Zojirushi NS-KCC05 Micom Programmable 3-Cup Rice Cooker & Warmer

How many appliances and kitchen devices claim they will streamline preparation, enhance foods and recipes, be easy to clean, even to be so darn wonderful that you'd want to start a catering business just so you could use the product all the time? Well, I don't know about the catering business, but this cooker is the best of the best kitchen appliance, device, tool, anything having to do with cooking. At my house, it's used every day.

Construction is what you'd expect from this price: thoughtfully designed, quality materials, quality fit and finish, well put together, and the retractable cord is great. If you can operate a toaster you can operate this (and the learning curve is about the same too). There's no setup and ease of use couldn't be easier or more foolproof. Many appliances and kitchen devices I've bought over the years didn't become part of my cooking routine because often they were too tedious to clean up after, but there has never been an appliance or kitchen...Read more

Yes, you can make rice on the stove. No, it doesn't come out as good. This rice cooker is our favorite thing in the kitchen. Not only does it make delicious rice, you can make breakfast porridge and soup. It keeps the rice warm, it can be set in advance to have it ready when you come home from work. Since one of us at home can't eat wheat products, rice is our staple and we keep this thing busy all the time.

Some of our friends were not familiar with rice cookers, and they kept inviting themselves over for dinner every week and asking for rice. They'd eat the entire batch. It was really funny. (We also use a Thai blend of Jasmine rice from our grocery store that is especially moist and delicious.)

This model has a "fuzzy logic" chip to sense when the rice is nearing done-ness. It comes out perfectly as a result.

Earlier this year, I bought the 10 cup fuzzy logic Zojirushi rice cooker, along with the Ultimate Rice Cooker cookbook, which has some fantastic recipes in it. I still love this cooker and have made all kinds of things in it - brown rice, white rice, risotto, polenta, oatmeal, even chicken chili. It really is a versatile appliance, but it tends to cook quantities of at least 2 cups of dry rice best.
I had started to use the timer function quite a lot - just stick the rice and water or other ingredients in the pot in the morning and set it to be ready and perfect at a designated time. It was great to come home and have the rice ready - all I had to do was throw together a quick stirfry or reheat leftover curry, something like that. Saves so much prep and waiting time.
I bought this cooker because I wanted to be able to cook much smaller amounts of rice without having leftovers. I have cooked as little as 1/4 cup rice in the cooker and it came out perfectly...Read more