Cooking rice

Every apartment comes equipped with a rice cooker. I got a whirlwind explanation from my co-teacher on my first day in Korea. Due to jet lag and culture shock I basically forgot everything she said on how to use this device so I thought it would be helpful to document this for future teachers.

I usually add about 1/2 cup of rice and twice that amount of water. I don't get very scientific about the proportion so long as there is at least twice as much water than rice. The cooker will boil off excess water. Once you have rice and water in the pot, you close the lid and give the big knob on top a quarter turn to the left. After you turn the knob, the light next to the tan button on the right will light up. Then all you do is hit the tan button once and the red light in the lower left of the gray oval will come on. That's all you need to do.

I've never timed it, but it seems like it takes about 20 minutes to make rice. At some point in the process the cooker will beep once and then vent steam up into the air. It'll probably scare you a bit the first time it happens. A few minutes later you'll hear a series of beeps (four shorts beeps and one long) and then it's safe to turn the knob to the right and take out the rice.

When the lid is open all the lights are off. However, if you close the lid again it goes into a warming mode to keep any remaining rice warm. You can tell because the light on the upper left button will come on. If you want to be sure that the power is off press the power button once. The power button is the lower right button under the tan button. You'll see the light in the upper left go off.

The Front with both lights lit up.


The top. The silver bell-shaped piece is the vent that lets the steam out.


A look at the back of the cooker. Excess water (with rice particles) will drip into the clear plastic container. Every few weeks it's a good idea to detach this piece and rinse it out. It's easy to snap back into place.