Sunday, August 11, 2019

The Not so Instant Pot

I was thinking about getting a rice cooker. My old microwave used to make perfect rice, but my new microwave doesn’t pull it off quite so well. I think it had something to do with the old microwave being so old it had the power output of an incandescent bulb that reacted with the magic rust on the interior to produce Krieger waves. Newer microwaves can’t begin to run that shitty.

My old recipe was a couple cups of rice, three cups of water, a couple tablespoons of oil, a tablespoon of powered chicken bouillon, a teaspoon of garlic powder, a chopped onion. a couple cups of frozen peas and carrots, a can of sliced mushrooms, and a finely diced boneless/skinless chicken breast. Stir it up in a very large glass mixing bowl, and nuke it for about 30 minutes. On my old microwave, it worked perfectly every time, but I would advise you not to try this at home as my new microwave doesn’t yield the same results.

That’s when I started thinking about getting a rice cooker. After much hem hawing, I ended up with a $44 Instant Pot Duo Mini from Amazon, and the first thing I did was use it to make plain white rice. The fact that following all the instructions was a bit more complicated than making babies didn’t phase me. No, the part that shook me was that all the hype about cooking a meal in 5 minutes was total horseshit.

So yeah… You set the “timer” for 4 minutes, but that puppy doesn’t kick in until the damn thing gets up to temp… and that takes nearly 20 minutes. Even after the timer stops cooking, you still have to let it sit for another 15 to 20. Ultimately it took around 40 minutes to cook a cup of rice. I could have cooked it on my stovetop in far less time.

But to be fair, it was really good rice.

I’ve since adapted my old microwave rice recipe to the Instant Pot. Everything is the same, but only use 2 cups of water instead of 3, because you don’t have to take the evaporation into account. It comes out perfect every time, and it makes a ton of fluffy delicious rice in about 45 minutes.

And that’s about all I’ve done with the damn thing.


Kudos

OK, so you know how this next part goes. Thanks, George and Glenn… although I did have to steal a couple of jokes from the net to fill out all five days. As you know, we have our submission page if anyone would like to help out, and my email is still flush2x@gmail.com, if you’d care to send jokes that way instead.

If you are reading this, it means you are blessed, and great fortune will soon find you.

Pax,

-f2x