The Pink Flyer

Whether you are a veteran chef or a cooking rookie, you need to know how to use an electric oven to cook properly. The oven is a longstanding staple in the kitchen and produces some of the best food we get. A few years ago, the convection oven came onto the market and it combined power with speed. It offered the traditional power of an oven with a system that circulated air around the food. Some models even came with microwave options and a new type of appliance was born. In fact, you would be hard pressed to find any modern kitchen that did not have a convection model installed.

Some people have been concerned that new technology would be the end of old recipes and traditional cooking. But another school of thought believes that new techniques will only serve to help cooks by making cooking more efficient. It’s hard to sway cooking purist who love slow-cooking, but it’s also difficult to ignore obvious convenience. Today there is a new form of cooking that comes in the form of halogen ovens. These handy little devices are becoming increasingly popular for the convenience and cooking power they provide.

Halogen ovens are very much like convection ovens except t hey are much more powerful. The result is faster coking, more features, and saving more energy – much more so than using electric ovens alone. You can even cook food from a frozen state using a halogen oven. What’s more, you can watch your food while it cooks through the glass casing. These new ovens are also very easy to clean and offer self cleaning features for those you are interested. Evidently, they were made with cooking and traditional in mind since they don’t ruin old recipes at all. In fact they serve to enhance your food and save you time so that you can do other things while your food cooks to perfection.

Japan, an entire nation of very picky rice eaters runs almost exclusively on Zojirushi rice cookers.  This has to say something about its quality.  In fact, having tried various brands, Zojirushi are now the only rice cookers that I would ever buy.  The quality of the finished rice product is always perfect, I’m not saying that other rice cooker brands don’t make a quality rice cooker, I’ve just found that comparatively, Zojirushi produces a higher quality rice.

A large portion of Zojirushi rice cookers are higher end, made for those who love eating a variety of rice and who care about the end product when cooking.  However they do make a number of more simple, cheaper rice cookers as well.

Zojirushi rice cookers of different prices come with different features, the main features to look for are below:

The Ability to Warm

Just about every Zojirushi rice cooker that’s out there comes with a warming ability.  However, some of the cheaper models only can keep rice warm after it’s finished cooking whereas the higher-end models come with the ability to re-warm rice or other items.  But no matter what rice cooker you use make sure to take care when using the warming function with only 1 or 2 cups of rice as it could dry it out.

The Steamer Feature

A feature that’s becoming much more popular in Zojirushi rice cookers is the steamer.  This is essentially a plate that usually sits on the rim of the cooking pot that allows steam to pass through.  The steamer is great for cooking fish, vegetables and rice that has better texture when steamed over when boiled such as Thai sticky rice and Jasmine rice.

Micom Technology such as Fuzzy Logic and Neuro Fuzzy

Fuzzy technology is very common in Zojirushi rice cookers, in fact, just about all mid to upper-range models come with it.  If you are particular about the way your rice comes out then you shouldn’t get any rice cooker without this technology.  Neuro Fuzzy is a newer version of Fuzzy Logic but both work very well.  Rice cookers with this feature are able to constantly update the temperature and cooking time, thus allowing it to always produce a perfect pot of rice.  It also helps reduce the impact of poor measuring or other possible human errors.

The Power of Induction Heating

This feature is typically only available on the higher-end Zojirushi rice cookers.  Contrary to most standard rice cookers those with induction heating don’t have a heater coil near the bottom of the cooking pot.  Instead, it uses a technology that allows a very uniform heating and thus a uniform cooking, preventing rice on the edges of the pot from getting cooked more than that in the center.

Again, Zojirushi rice cookers are the best in my book, finding the right one for you can sometimes seem a bit complicated.  I hope that the features described in this article help you in finding the perfect rice cooker for you.