Perfect Gravy from the Microwave!
For some reason, a lot of people seem to feel uncomfortable or downright scared to use the microwave for cooking certain foods. The microwave is a very useful appliance for cooking. I’ve written a few past articles including the Microwave Mug Cake and How to Cook Sushi Rice in a Microwave. The microwave is an excellent appliance to cook various foods fast, but you’ll need to know how to properly use it. One thing that a microwave is excellent for is heating liquids rapidly… which is why gravy works great here. Today, let’s explore how to make gravy in a microwave in 5 minutes or less.
Prerequisites (What You Will Need)
- A glass measuring cup or small microwave safe bowl
- A spoon for stirring
- A set of measuring spoons
- All Purpose Flour (bleached or unbleached, NOT self-rising)
- Salt and Pepper (to taste)
- A Food Thermometer (optional, but very helpful)
- Stock / Bone Broth
Gravy starts with Chicken, Turkey, Beef or Pork Stock
Stock is the drippings left over after cooking most juicy meats. You’ll get these drippings from poultry, beef and pork. Even a small chicken leg quarter can produce enough drippings to make gravy. You can extend the amount gravy by adding a little water. After all, when it’s cooking, some of the water will evaporate making the drippings a bit concentrated.
Before making gravy out of your drippings, you’ll want to taste it. Not all stock flavorings will work for standard gravy. For example, if you’re wanting to save stock from your BBQ grilled meats, smokey BBQ flavored stock usually doesn’t work well as gravy. Instead, you might want to save those drippings to craft a BBQ sauce instead. That’s for another recipe, though.
If you’re oven baking your meats, meat drippings will work just fine for making a thick savory gravy.
The Trick to Great Gravy
To begin this recipe, it is recommended to use a microwave safe glass measuring cup with a handle. These cups have pour spouts and a stay-cool handle for when things gets hot. Glass measuring cups are typically microwave safe and are easily handled. It can also double as a gravy pouring dish if you don’t want to mess up more dishes.
The trick to making great gravy is to let the stock cool to 110ºF / 48.9ºC or less. You want the stock to be a tad lukewarm to allow for the next part to work, but not hot enough to activate the thickening. To cool your stock faster, slowly swirl it in the measuring cup, being careful not to swirl it all over yourself or the floor. If you’re not good at swirling things, try using a spoon instead. You can even dip the spoon in an ice water bath before stirring the liquid.
What trick is this?
In your measuring cup with your cooled stock, mix in about 3-4 heaping teaspoons of flour into 1/4 to 1/2 cup of stock. If the temperature is correct, the flour will mix in easily with just a bit of stirring, but not begin thickening. You might need to break up any dry clumps with a spoon, though and make sure they get fully incorporated into the liquid.
The drippings should turn lighter in color and appear opaque and cloudy, but remain watery. This is what you want. If you let the mixture sit too long after stirring, the flour will begin to settle to the bottom. If this happens, you’ll need to stir it again before beginning the microwave part.
Once the mixture is incorporated, fully cloudy and freshly mixed, place it into a microwave.
How to Prepare
To finish the gravy off once in the microwave, start the microwave on high for 30 seconds. The outer portions touching the glass will begin to bubble and appear thick. When the microwave stops, stir the mixture thoroughly for about 1-2 minutes or until the gravy begins to thicken. It should actually be thickening already.
Place the measuring cup back into the microwave for another 30 seconds. Then, remove and stir. At this point, your gravy should be fully thickened and ready. You can now add salt and pepper to taste. Your gravy is done. Serve immediately.
Too Thick? Too Thin?
If your gravy seems too thick and seems almost clumpy, there is an easy fix. Add in a bit of room temperature water to thin it out. Stir as you add the water slowly until you get it to a desired gravy thickness.
If your gravy is still too thin, place it back into the microwave for another 30 seconds and see if that helps. If it doesn’t, you’ll need to wait until the mixture has cooled to around 110ºF / 48.9ºC again and then mix in more flour, perhaps 1 or 2 more heaping teaspoons. Always make sure to incorporate the flour thoroughly. You want gravy, not clumps. Then, follow the steps above once more.
Note that very low wattage microwaves might need a longer time to begin to see bubbling, up to 1 minute. Higher wattage microwaves might need less time, perhaps even as little as 15 seconds per stir.
Should I remove the oil on the top?
No, you should not. Unless you have a medical condition that warrants the removal of the oil for medical purposes, the oil should be left in as it will add flavor and texture to the gravy, making it more savory and giving it a better overall texture, particularly when topped onto mashed potatoes. The oil also aids in the thickening process.
If there’s more oil on top than watery liquid on the bottom, you’ll want to spoon out some oil leaving some on top. Then add more water to bring the overall watery portion to more than the oil. The oil on top should be less than the amount of liquid below it. This oily situation can happen with fattier cuts of meat. I’ve never seen this happen with chicken.
You can even fortify the flavor of the watery drippings portions by adding in bouillon flavoring. Be careful doing this as bouillon tends to add a lot of extra salt.
In about 1 minute, you’ll have excellent thick gravy for mashed potatoes or to top your favorite meats. No need to toss the small drippings out. Instead, turn those drippings into a savory gravy. Even just a quarter to half cup of gravy is enough to cover mashed potatoes for two people and still have a bit left over.
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Tips: Cooking with an Air Fryer
You recently got a new air fryer as a holiday gift and now you’re wondering, “What can I do with this?” Or, maybe you have one sitting on a shelf that’s been there for months? Wonder no more. Let’s explore various cooking tips for that air fryer.
What Exactly is an Air Fryer?
Simply put, it’s a forced air broiler. It’s like a convection oven, but the forced air is much, much stronger. Not all air fryers are necessarily the same. While many offer touch controls, some offer only simple timer knobs (see Bella air fryer just below). Some also heat from the top, while some heat from the side. All cook pretty much in the same way. How does it work?
These small cooking appliances are designed with a fan which forces high speed air through heated coils vertically down onto the food. Some may force it across the food horizontally. That’s pretty much it in a nutshell. Even though the concept is simple, the speed of it is fairly amazing for cooking. However, there are some cautions to go with that cooking speed.
Cooking times are dramatically reduced as a result of this forced air cooking method. Because of the high speed air flow, many foods can be cooked in about the same time as using a microwave. Unlike a microwave, an air fryer makes and keeps foods crispy and brown rather than mushy or rubbery.
Here are some cautions. Because the velocity of the air fryer is quite high, an air fryer is also quite drying for all food. This can make certain foods dry out if cooking precautions aren’t taken, such as wrapping the food in foil to keep the moisture in. Wrapping with foil doesn’t allow for crisping up the food. This means you’ll want to wrap the food for long duration cooking times and then unwrap for the last 8-10 minutes at the end of the cooking time to crisp the food.
Cooking Times
Air fryer cooking times are dramatically reduced from a standard oven. It’s way faster than even a convection oven. A pizza might cook in 18 minutes in a regular oven, but may be done in 8-10 minutes in an air fryer. Speaking of…
Pizza
Cooking Pizza in an air fryer might seem natural, but it’s not. If you intend to cook pizza in an air fryer, you’ll need to know how to do it correctly or it’ll burn and get overly dry.
When cooking pizza in a conventional oven, 400ºF / 204ºC temperature is exactly that. However, in an air fryer, that same temperature is actually quite a bit hotter because of the forced air. This means you have to reduce the heat level when cooking in an air fryer by at least 50ºF / 10ºC to compensate, maybe more. Otherwise, your food will become blackened and hard.
Pizza is no exception. When cooking pizza in an air fryer, you’ll want to cook no higher than 280-300ºF / 138-149ºC and monitor it closely. Cheese easily burns in an air fryer and, yes, it’ll also burn quickly, within 6-8 minutes. Pizza can be tricky to cook in an air fryer. If you’re really wanting the best pizza, I always suggest using a real oven. For reheating pizza, an air fryer is perfect when set to 200ºF to 250ºF / 93ºC to 121ºC.
If you like and prefer a charred, blackened taste on pizza, then an air fryer is perfect for getting that result. I prefer my pizza cheese melted, a tiny bit crispy, but mostly still stringy and fresh. Getting the latter result in an air fryer requires careful lower temperature cooking.
Veggies
Vegetables can be cooked in an air fryer, but I’d suggest wrapping them in foil, adding a tablespoon of water in the foil to keep them moist and steamy. If you want more of a grilled texture to your vegetables, then steam them in foil for about 8-10 minutes, then unwrap the foil and cook for the remaining 3-5 minutes on 380-400ºF / 193-204ºC to crisp them up.
Hamburgers
A hamburger patty is easily cooked in an air fryer. However, air fryers are messy beasts and need cleaning frequently. With foods that tend to produce spatter, like beef, poultry and pork, you’ll want to be sure to clean the interior of your air fryer after cooking such foods.
Hamburger patties cook in about 8-10 minutes at 400ºF / 204ºC. Though, you’ll need to flip the food if you cook without foil. If you’re cooking in foil, there’s no need to flip as the steam will cook both sides evenly. I recommend steaming the hamburger patty for half of the cooking time, then unwrap and cook the remaining time open, being sure to flip it half way through the open cooking time.
Hamburger patties can be placed into the air fryer completely frozen and will still be cooked in that 8 to 10 minutes. Fresh, thawed hamburger patties will cook slightly faster, so check them more frequently.
Hot Dogs
You don’t really need to cook hot dogs in an air fryer. Instead, you’ll simply want to reheat them. Many air fryers offer a reheat setting. Use only the reheat setting for hot dogs. In about 5 minutes, you’ll have hot dogs cooked to perfection. For air fryers with knob settings, reheat is 6 minutes at 200-250ºF / 93-121ºC.
Choosing the air fry option, which typically runs at 400ºF / 204ºC for about 15 minutes, you’re sure to burn the hot dogs, and most anything else except french fries and other potato side dishes. If choosing the 400ºF / 204ºC option, be sure to check your food often and shake the basket about every 3-5 minutes.
Hot dogs cooked at 400ºF / 204ºC will begin to blacken within about 2-3 minutes. If you like your hot dogs blackened, then this is the option to choose. If you prefer your hot dogs warmed with a slightly crispy bite, then reheat is the choice for cooking.
Cooking Side by Side
It’s easy to cook foods side by side in an air fryer basket. For example, you can place hot dogs and fries into the basket together and have a full meal ready go to at the end of the cooking time. However, note that fries take longer to cook than hot dogs. A soon as the hot dogs are warmed, remove the dogs, then raise the temperature to cook the fries at 400ºF / 204ºC for the remainder of the time, around 6-8 minutes.
Alternatively, cook the fries until there’s about 3 minutes left, then lower the temperature to 200-250ºF / 93-121ºC to reheat the hot dogs for 5 minutes, which will also keep the fries hot.
Tortilla Chips / Dehydrating
Many air fryers offer a dehydrate setting. This cooking method cuts the fan speed down dramatically and runs at a temperature around 100-150º / 38-66ºC . This is perfect for drying foods, such as making your own baked corn tortilla chips.
For baked tortilla chips, cut fresh corn tortillas into quarters. Place the quarters flat into the basket. The chips can be overlapping without issues. I typically cut up about 4-5 tortillas and layer them on the bottom of the cooking tray. Then, set the cooking method to dehydrate for 1 hour and 30 minutes.
These chips come out quite crispy, but not the same as you can buy at the store. If you’re wanting to make nachos, it’s a reasonably quick way to make chips without running to the store.
One trick here to soften the chips a bit is to place the chips in a paper bag and let them sit overnight. The next day, the chips will have a softer crunch and be more like chips you can buy in the store.
However, don’t be fooled into thinking that air frying these tortillas at 400ºF / 204ºC will do you any favors. It won’t. The chips will blacken and taste burnt. You don’t want this for tortilla chips. If you want to heat the chips, use the dehydrate method described above to keep them crispy, yet looking and tasting like tortilla chips. You can use reheat on the chips for 1-3 minutes to warm them up, too.
Frozen Fried Foods
Here’s where the air fryer shines. For frozen foods like Totinos Pizza Rolls, corn dogs, mini tacos, taquitos or even simply fried chicken (fresh or frozen) or french fries, the air fryer setting works perfect to reheat and cook these.
All of the above foods cook using the air fry option. The air fry option typically runs 380-400ºF / 193-204ºC for about 12 minutes, shaking the basket several times while cooking to even out the cooking. No need to thaw, just place them straight into the basket frozen and 12 minutes later you’ll have piping hot and crispy foods. Some of the above foods may cook in around 8 minutes. Always begin checking your foods for doneness around 8 minutes while shaking the basket.
The air fry setting is perfect to cook fried chicken or other fried and battered foods to perfection. That’s why they call it an air fryer.
Cookies and Cakes
While it is possible to use an air fryer to bake such foods, I don’t recommend it. These baked food types don’t bake well in an air fryer. There are three reasons for this:
- The forced air ensures the top of the baked good is overcooked and dry
- The forced air will flatten cookies out and make them too flat
- The forced heat will overcook the top of cookies, but leave the underside undercooked (same for cake)
Instead, for a more even bake, I recommend using a regular or toaster oven for baking cookies, cakes and brownies. If you want your cookies a little more crispy, you can throw them into the air fryer for 1-3 minutes at around 350ºF / 177ºC after they’ve been baked in a regular oven.
Baked Pasta
If you’ve ever bought a baked personal pan pasta from Pizza Hut or any other Italian restaurant, then you may be wondering how to get that crispy cheese texture on the top of hot steaming pasta. The air fryer is perfect for making this. However, you’ll need to invest in some cooking pans that fit into your air fryer.
Up until now, I’ve not discussed the size of the baskets on an air fryer. Here’s where you’ll need to get your tape measure out and determine the dimensions of your air fryer basket. Mine is about 8″ across. With that sizing in hand, head over to Amazon and search for air fryer accessories that will fit inside your basket. It’s possible your air fryer came with small pans that fit inside of your basket. Mine did not. You’ll want to obtain either a square or round baking pan that fits inside your air fryer basket.
For baked pasta:
- Layer your cooked pasta on the bottom of a round or square pan (not in the basket directly)
- Layer mozzarella on top of the pasta
- Layer cooked pasta sauce on top of the cheese
- Place various toppings like beef, pork, veggies and pepperoni
- Top with a layer of cheese
Cook in the air fryer at 350ºF / 177ºC for about 6-8 minutes, checking for cheese browning at around the 5 minute mark.
Note that if you’re using a basket type fryer, be sure sure to buy a pan accessory kit which also includes a pan grabber. This grabber grabs hold of the lip of the pan which allows you to easily lift and extract the pan from the basket without using your hands and without spilling. Though, you can use oven mitts if you prefer… a pan grabber is much easier to prevent food spillage.
Cooking Other Foods?
There are plenty of other foods you can try cooking in an air fryer. For example, if you buy a frozen food from the store and there are not air fryer cooking instructions on the package, subtract 50% of the cooking time from regular oven cooking and that is usually what’s needed for an air fryer. You may also want to reduce the cooking temperature by at least 30-50ºF / 8-20ºC to avoid overcooking or burning.
As I said above, if it’s cookies, cakes or other baked goods, you should opt for baking in a regular or toaster oven. Even such foods as pot pies or sweet pies may cook better in a conventional oven. Some foods are easy to over bake in an air fryer.
When cooking meats, many cooks want to save the drippings to make gravy. If you’re wanting to make gravy, don’t use an air fryer. Air fryers force evaporate almost all liquids produced by foods. This means, no gravy. If you’re wanting to make gravy, then you’ll want to braise your chicken, pork and beef in a regular oven to retain those juices. Don’t use an air fryer.
If you don’t care about gravy, then cooking your food in an air fryer is an option. Just don’t be fooled into thinking you can make gravy from cooking meats in an air fryer. It doesn’t work.
Pre-heating an Air Fryer
Some air fryers have a preheat setting. However, it’s really unnecessary. You can throw your food straight into the basket and begin the cooking instantly. It might add 1 extra minute to the cook time, but it’s faster than waiting 2 minutes for a preheat. To be fair, it only takes about 1 minute for an air fryer to preheat… which is why it’s mostly unnecessary to preheat your air fryer unless you want the grill surface to be hot so it will add grill marks to your food.
Basket vs Trays vs Cleaning
Some air fryers are more like toaster ovens with trays. If you have this kind of air fryer, you’ll need to use an oven mitt to pull out the trays to shake them. If you have the basket type fryer with a handle, these are more convenient because the handle stays completely cool on the basket. I recommend the basket variety because it’s much easier to clean and the handle remains cool.
If you have the basket variety of air fryer, there are lots of “keep it clean” options, including basket inserts made of paper, parchment and even silicone. These inserts allow for cooking and removal to keep your basket clean. There are also pans, as mentioned above, which can be used to help bake foods while keeping the interior clean.
Still, spatter from foods can get into the heating elements and surrounding areas. You’ll need to periodically wipe and clean the interior of the air fryer after it has completely cooled. You may need to use a little Easy Off oven cleaner to fully clean this spatter. Be sure to clean your basket every so often to make sure you’ve cleaned off food smells from previous uses.
Final note. Some air fryer images show a basket filled to capacity, like this Ninja to the left. Don’t do this. The maximum you should ever fill your basket is about half to 3/4 full. Never fill your basket entirely to the top with food. The reason? The top most food is too close to the heating element and will burn. You want to keep your food far enough away from that heating element to keep it from burning. Such images are strictly for marketing purposes, not for functionality. Do not replicate these marketing images when cooking.
Happy Air Frying!
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How to poach an egg in the microwave?
There are a number of YouTube videos claiming to poach an egg in a microwave. Almost every one of them is wrong and, worse, exceedingly dangerous. So, how do you poach an egg in a microwave? Let’s explore.
The Art of Egg Poaching
Poaching an egg is a cooking style which “poaches” an egg in hot water. Let’s understand that like oil and water, microwaves and water don’t always mix well, specifically when the water is heated. Microwaves tend to heat water excessively hot, to the point that the water becomes superheated. Superheated water is water that has reached a temperature beyond the boiling point.
Whoa! Wait a minute! Hold on. “Beyond the boiling point”, you say? You ask, “So why doesn’t it boil?” Good question. Microwaves are exceedingly efficient at heating water molecules rapidly. In fact, this is exactly how microwaves work. Microwaves target water molecules and energize them into moving rapidly. Molecules moving rapidly release heat. However, because the speed at which the microwave can heat water, it can get the molecules moving beyond the boiling point, but the water remains entirely still (i.e., no movement).
This is a dangerous and very deceptive condition. It means that the first thing placed into the water will cause the water to instantly explode into a boiling frenzy and spray boiling hot water everywhere, including potentially all over you causing burns. The point is, you never want to submerge an egg (whole or cracked) into water, then attempt to cook / poach it using a microwave. This is not at all a recommended cooking method. It’s also exceedingly dangerous.
Proper Egg Poacher Cookware
As with anything cooked in the microwave, appropriate cookware is required. Not only is each microwave cookware designed for a specific purpose, it ensures the safety of the person using the cookware for that purpose.
For the microwave, there are a number of different egg poachers that you can find. The most common is a clam shell style cooker with two compartments, into which you can crack two eggs. For example, here’s one type of clamshell style egg poacher at Amazon. If you prefer to buy name brands, here’s a Nordic poacher at Amazon (see inset image). You can sometimes find these style poachers at dollar stores and clearance home shops, like Home Goods.
How to Poach an Egg in a Microwave?
This method assumes you have acquired one of the above microwave cookers. DO NOT use an uncovered bowl instead.
Before I get into the how to portion, let me say that eggs, particularly the yolk, cook exceedingly fast in a microwave regardless of wattage. What this means is that even the best microwave poached egg won’t have a texture like an egg poached in a pan of water over open heat. This further means that if you are set on the texture and style of an actual poached egg, you’ll want to prepare it using a pan of heated water on a stove top, not by a microwave… especially if you like your yolk runny. On the flip side, poaching an egg in a microwave is easy and fast. If speed is important, then this method is the preferred choice.
With that said, to poach in a microwave egg poacher, the instructions are as follows:
- Crack one or two eggs into the compartment(s)
- Place one teaspoon of water on top of each egg
- Close and lock the lid over the egg(s)
- Place the cooker into the microwave, being careful to keep the unit level to avoid spilling
- Cook the eggs in the microwave for 1 minute
- Open the lid and check for doneness (careful, as steam may release which will be hot)
- If the egg is still not done, close and heat again in 20-30 second increments until done, checking after each 20-30 seconds.
Note that when poaching, the yolk will likely cook completely. It’s almost impossible to prevent this in the microwave. Once done, the egg whites will have a similar texture to poached. Unfortunately, the yolk is likely to be fully cooked and have that crumbly fully cooked texture.
This is a super fast way to cook an egg, but it may not provide the exact “poached” texture you’re looking for in the stove top method. However, this method, when used in the recommended microwave cookware, has very little chance of causing scalding hot water burns.
Also, be cautious when piercing the yolk with a fork immediately after coming out of the microwave. The yolk has a tendency to build up steam pressure inside and explode upon being pierced. You’ll want to wait for the egg(s) to cool for a few minutes before piercing. Alternatively, cover the egg with a paper towel and gently pierce it with a fork underneath, keeping your hands clear or covered with an oven mitt. If it explodes, the paper towel will catch it.
Be Safe and Happy Cooking!
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Perfect Sushi Rice from the Microwave
Can Sushi rice be cooked in the microwave? Yes, it certainly can. But, you do need the correct cooking tool. Let’s explore.
Electric Rice Cookers?
There are plenty of rice cookers on the market, including those very expensive electric cookers you can get in Japanese or Chinese markets. Do you need one of these very expensive cookers to cook rice? No, you do not… particularly if you already own a microwave.
The difficulty with electric rice cookers and (in general) cooking rice using heat sources is that it bakes much of the rice (and that starchy glue) onto the container surface, wasting at least some of the rice. Sometimes, even a portion may become overcooked or burned while much of the rice is just fine. However, when you cook rice in the microwave using an appropriate rice cooker, you will get 100% of the cooked rice out of the pot. Some Sushi rices can be very expensive, so throwing away a portion in the trash due to the cooking method is wasteful and expensive.
Additionally, cleaning up heated rice cookers is quite tedious. Because of the baked on starches which act like glue, it can be almost impossible to clean up this glued-on starchy mess. Soaking is the usual method. How do you avoid the messy cleanup? Use a microwave cooker.
Microwave Rice Cooker
When using the microwave to cook anything, you’ll need to use the correct cookware. You can’t just slap rice and water into a random bowl and hope for the best. You’ll end up with a gluey mess all over the interior of your microwave (yuck) and the rice won’t actually cook properly.
You definitely need to choose and use the correct cookware. For cooking rice in the microwave, I suggest this Sistema Rice Cooker 
. This rice cooker cooks about 2-3 cups of rice at a time. You may only be able to cook up to 4 servings in this microwave cooker. If you need to cook a larger amount of rice than this, you may need to choose a different cooker. This is where the electric cooker sizes can be a benefit.
You’ll also want to read the instructions for this rice cooker with regards to top lid orientation. This rice cooker has two lids: an interior lid and an exterior lid. This design helps prevent some boil over. It’s not a perfect design, but it does work decently if you align the two lids in the appropriate fashion. Read the instructions for proper lid alignment.
To put this in perspective, 1 cup of uncooked Sushi rice yields enough cooked rice to produce 3 large sized California rolls or at least double this number of smaller rolls. If you’re planning on making Nigiri or hand rolls, you’ll need to wait until the rice has sufficiently cooled to be handled.
You don’t want to overload the cooker with too much rice or you’ll end up with a microwave mess. Speaking of …
Microwaves
How well this Sistema Rice Cooker works depends heavily on your microwave’s wattage. You’ll want a microwave of about 1000 watts. This is optimal wattage to cook rice without risk of a huge microwave mess (or worse). Wattage of 1200-1500 risks burning, melting, overcooking, boil-overs and huge starchy and sticky messes. Let’s understand why.
A 1000 watt microwave boils the rice just the right amount on max power. This means that while there might be a little dripping that comes from the cooker, it’s easily cleaned up. A 1200-1500 watt microwave will much more vigorously boil the water causing boil-overs. A high wattage can also cause the water to boil dry in the container risking a fire hazard or even melting the plastic of the cooker. You don’t want this.
Stick to a wattage that works properly for rice. You can use a 1200-1500 watt microwave as long as you set the power level to 7 or 8. It will take longer to cook, but it prevents boil-overs or the possibility for drying the rice out.
If you have the choice of a 1000 watt microwave, you’ll be happier with the final results. I’ve personally tested 1000 watt microwaves and 1500 watt microwaves. I prefer the 1000 watt microwave for cooking rice in the Sistema.
Rinsing Rice
When cooking sushi rice, you always need to rinse the rice of starches. This is an important step for this microwave cooker. Don’t skip it. You’ll need a good strainer to hold the rice while you successively performing a soaking rinse of the rice multiple times. The water won’t ever become perfectly clear while rinsing, but it will become much more clear than the first time. You want to ensure you get a good amount of the starch off the rice to avoid starch overload in the cooker. There will always be a certain amount of starch build up, but rinsing will reduce this problem.
Timing for White Sushi Rice
To cook Sushi rice properly in the microwave, you need to understand a little about rices. All rice cooks at about the same rate, but timing may have to be adjusted a little due to variances in dryness and the rice type.
Sushi rice cooks properly when using the following rice to water ratio:
- 1 cup rice to a tad more than 1¾ cups water.
- One cup of uncooked rice yields enough cooked rice to make 3 California-sized rolls.
In fact, most white rice follows this same ratio in the Sistema Rice Cooker. However, brown rice will take longer to cook and will need a full 2 cups of water. For this article, I will focus on white sushi rice. If you intend to cook brown sushi rice, you will need to use a full 2 cups of water and it will need a longer cook time. You will need to experiment on timing for brown rices. I’m not a fan of brown rice, so I don’t have a definitive cooking formula for it.
Cooking time for white Sushi Rice is 13 minutes and 30 seconds. Not all Microwaves are identical even with the same wattage. So, you may need to adjust this timing a little. It may take less time or it make take longer depending on the results at the end. If you find that your rice overboils, your microwave may provide higher wattage than 1000, even if it states it is 1000 watts. You may need to lower the power setting on your microwave if you find that it boils over.
Once the microwave cooking cycle has completed, the cooking is not yet complete. Remove the Sistema Rice Cooker from the microwave and allow it to rest for 5 minutes. This will allow the rice to soak up any remaining water. Resist the urge to open the cooker to take a quick look. Allow the rice to remain in the cooker unopened for the full 5 minutes. You may need to tip the cooker just a little over your sink to allow any collected water on the top to run off into the sink. You can even wipe it down with a towel if it’s a bit too messy.
If you are using older rice, it may be drier than fresh rice. This means a longer resting cycle after cooking. For extremely old rice, you may need to allow the rice to rest for at least 15 minutes undisturbed. It will cool down, yes, but it will give time for the water to soak in fully to the core. If you don’t like how the rice feels at the end of 15 minutes, try cooking the rice longer by 1-2 minutes. However, you may need to add a bit more water for this extra cooking time.
High Wattage Microwave — Method 1 (hands on)
Updated October 24th, 2020 for high wattage microwaves. I’ve recently visited my brother and his microwave is likely 1500 watts or higher. Suffice it to say, it’s an extremely high wattage microwave.
I was able to work out a method to use a high wattage microwave, but it requires a little bit of hands-on activity. This method is useful for microwaves that don’t support programming.
To use a high wattage microwave, perform all of the basic steps as below. When you place the cooker in the microwave, place it onto a plate. A dinner-sized Corelle plate works very well because these plates don’t get too hot to handle. The plate also needs an indentation to catch any water overflow while cooking, keeping the microwave clean. The total cooking time remains the same: 13 minutes, 30 seconds.
- Start by placing the Sistema Rice Cooker onto the center of a plate in the center of your high watt microwave.
- Cook the rice on max power for 5-7 minutes or until the water begins spewing out of the top holes.
- Once the water begins spewing out, stop the microwave, remove the plate and cooker, open up the rice cooker and dump any water collected onto the plate back into the cooker and close it back up. Careful as the water will be hot.
- Place the plate and cooker back into the microwave.
- Start the microwave again. However, change the power level to 4 or 5 for the remaining cooking time. Lower power levels on microwaves pulse the microwaves on and off. If you choose the correct power level, the pulsing should prevent further spillovers. The boiling will start, then stop soon enough to let the water settle before spilling over. Then start again and continue this cycle until the end.
- After the cooking is complete, let the rice rest for at least 5 minutes up to 15 minutes to soak up any remaining water.
High Wattage Microwave — Method 2 (hands off)
[Updated: June 16th, 2021] After fiddling with the above high wattage instructions, I’ve determined a second simpler high wattage microwave method that’s completely hands-off, but only if the microwave supports programmable cooking offering both time and power level. Because Method 1 works for specific microwave types, I’m leaving these instructions in as it is useful for those non-programmable microwaves. For a hands-off approach, I offer these instructions.
Again, Method 2 is only useful if your microwave supports chained / stepped programmable cooking by both time and power level. If your microwave doesn’t support this, then follow Method 1 above.
Steps:
- Rinse the rice properly
- Place the rice in the Sistema cooker
- Fill with the appropriate amount of water
- Secure the inner and outer lids at the proper orientation
- Place Sistema onto microwave turntable in center
- Program 1 — Time 5 minutes, power level high or 10
- Program 2 — Time 8:30, power level 50% or 5
- Press Start
- When done, remove Sistema from microwave and let stand for 5 minutes
Total cooking time: 13m 30s + 5m rest time
Most microwaves have power levels that range from 1-10. This is the assumption understood with this method. That means 50% power is level 5. This method doesn’t require any hands-on or stopping the microwave. Method 2 is designed to prevent boil-overs and should keep the microwave clean.
To determine how to program your microwave for chained or stepped cooking, you’ll need to refer to your microwave’s manual. Each microwave handles stepped programming in different ways. Some microwaves, like many spin knob varieties, don’t offer stepped programming at all.
Because microwave strength varies, you might find that using these instructions still sees boil over in your microwave. If boil over still occurs, reduce Program 1‘s time to just before it boils over (probably by 1 minute) and increase Program 2‘s time (also by 1 minute) to maintain the 13:30 seconds total cooking time. If you find that boil over occurs during Program 2, reduce the power level until boil over doesn’t occur during Program 2.
These instructions are designed to prevent boil over when cooking rice in the Sistema, while maintaining enough power and cooking time to cook the rice properly.
Rice Brand
While there are many short grain sushi rices available for sale, this author prefers Nishiki brand sushi rice. This rice always cooks well, tastes great and makes awesome Nigiri and rolls. You can choose whichever brand you prefer, but it’s worth trying Nishiki brand as I’ve never made bad sushi using this rice.
Consistency
If Sushi Rice is cooked properly at the end of the cooking cycle, the rice should not have liquid water visible in the container. The rice on top will show empty holes and spaces between some of the grains. When you use a rice paddle to move the rice around, it will have a sticky appearance and clump a bit, but it should not have any loose water in the container. It should appear exactly like any other Sushi rice from any other cooker. If the rice still has liquid around it, you’ve added too much water. If the rice is too dry, you didn’t add enough water.
The rice should be moist, but also a tiny bit sticky. Once you add rice vinegar seasoning for sushi, it will add some liquid back to the rice and increase the stickiness. The rice should have a good bite, but still be fully cooked through. You can taste test it after the 5 minutes resting period. If there is any crunch in the rice, it’s not cooked enough. A crunchy center may indicate old rice. You may need to extend your cooking time in 30 second increments to allow for full hydration of older rice. If you can’t get rid of the crunchy center, you may need to toss that rice and buy fresh rice.
Now that you have your perfectly cooked sushi rice, you’re ready to create your favorite Nigiri, sushi rolls or even your favorite Donburi. Just don’t forget to season your rice with Seasoned Rice Vinegar before making your sushi.
Cleanup
Cleaning this plastic rice cooker is a breeze so long as you do it quickly. Some warm water, dish soap and a sponge is all you need to wash it off. I highly recommend using unscented dish soap when washing plastic to avoid tainting plastics with unnecessary perfumes. Perfumed dish soaps can leech into plastic and impart bad flavors to foods when cooked using plastic cookware. I also strongly recommend cooking ONLY rice in this rice cooker. To preserve this cooker and avoid tainting your rice, refrain from cooking foods or other savory flavored and spiced foods in this cooker, buy and use a different microwave container. Spicy and highly flavored foods, like curries, can impart unwanted flavors into your rice. Avoid this by using this cooker for rice only.
I also highly recommend washing this cooker immediately after removing the rice from the tub while the cooker is still sticky. Don’t wait until it dries on. If you wait, you’ll have to soak it to get it off. If you wash it immediately after cooking, it’s much faster and easier cleanup.
Happy Cooking!
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