A rice cooker is actually a steamer in disguise. Make use of its potential to prepare a full meal in record time with just one appliance.

Time: 2/5
Everything’s done in the time it takes to cook the rice, and minimal cleanup afterwards.

Effort: 2/5
Some time management involved in putting dishes into and out of a rice cooker, but a one-pot meal in the truest sense.

Things are about to get steamy

Being that I cook rice very often, my rice cooker is probably the most frequently used tool in my kitchen. I grew up with one in the house, then when I went to college I shared one with my roommate. That machine saw very heavy use in my student days, and I inherited it upon graduation.

When it finally came time for my roommate’s rice cooker to retire, I went to the rice cooker aisle at the store and brought home the biggest, hugest, 10-cup-capacity mofo they had there. It wasn’t because I was cooking for a family of twelve, or that I was going to meal-prep 20 portions of rice a week (although I totally would if I could). It was because I knew that there is more to a rice cooker than the apparent uni-tasker that meets the eye.

At the most basic level, a rice cooker is a heater-upper for a big metal tub. It just so happens that most of the time, what’s in the bowl is raw rice and water. The water boils, and the rice cooks. However, nothing stops you from putting anything you desire into the tub to be heater-upper-ed. It’s a small step to treat it as a soup-making pot, and with a stretch of imagination you can even turn it into an oven. Look online for recipes for rice cooker cake – my family even bakes whole chickens in the ancestral rice cooker.

Maybe all that sounds too far-fetched for now. Bringing the discussion closer to home, let’s go back to the rice cooker doing it’s stated job of cooking rice. As the water boils, the space above the rice fills with steam – the rice cooker is actually a big potential steamer.

Enter what I like to call the Rice Cooker Tower of Doom:

Forgive me for the crude diagram, but I hope I get the point across. There’s space above the rice that you aren’t using for anything else anyway, and steam that carries heat and can be put to service for you. With some space and time management, you could cook all the components of a meal on top of one another. You get started with the rice which takes the longest, then you prepare and stack the protein on top. The vegetables take the least amount of time so it goes in last. Cover, and wait for the beep.

The Tower of Doom is a method I perfected while I was an exhausted intern trying to juggle my basic physiological needs with the demands of work. Minimised dishes, low effort, everything done at the same time. Plus, there’s enough hot, real, home-cooked food for lunch the next day too. That was a real crutch for keeping my morale up.

Now that I’m past that stage, my rice cooker spends 99% of its time doing what it’s named for. But there are moments when I can’t be bothered to go into all the hassle of taking out my pots and pans for a full-on cooking session (not to mention the cleanup), and I go back to the Tower of Doom for a quick and simple way to feed myself.

To illustrate the concept, here’s a take on chicken, broccoli and rice, adapted for a rice cooker. Don’t take this as anything definitive, though. The same method can be applied easily to fish or steamed Chinese meatloaf (although for meatloaf, you’d need to make it much thinner than if you steamed it separately).

While a steamer basket might work to steam vegetables above the rice, I would highly recommend making sure you have some stainless steel steamer stands, some heat-resistant dishes that fit inside your cooker along with some steamer tongs or hot plate grippers for a true, multi-level Doom Tower experience.

Dramatis Personae

Rice

I rarely mention rice in my discussion of the ingredients, but I do so here because it’s important with this cooking method to be mindful of how much rice you start off with. Rice expands as it cooks, and you need to save space for the stuff you will eventually have on top of it. My rule of thumb for guessing portion sizes for the Tower of Doom method is as follows: Halve the capacity of your rice cooker, then fill that with 1 part each of rice, protein and vegetable.

So let’s say my rice cooker can hold 20 portions of cooked rice. Half of 20 is 10, and 3 is roughly a third of that – round down, to be safe. That means I can fit 3 portions of rice, 3 of chicken and 3 of broccoli in the Tower.

The reasons for this conservative estimate is twofold. The stands and dishes you need to create the layers take up space which wouldn’t be occupied if it was just rice in the cooker. Another reason is that since steam is mostly air and air is a poor conductor of heat, steaming is a very gentle cooking method which can’t cook things as quickly as blanching or frying. Therefore, I advise to err on the side of caution when considering portion sizes to avoid undercooked vegetables (easily salvageable with a microwave) or meat (eww).

Chicken

Nothing too fancy, just some whole chicken chopped up and marinated in salt, white pepper, ginger and corn starch. The corn starch is a trick my SO’s mother taught us, and it’s supposed to make the chicken juicier. To be honest, I don’t think I can tell the difference.

Dried shiitake mushrooms

De-stemmed, rinsed and rehydrated overnight. A super umami bomb that enhances any dish. I drained the water from the rehydration (and saved it for stock – so precious) and marinated them with some oyster sauce and sugar before heading out for work. Once steamed, they become thick and meaty and super juicy. Totally optional, but it was a nice addition to the meal.

Broccoli

Washed and cut into florets, then sprinkled with some salt. The stems are totally edible and I included them too, after removing the toughest outer parts with a vegetable peeler.

Executive summary

1. Rinse rice, then put rice into cooker with appropriate amount of water. Start the rice cooker.
2. Cut up chicken thighs, season and give it a mix. Arrange on a heat-safe dish.
3. Set a steaming stand into the rice. Place plate of chicken on top.
4. Wash and cut up broccoli. Sprinkle with salt, arrange on another heat-safe dish.
5. Wait for the final few minutes of the rice cooker’s cooking cycle. Set another steaming stand into the plate of chicken, place broccoli on top.
6. The Tower of Doom is done when the rice cooker says it is.

Play by Play

A conservative amount of rice at the bottom, with the first steamer stand in situ. I turn my rice cooker on and move on to prep the other ingredients.

Just because I marinated stuff in advance doesn’t mean you have to. I’ve done this more than once from scratch. The water in the rice cooker takes a while to boil and give off steam anyway, which is plenty enough time for you to cut up and season your chicken. Do cut them into smaller pieces than usual though, because you don’t really want your chicken to become undercooked. Marinated shiitake mushrooms are heavenly, however, and I highly recommend putting in the effort of preparing them in advance.

The protein layer is now ready to go. Spread things out as thinly as possible. I only have one steamer stand, but an inverted ramekin works just as well. When the water in the rice cooker is at a boil, it is time to carefully lower the protein layer onto the first steamer stand. Close the lid once it’s in to trap the steam and start the cooking process.

Next is the broccoli. Take your time – it only takes a few minutes to steam broccoli, depending on how crunchy you like your vegetables. It doesn’t need much besides a sprinkle of salt, but some extras like a drizzle of soy sauce or some MSG, or maybe some oyster sauce are all options to jazz up the veg.

Theres steam coming out of the vent on top of my rice cooker, which is how I can tell the rice is a few minutes away from being done. This is mostly a matter of experience, and knowing how your equipment behaves. You can see the chicken is almost done.

Balance the broccoli onto the ramekin. See how by being conservative with portion sizes, I can fit all 3 components of a complete meal vertically into one single appliance! This is the one pot meal at its finest, ladies and gentleman.

Chicken thighs are cooked through but tender from the gentle steaming. Shiitake mushrooms have become meaty and juicy. They’ve both released some liquid during cooking, which have mingled at the bottom of the dish to create an aromatic and savoury sauce that is wonderful for spooning over rice.

Broccoli looking fresh and vibrant. I would personally have preferred them cooked until almost mushy, but a slightly crunch texture is an acceptable compromise for me in return for the low-effort, high-reward of the Tower of Doom.

A respectable spread for 35 minutes of work.

Dinner is served, with some marinated okra as a side dish – recipe coming soon.

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