Entry level induction rice cooker with solid performance
I have been a lifelong Tatung rice steamer user. For those of you unfamiliar with classic Tatung, it is THE iconic rice cooker that lived in EVERY Taiwanese household's kitchen when I was growing up. The classic Tatung is a beast that faithfully churns out rice every day without fail for decades. My parents' white Tatung was a fixture through my entire childhood cranking out rice and other steamed dishes for dinner every night. The little knob on the lever that turned on the Tatung fell off sometime during my high school years, but it kept making dinner like a champ. The plastic handle on top of the steel lid disintegrated by the time I was in college, but the Tatung kept right on working flawlessly-the heating element and metal body of the hardy device snickered at the passage of time. The Tatung finally got thrown out after I finished my postgraduate training-not because the rice cooker stopped working but because my parents decided to move back to Taiwan to take care of my 90 year old grandmother. Anyway flash forward to the gift giving season of 2024, my brother was lamenting how much he missed the trusty old family Tatung. His sentiments pretty much reflected my opinion of the old Tatung-it reliably delivered excellent rice without fail since before he was alive. The rice was never burned, and it was always fluffy. He complained about how badly his bottom of the line Aroma rice cooker burned the rice every time. He lamented that he'd tried a couple other lower end rice cooker that had the single switch to turn on the cook function but was otherwise in PERPETUAL warm mode as long as it was plugged in. They ALL burned rice. Inspired by my brother's nostalgia, I did a quick search for the ye olde style of Tatung and was absolutely floored that the price since COVID had reached $180-220 if you could actually find the size and color you wanted in stock. I currently own both the 6 cup and 11 cup Tatung models in stainless, and I paid less than $160 for both of them pre-COVID. Yes, my brother was waxing poetic about the virtues of the Tatung of old, but the crux of the message was really that he was tired of meh rice with an overcooked bottom where the rice was in contact with the cheap, crude heating element. So I resorted to plan B-choosing a solid performing, budget friendly rice cooker that would produce excellent rice and not break anyone's heart if he decided he didn't love the higher tech, modern gadget and opted to still get a Tatung later when prices would hopefully be more reasonable one day. I'd gone down the rare Japanese rice varieties rabbit hole a while back, and by extension I had gone down a bit of a rice cooker rabbit hole as well. I was curious whether micom and induction rice cookers were really that much better than my beloved, old standby stable of Tatungs. Older generation Taiwanese people are probably going to boo and hiss at me for saying that I find the Aroma Professional actually cooks rice better than my Tatungs. The rice comes out firmer with better chew when you use a 1:1 short grain rice and water ratios in the Aroma than with my Tatung that requires adding about a half cup of water to the outer reservoir of the steamer. The Aroma doesn't have all the fancy settings of the Cuckoo and Zojirushi (Yes, I have those as well). Like I said I went down a rabbit hole when it came to upping my rice game. (And yes I shelled out more for those two rice cookers than what I paid in monthly rent for my first apartment.) Anyway the Aroma can still cook mochi rice, brown rice, and forbidden rice without any problem. It's just a matter of adjusting the amount of water used while cooking under the white rice mode. BTW asian short grain brown rice comes out sweeter and firmer in this rice cooker if you cook it with 1:1 rice to water ratio on the white rice setting. I don't normally like brown rice, but I highly recommend picking up a bag of Nishiki brown rice and giving it a try with this Aroma rice maker. I could hear the frown in my brother's voice when he called me to "Thank" me for this rice cooker after it got dropped off on his front porch. After I talked him through my findings from experimentation with this rice cooker, he took this newfangled contraption out for a spin, and he now agrees with me that this Aroma makes better rice than the Tatung-no burned bottoms and rice keeps warm for hours in excellent condition. After his initial trepidation, my brother now regularly sends me photos of things he's cooked with this Aroma. My 78 year old mother would still prefer the ease of the single switch Tatung over the Aroma that requires her to push at least three buttons to choose the rice and set the cooking mode, but even she admits that the rice quality from this cooker is excellent. The rice cooker has become her new favorite kitchen toy. The key to happiness with this rice maker is figuring out how much water to add. It's best to wash the rice in a separate bowl and drain all the wash water with a sieve to add to the cooking pot. It gives you better control over exactly how much water is used in the cooking process. I find overall that I need less cooking water to achieve the rice consistency that I prefer. Also, if you soak the rice in the cooking water for a half hour in warm weather and an hour in cold weather, you'll end up with a softer rice consistency if that's your preference. If you want firmer consistency, I just skip the soaking process and cook white short grain rice a the previously discussed 1:1 ratio. I will decrease the amount of cooking water if the rice was newly harvested since it has a higher moisture content. For those who haven't gone down a rice rabbit hole, rice tends to be harvested September to October. If the bag of rice you buy states it is the New Crop, the hope is that the contents are from the current harvest year. The best sushi rice is usually about 6 months old due to reduced moisture content compared to very newly harvested rice. Also, for those who complain that it takes a long time to cook rice in the Aroma, the reality is that rice normally takes 30-45 minutes to cook regardless whether you use stovetop, cheap rice cooker, or top of the line rice cooker. For those who use Rapid Rice mode, you're sacrificing quality and texture to get to eat your rice 10 minutes earlier. The laws of physics of rice cooking don't change that significantly regardless the price tag of the cooking vessel or machine you use. Rice simply takes time to cook. If you want rice NOW, I recommend the increasingly diverse selection of pre-cooked instant rices that heat up great in the microwave. High quality instant rices when heated up following the instructions can pass for your run of the mill decently cooked rice that just came out of a budget rice cooker. Anyway the only thing I dislike about the Aroma is the big gush of hot water when you open the lid after the rice finishes cooking. I frown that condensation on the lid splashes on the cooked rice and dribbles down into the cooking reservoir. I always have a paper towel ready when I open the rice cooker to sop up the hot water from the purpose built indentation in order to minimize moisture contamination of my rice. Overall, I think this Aroma is a very good compromise between affordability and producing high quality cooked rice. This is a good choice for moving up from the basic $20-30 single switch rice cooker if you're not ready to venture in the echelons of the top end Zojirushi's or the Cuckoos. Read more
