As someone who lives in an apartment with a small kitchen and who cooks almost every day, I’m always on the hunt for that holy-grail appliance, something that can replace my stove, rice cooker, and microwave. (I’m content to have a dedicated machine for making coffee. But other than that, I long for just one thing to clean.) So I was intrigued by Zojirushi’s Multicooker, which promised not only to make rice, the base of almost every meal for me, in any form I could possibly desire, but also to sear, braise, and slow cook. In my mind, it was a Crockpot on steroids. Or like an Instant Pot, but without the pressure cooking.
Roundish, like a cross between a rice cooker and a slow cooker, and 15 inches in diameter, this is a large appliance and can be unwieldy. It’s probably more suitable for a house and a family of four than an apartment and a household of two humans and one Chihuahua.
The multicooker arrived to me in New York City, where I had a kitchen that was too small to give it any countertop space. It lived in the closet for about a month until I moved to D.C., where I placed it upon my electric stovetop (which remained off for the week) and it took over the whole cooktop.
It has a six-quart capacity, which translates to being an eight-cup rice cooker. It has a much more powerful heating plate than your typical rice cooker. It takes up more space on my countertop than my ten-cup Zojirushi rice cooker. There are presets for sauté/sear, simmer, low/slow cook, steam, white rice, brown rice, quinoa, and yogurt. There are up and down buttons to adjust time and another set for temperature if the presets aren’t what you’re looking for.
I own a fleet of Zojirushi rice cookers (besides the ten-cup, I have a five-cup and a 20-cup). I adore the brand. Its rice cookers last for years and reliably make excellent, evenly cooked, and fluffy rice. I had recently retired the rice cookers in favor of a KitchenAid Grain and Rice Cooker, which has become my favorite appliance, so this multicooker had large shoes to fill.
Day 1
I’m a chef who does a lot of recipe development, and I was working on a recipe for kalua pig and cabbage. This is my go-to Crockpot dish because slow cookers can replicate the low, slow effect of an imu, or Hawaiian underground oven, which steams and smokes traditional kalua pig. I set the multicooker on its slow-cook function. The multicooker can’t smoke, but I duplicated the smokiness with a couple tablespoons of lapsang souchong tea to great effect.
Unlike a basic slow cooker, the multicooker gave me the option to first sear my pork on the sauté/sear function before then switching to a low/slow option for the bulk of the cooking (six hours). After the pork was cooked in a bath of chicken broth, I added a chopped-up head of cabbage to wilt for another hour. I made enough kalua pig and cabbage to last my husband and me three dinners and fill our freezer with leftovers.
Day 2
I made a small pot of rice (three cups; my go-to is Lotus Foods organic brown jasmine) and ate some of it, then added a quart of chicken broth to turn the leftovers into congee using the low/slow setting. This was as straightforward as making rice and congee in any old rice cooker.
Day 3
I made yogurt. This was a fail. I followed Zojirushi’s recipe, using a gallon of milk and some Greek yogurt. The yogurt setting preheats the milk for four hours, then you add some yogurt for the cultures, and at the end of the day you should have lots of yogurt. I thought I followed the directions, but quite possibly I didn’t. I don’t want to waste another gallon of milk, so I will continue purchasing my yogurt from the grocery store.
Day 4
For breakfast this morning, I tried frying tortillas and eggs in the multicooker, and it kind of worked: All the food got cooked, but it was hard to reach into a pot and flip items. The pot is stainless steel so you have to wait for it to heat up, then add oil and then food so nothing sticks. With the depth of the pot being four inches, it’s maybe not great for frying eggs.
Day 5
I wanted steamed dumplings for lunch, and I have a freezer full of MìLà dumplings. This was my first chance to use the multicooker’s metal steamer basket. I filled the pot with about 750 mililiters of water (according to the steamed-dumpling directions in the handbook), lined the steamer basket with parchment paper, and placed it inside the pot. I set the multicooker to its steam function and it started preheating.
It fits up to 12 dumplings inside the basket and takes about ten minutes to heat up and 25 minutes to steam the dumplings thoroughly (and, of course, you can set its timer for the steam cycle). It’s definitely easier to steam in this pot than a typical rice cooker because of its timer and the fact that the pot has two handles (whereas I use a dish towel to pinch the hot edge of a handle-less rice-cooker pot). The potstickers came out perfectly with an internal temperature of 180 degrees after 25 minutes.
Day 6
I tried popcorn. The ideal temperature for popcorn is between 400 and 460 degrees Fahrenheit, and the highest setting on the multicooker is 410, so I set it on preheat for 410. I waited for it to preheat for about five minutes, then coated the bottom of the pot with a tablespoon of olive oil and a pat of butter. Once they started to spit, I added my popcorn kernels, used a spatula to coat the kernels with oil and butter, and replaced the multicooker’s lid. Another five minutes later, the kernels started to pop and dance, then five minutes after that, the popcorn was more or less popped with few kernels left behind and no burnt kernels. Popcorn was a success.
Day 7
I love the quinoa that my KitchenAid Grain and Rice Cooker makes, so the Zojirushi had stiff competition. Unlike the KitchenAid, which automatically dispenses the correct amount of water needed to cook quinoa, you do need to measure out the water for the Zojirushi. It expects you to cook at least three cups according to the demarcated lines on the inside of the pot, but I was down to my last cup of quinoa. I put it in anyway and set the multicooker on its quinoa function. It automatically set a timer for 50 minutes. The quinoa came out fluffy and perfectly cooked. It stuck a little more to the multicooker’s pot than to the KitchenAid’s pot.
Verdict: This is a rather large appliance for a small apartment kitchen, but it’s great for a house. If you don’t already own a slow cooker, I’d get one of these. I like the various settings for foods that I regularly consume, but I’ll stick with store-bought yogurt.
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