Rice Cooker FTW!!

my first and possibly best recipe for it

I truly believe that some sorts of cooking requires a knack. Like making pastry, baking cakes or cooking rice. My mother has the cooking rice knack. I have not inherited it.

So I asked for a rice cooker for my birthday - a Yum Asia Panda Mini rice cooker - and it is absolutely terrific and I love it.

Here is the best thing I’ve made with it so far.

Aromatic chicken with rice

For 2

Equipment

1 x Yum Asia Panda Mini rice cooker. Other rice cookers are available but this is the cutest.

Ingredients

1 x cup white long grain rice (measure with the cup provided with the cooker)

some chicken stock - about 200ml

50ml light soy sauce

25ml cooking mirin

25ml brown rice vinegar

2 garlic cloves, grated

A stump of ginger, grated

2 or 3 boneless chicken thighs

3 x spring onions

1 small head of pak choi

1 star anise fruit

1 tsp brown sugar

1 Combine the soy, mirin, vinegar and sugar, ginger and garlic and then stir till the sugar is dissolved

2 Marinade the chicken in this for as long as you can - even half an hour is better than nothing.

3 Rinse the rice and add to the cooking pot

4 Pour in chicken stock over the rice until it reaches the designated mark on the side (this will make sense when you have a rice cooker).

5 Lift the chicken out of the marinade, scraping any from the surface and back into the marinade dish, and set aside

6 Add the soy mixture/marinade to the rice and then toss in the star anise fruit

7 Chop the pak choi and the spring onions (roughly) and toss these in

8 Lay the chicken over the vegetables, close the lid, select “Long Grain” and hit GO!!

Absolutely freaking delicious. PLEASE use the comment box below to pass on your best rice cooker recipe!

p.s. Do not be fooled by the “mini” in the Yum Asia Panda Mini description: 1.5 cups of uncooked rice is enough for a family of 4.