sometimes you feel like a nut

June 17, 2007 3:54 AM

How can I make boiled peanuts using my rice cooker? And other unusual things not indicated in the operators' manual?

I have a tiny little kitchen in NYC and don't want to buy a bunch of gizmos, but a rice cooker is pretty essential to my life, but how can I maximize my counter-top appliance's potential? I love boiled peanuts but 4-7 hours of stove top cooking both appalls and frightens me (don't handle committment well!) and I'm not looking to get a crock pot. Wild theories as well as tried and true tricks appreciated!

posted by DenOfSizer to Food & Drink (14 answers total)

Hmm, never been a peanut-boiler meself (despite those rumours) but we use the rice cooker to make all sorts of 粥 (rice porridge aka congee {link to non-veg example}), and have a steamer layer so you can do veg or warm up dumplings, buns etc at the same time.
posted by Abiezer at 4:10 AM on June 17, 2007

Actually, poking around that site I linked, they have lots of rice cooker recipes, though obviously only just found them so no testimony as to taste or ease of making.
posted by Abiezer at 4:19 AM on June 17, 2007

When I was in college I used to make Kraft macaroni and cheese in my rice cooker. This was not the fancy kind of rice cooker, mind you, but the one with a glass lid that lifts off. I'd put the noodles and the water in, put the top on (because unfortunately the rice cooker wouldn't turn on without the top), and keep watch over the noodles until they were ready. Then it was business as usual.

That's the only thing I can think of, and it's gross. Unless you're interested in my recipe for peanut butter rice soup? It's really good. Seriously.
posted by brina at 5:45 AM on June 17, 2007

Get this book:

Ultimate Rice Cooker Cookbook. It's awesome.
posted by AaRdVarK at 7:00 AM on June 17, 2007

Unless you're interested in my recipe for peanut butter rice soup?

Yes please.
posted by The corpse in the library at 9:44 AM on June 17, 2007

Rice Cooker Bread
posted by necessitas at 9:48 AM on June 17, 2007

Rice cookers are not designed to boil water for hours on end...and to make good boiled peanuts you need to do just that.

As to other rice cooker recipes, I have used several from this: http://web1.panasonic.com/food_service/cmo/chef_support/recipes/rice_cooker_recipes.pdf
posted by wylde21 at 2:09 PM on June 17, 2007

don't want to buy a bunch of gizmos

Err, the only gizmo you need to make boiled peanuts is a big pot.

And why do you think using a rice cooker would shorten the cooking time?

Lastly, 4-7 hours seems excessive and arbitrary. 2-3 seems about right to me. I'd double check my recipe if I were you.
posted by wfrgms at 5:28 PM on June 17, 2007

No opinion on boiled peanuts, but that Beth Hensperger rice cooker cookbook is outstanding (as is her bread bible and slow cooker book).

The best tip I got out of it is getting a rice cooker with a porridge mode. With a porridge mode, you can use the rice cooker for making polenta and risotto (among other things). The results are not quite as good as by hand with a pot, but very very close, and with significantly less effort.
posted by Caviar at 6:45 AM on June 18, 2007

Yeah, that big pot you use for boiled peanuts will also work for mac-n-cheese. On which topic I hasten to remark that the only way making it from scratch is harder than making Kraft Orange Death is that you have to cut the cheese yourself. Heh.

1. Set some water to boiling. A gallon or so.
2. Cut cheese into centimeter cubes. Or grate it. A cup or more. If you want, you can chop up ham or broccoli or something too.
3. That water boilin'? Good, throw a bunch of macaroni in there. Not so much that it can't swirl around.
4. Put a couple tablespoons of butter over a little heat in a saucepan or skillet or frying pan.
5. Yer water's boiling again. Turn the burner down. It'll still boil.
6. That butter's melted. Add a couple tablespoons of flour and stir it into a golden paste.
7. To the flour paste, add a couple cups of cold milk. Lower the heat. Stir until it all comes together in a smooth sauce.
8. Throw the cheese (and the ham/broccoli/something) into the sauce. Give it a few stirs over the next few minutes.
9. Fish out some macaroni and try it. You want it soft but not mushy. Is it there? Good, take it off the heat and drain the water. For bonus points, rinse it with cold water.
10. Taste the sauce. It probably needs salt (start with a dime-sized pile in the palm of your hand). And pepper (start with a light dusting). Maybe paprika (you cannot use too much), or a couple drops of Tabasco sauce (however much you think you oughta). Or whole raw cloves of garlic, if that's your thing. (Start with three dozen.) Put in what you think you ought to.
11. For heaven's sake, calm down. I was sort of kidding about that garlic thing.
12. Sort of.
13. Dump the sauce all over the macaroni and mix them together.
14. Eat.

Now, yer pot is also, actually, don't tell anyone I said this, an adequate replacement for the cooking-rice dimension of the rice cooker, too. The shoguns and the legalists did not have electric appliances, and yet their rice got cooked. It's not very tricky, either. Put the rice in the pot. Add water until the waterline is 1.5 cm above the top of the rice. Add a lid. Put it on highish heat until escaping steam makes the lid rattle and muffled bubbling noises emerge from within. (Touch the lid handle to confirm this.) Lower the heat as low as you can possibly get it and do not lift the lid for at least ten minutes, probably fifteen. Or turn the heat right off and do not lift the lid for at least fifteen minutes, probably twenty. Presto, you're done.
posted by eritain at 5:35 AM on June 23, 2007

A Crock Pot, on the other hand, is countertop slow-cooking gold.
posted by eritain at 5:36 AM on June 23, 2007

My experience has been that most crockpots don't actually get hot enough. I have a nice 6-qt one that seems to work, but that's too big for most things. None of the 1-3 qt. models I've tried have actually cooked anything I've put in them. Dried beans were still rock hard after 12-14 hours on high (it wasn't the beans - another pot from the same batch cooked through fine in an hour on the stove).
posted by Caviar at 6:17 AM on June 24, 2007

They're designed for simmering, not for a rolling boil. Rolling boils are exactly what stoves are for. And softening dried beans without heat is exactly what the traditional practice of pre-soaking is for. Everything in its proper role ...
posted by eritain at 9:29 PM on June 24, 2007

This is with pre-soaking overnight.

Simmering is simmering - just short of a boil. That's how you cook beans on the stove, too. But the best these have done is about 140-160F, which is not really hot enough.

And I would say that rolling boils are just one of many things that stoves are good for. :)
posted by Caviar at 4:01 PM on June 25, 2007