Perfect No-Koan Brown Rice

LIKE A LOT OF PEOPLE, I'm trying to consume less these days. This is not just for financial reasons (though spending less is a substantial side-benefit) but also for the sake of the planet.

So I'm reluctant to acquire kitchen appliances. Yet, even so, of the relatively small number of kitchen appliances I do own, I notice that there are only a couple I use frequently. Both of them are shown in the photo; I don't think it's an accident that they're both small enough to fit on my kitchen counter. The small food processor with the dark blue base (at the back of the photo) lives on the counter full time and gets the most use. Even though it will process only about a cup at a time, I often use it in preference to getting out the large, heavy food processor I inherited from my mother or even the immersion blender I bought at a second-hand store. Let's face it: The tools we are most likely to use are those that are right in front of us.

The appliance I use next most often is the small rice cooker in the foreground of the photo. It doesn't live on the counter, but being lightweight it is very easy to retrieve from storage. I think this encourages me to use it more often than I would if it were large and/or heavy. Also, being small, it doesn't take up much room on the counter. So I can set it up and put it to work without having to give up a lot of counter space. The take-home message here: When buying small appliances, the smaller the better. Not only are tiny appliances cheaper, but you're more likely to use them.

Even if the rice cooker were bigger, however, I would probably still use it a lot. We eat a lot of brown rice, and although it's certainly possible to make brown rice in an ordinary pot, it's a lot easier to do it in a small rice cooker such as this one. This is because a rice cooker solves a problem that has long plagued people who cook rice: I call it the brown rice koan. Namely, for the rice to cook properly, you need to keep the lid on the pot. However, to check to see whether the rice is done, most people need to take the lid off the pot. Hence the koan: How to take the lid off the pot while not taking the lid off the pot?

Of course, if you've been cooking brown rice with an ordinary pot for a while, you know the answer to this koan. The trick is to use your sense of smell. When the rice is done, it starts to toast, and if you're right there next to the pot you can smell it before it starts to burn. Trouble is, you have to hang around the pot waiting for the toasting smell to happen. If you get distracted and don't notice it soon enough, burned rice. Good spiritual training, maybe, but not such good eating.

A rice cooker removes the koan from rice cooking. Put the ingredients in, put the lid on, turn it on, and wait for it to turn itself off. (Mine actually turns itself to "warm," which is convenient but not essential.) When it turns itself off, the rice is finished. Meanwhile, you do not have to hang around, sniffing the air over the pot like a rice-obsessed hound.

A small rice cooker like the one pictured costs very little. I think ours cost about $15, maybe less. It makes four cups of rice, which is enough for two meals for two people. This cooker doesn't do a good job on smaller amounts of rice, so we usually make four cups and save the leftovers. I often have them for breakfast.

Here is a great recipe for tasty brown rice made in the rice cooker:

Two cups Basmati brown rice. (Basmati rice has a wonderful smell when cooking.)
Four cups fat-free chicken broth. (Vegetarians use vegetable broth.)

Place both in rice cooker. Put lid on rice cooker. Leave until rice cooker turns itself off, which usually takes about an hour.