One of the most popular of all cooking appliances on the market for a number of years has been the rice cooker. This popularity is not without good reason since rice is such a basic staple of so many different types of cuisines and is even part of the culture of many countries around the globe.
As well as rice being such as basic staple and necessary food to so many cultures and nations, the reality is that it is not particularly easy to make a batch of rice that is nice and fluffy and not sticky. Rice cookers are a wonderful answer to both the problems of cooking rice correctly and the fact that so many folks rely on rice as a basic part of their diets. A rice cooker also reduces the overall preparation time required to make perfect rice while making clean up easier as well. In addition, a good rice cooker makes it easier to add rice as a side dish to any meal that has been cooked in both standard old pots and pans or in specialty cooking devices such as electric deep fryers, fish cookers or slow cookers.
Due to their popularity and the fact that there are several manufacturers of rice cookers, there are plenty of styles and models of these marvelous devices from which to choose. You may opt for a rice cooker that is designed to just make one or two servings at a time, which is perfect for single folks or couples without children. On the other hand, households that have a dinner table surrounded by hungry family members, a larger model might be more suitable.
However, for the majority of home kitchens, the standard rice cooker model is just perfect. Most of the kitchen models are compact so that they do not take up too much of the valuable counter space in a busy family kitchen, and there are usually a number of colors that you can choose from so that it fits into the overall decor theme of the kitchen.
Practically all restaurant kitchens are equipped with the large capacity, heavy-duty versions of different kitchen appliances, such as commercial fryers and commercial-size rice cookers. These commercial versions are built for constant daily use and high volumes of meal preparation. In restaurants that serve rice with just about every menu item, such as in oriental and Chinese restaurants, there are often several rice cooker units installed in order to keep up with the quantities of rice required.