking for Company Fun and Easy
How to Apply the 80/20 Rule to Cooking

Countdown: The Top Ten Alcoholic Drinks of Summer

There's nothing better than an ice cold alcoholic beverage on a hot summer day. Here are the top ten cocktails and mixed drink recipes that will ease your pain and beat the summertime heat.

10) The Tom Collins
You can skip the overpriced (and overly sweetened) store bought Tom Collins mix. Instead, try making one the old-fashioned way. You'll love this thirst-annihilating combination of lemon juice, powdered sugar and gin.

Juice of 1 lemon
2 teaspoons powdered sugar
2 oz gin
Shake with ice, strain in a highball glass
Add several ice cubes, top off with carbonated water and stir
Garnish with a slice of orange and a maraschino cherry

9) The Fuzzy Navel
It may not be the manliest drink around, but on a really hot summer day it's okay to bend the gender rules a bit and enjoy this easy-to-make thirst-quencher.

3 oz Peach Schnapps
3 oz orange juice
Combine and pour over ice in a highball glass.

8) The Tequila Sunrise
Here's another refreshing orange-juice based cocktail, but this concoction packs a more powerful punch with tequila as its alcohol base. And not only does this drink quench your thirst, it offers attractive visual effects too. Don't forget to "stir to complete your sunrise!"

1-2 shots tequila
4-6 ounces orange juice
1/2 shot grenadine

Pour tequila and orange juice over ice.
Gently pour in grenadine and let it sink to the bottom of the glass.
Stir to complete your sunrise.

7) The Mint Julep
No drink is more venerated than this signature drink of the Kentucky Derby. Best with shaved or crushed ice, never ice cubes.

5 fresh mint leaves
1 teaspoon powdered sugar
About 4 ounces bourbon
Crushed or shaved ice
Mint sprig, for garnish

Place sugar, mint leaves and about one ounce of the bourbon in the bottom of chilled glass. Muddle or crush the mint to create a thick, green paste in glass. Add crushed or shaved ice. Place a short straw all the way to bottom of cup, into the green mint paste.

Pour the remaining 3 ounces of bourbon over the ice. Add more crushed ice to fill the glass. Garnish with a fresh mint sprig.

6) Hard Lemonade
Lemonade, in addition to being the perfect thirst quencher, is a great blank slate for a wide variety of alcoholic additives. Try adding 1-2 shots of rum, vodka, or even Southern Comfort to an eight-ounce glass of lemonade with ice. Stir and enjoy!

5) The Strawberry Daiquiri
Have you ever tried making a strawberry daiquiri with freshly picked strawberries? Pure heaven.

3 ounces light rum
1 ounce lime juice
2 tsp powdered sugar
2-3 ounces fresh strawberries

Place ingredients into a blender with 1 cup of ice, pulse until smooth.
Pour into a highball glass. Serves 2.

4) The Mojito
Cynics might argue that the mojito is getting a bit too popular these days, but there's no denying that this is simply a great drink. The mix of mint, rum and lime juice is truly refreshing. For a related drink that's not quite as well known, see the Caipirinha.

Several mint leaves
2 tsp sugar
3 tbsp fresh lime juice
1 1/2 oz light rum
Club soda

Crush the mint leaves in the bottom of a highball glass. Add the sugar, lime juice and rum, stir well. Top with ice and a splash of club soda. Garnish with a lime slice and a mint sprig.

3) The Margarita
My wife would say that margaritas are great drinks all year 'round, but I think they are especially delicious during the hot summer. Be sure to avoid those horrible fructose-laden "margarita mixes" and go for the real thing. And drink it on the rocks with extra salt.

3 parts tequila
1 part Triple Sec
2 parts lime juice

Rub rim of cocktail glass with lime rind, dip rim in salt. Shake ingredients with ice and strain into glass.

2) Sangria
There are as many sangria recipes out there as there are people who make it, but I'll share with you a solid, simple, and not-too-sweet red sangria recipe:

2 oranges sliced, plus the juice of a third orange
Any other chopped or sliced assorted fruits you have handy (recommend: limes, lemons, apples, peaches or pears)
1 bottle inexpensive red wine
1/8 to 1/4 cup granulated sugar, depending on taste
1/4 cup triple sec
Add everything to a large pitcher and stir.
Chill for at least a few hours, or preferably overnight.

Cook's Illustrated apparently did a series of sangria taste tests, using red wines of varying price and quality. They found that the cheaper the red wine, the better the sangria! Now that's my kind of drink. (On a separate note: does anybody know if Cook's Illustrated is hiring?)

And of course you don't have to stop at red sangria. Try white sangria (using white wine), or if you have some Blue Curacao, you can add it to white sangria for an exotic-looking blue sangria.

And the very best summertime mixed drink is.....

1) The Gin and Tonic
Just listening to the clinking ice and gentle fizz of a gin and tonic is a cool, relaxing experience, and when that gin starts to enter your bloodstream, it's pure anesthesia. Welcome to the most elegant drink of the summer.

1-3 ounces gin, depending on your preference
Lime wedge
Squeeze lime wedge into glass
Add ice cubes, fill with tonic water.

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I'm sure there are plenty of other drinks that could be great for a hot summer day, but I really need to finish off this post and make myself a drink.

What are your favorite summer drinks?



Related Posts:
Countdown: Top Ten Low Alcohol Drinks
Countdown: The Top Ten Best No-Alcohol Drinks
The Gimlet
The Gin and Tonic

How can I support Casual Kitchen?
If you enjoy reading Casual Kitchen, tell a friend and spread the word! You can also support me by purchasing items from Amazon.com via links on this site, or by linking to me or subscribing to my RSS feed. Finally, you can consider submitting this article, or any other article you particularly enjoyed here, to bookmarking sites like del.icio.us, digg or stumbleupon. Thank you for your support!

Cooking Like the Stars? Don't Waste Your Money

Is celebrity chef branded cookware worth the extra money? This was the subject of a recent article in the Wall Street Journal.

The article raised two thought-provoking questions:

1) Is it worth it to pay up for a cookware set endorsed by celebrity chefs like Rachel Ray or Emeril Lagasse?
2) What do you really get for your money when you buy chef-branded cookware?

The surprising answers to these questions were 1) no, and 2) surprisingly little.

"A star endorsement doesn't mean stellar cookware."
The anecdotes from the article are depressing. The silicone handle on Rachel Ray's frying pan catches fire during a test use. Emeril Lagasse's 8-inch frying pan bends "like an accordion." And Marcus Samuelsson's 10-piece set, while of solid quality and design, retails for $500.

Tales like these make me want to crawl into my cupboard and hug my humble Revere cookware.

Neither I nor the WSJ mean to pick on these great celebrity chefs who collectively have done so much to bring great cooking to the masses. But let's be reasonable about the relative value of the products they hawk.

If you're trying to cook on a budget, or if you're trying to build out your kitchen at a reasonable cost, don't trip yourself up with a large capital outlay for overpriced cooking gear. And, most importantly, don't pay up for suspect merchandise. If you buy poor quality cookware, or pay too much for what you do buy, it can suck all the fun out of cooking for years.

Instead, stick to a basic but high-quality set of cooking gear that doesn't include extra branding and advertising costs. In our kitchen we've been overjoyed with the quality and durability of our reasonably priced Revere and T-Fall cookware, which we've been happily using for nearly two decades.

You don't need the stamp of approval from a celebrity chef to cook exceptional meals at home.

Related Posts:
Mastering Kitchen Setup Costs
When High-Fat Food ... Can Actually Be Healthy For You
The Crockpot: A Siren Call for Single People
How to Modify a Recipe