Oatmeal in a Rice Cooker: The Oatmeal Wars: Part IV

A few people including myself commented that the previously written blog that cooking the Bob’s Red Mill Steel Cut Oats (determined to be the best after a number of taste tests) resulted in an overflowing rice cooker. The obvious solution is to reduce the amount of rice and oats proportionally. Since I wanted at least two servings I tried 75% and that still resulted in overflowing. However, I recall that Stacey washes rice before cooking it and the result was better tasting, fluffier rice. I decided I’d try the same thing with my oats. Result: worked like a charm. Ended up having no bubbling over of the oatmeal and it tasted great. So, new rules: reduce water and oats to ¾ cup of oats and 3 cups of water, stir/rinse in a colander until the water is almost clear. It will start milky and get clearer the longer they are washed. If just running the colander under water than just work them for about 60 seconds. I think you’ll be pleased with the results.

Cooking Oatmeal in a rice cooker

Oatmeal...in a rice cooker?

Stacey and I had been frequenting a local coffee shop over on Hawthorne, Common Grounds, handily one of the best of many in portland. They have had some impressive oatmeal on their menu, and we were dropping a few pennies a week on this stuff. Way better than the instant oatmeal i eat fairly regular in the mornings at work. I decided to try to recreate it.

First, I went to trader joes and stared at the various oatmeal offerings...irish oats, rolled oats, steel cut oats, various instant oats. I decided to go for a very innocent, old fashioned looking can of John Mccann steel cut oatmeal.

Next, I went home and followed the instructions, boiled some water, put the oatmeal in, total freakin' disaster. Didn't absorb the water, was a glutenous mess. Reminded me of my experiences trying to cook real rice. That's it! Use the rice cooker.

So, I pulled out the rice cooker and looked at the settings. Turns out there is one called 'porridge' on my fuzzy logic zojirushi 5000 so i went about setting it up, turning it on, and putting in the appropriate ingredients (oats and water as described on the oat meal container). After about an hour and a half (including 45 minutes soak time that the rice cooker appropriately counted down for me without any intervention on my part...i love this thing!) the rice cooker beeped at me and out came some absolutely DELICIOUS oatmeal. Great stuff, I mean legendary for those cold winter days.

I also added some organic brown sugar, craisins, and homemade granola from Elephants Delicattesen to give it some crunch and sweetness. I'm not sure the 'organic'-ness adds to the brown sugar, I think its more like 'not the cheap stuff' that makes it better than just average brown sugar.

So, takes longer than the instant stuff, but it tastes great. I'll be adding this to the cooking arsenal.