Oster 4722 Rice Cooker with Steaming Tray, Red

I've never owned a rice cooker before this, however, I have cooked lots of rice over the years. Its an inexpensive rice cooker and if you follow the directions, it'll do fine.

Since moving to the mountains of Colorado, its taken me years to adjust to the lowered the boiling point due to the higher elevation (8300')... it takes more time (add ~10-20min) and the dry climate means using more water (for a 1 cup of dry rice, takes ~2.5+ cups water rather than 2cups). Still, there have been many times when rice just didn't work out the way I wanted.

So I mentioned that it would be nice to have a rice cooker and let it deal with the cook time. Of course I had done some research, and when this came in the mail as a present, I was a little nervous since Oster's seem to get so-so reviews. Well, I cooked my typical basmati rice, a 1/2 cup dry and added my typical 1c water plus extra, put lid on, pressed the button and went to do something else.

A lot of...Read more

I just got this cooker today, so durability is not something I can rate yet.

These are the things I like;

1. No plastic. This was important for me. Both the bottom rice cooker and the steamer tray are metal. The lid is glass.

2. Nice and compact. I cook for my wife and myself, so I don't something huge, and of course storage space is always limited. The steamer tray is small; on the other hand, the manual claims that this can cook up to 5 cups of rice.

3. Easy cleanup. Yes some of the rice made a gooey mess in the bottom, but a little soaking took it all right out.

4. Inexpensive.

5. Multi-purpose. I have used it once so far, and here's what I did. I put some brown rice in the bottom rice cooker, and some salmon, broccoli and cauliflower in the steamer tray. The manual says nothing about steaming anything other than veggies, but I thought I'd try it. The result: Excellent. The salmon was cooked...Read more

I bought this thinking it would take up so much less space on my counter top than the other model I had in mind. I got home to use it and was so disappointed until I read a comment someone else made about a review. It did sputter and spit and shoot rice water on my counter and the rice seemed to stick-the trick is to add a little butter or oil of your choice and a little salt. Now it works like a charm! I usually add liquids and butter first, then the rice. I start it up an hour or two before I want to actually eat the rice, or even longer. I've let it run for 3-4 hours before. It keeps the rice nice and warm all that time. I use this about every day-we love rice and I just started a gluten free diet so I'm eating more rice instead of noodles. I'm glad I checked the reviews after the initial disappointment. This one is a keeper.