- Oh my goodness.
I am really, really not confident about this.
I don't know what to do. Help me.
Oh my gosh.
(triumphant music)
Hey everyone, it's Barry here.
Hope you are well. This is a rice cooker.
Yet my video today isn't about
this actual specific rice cooker.
It cost me £25 and if you don't what it is,
you get a lid, you get like a measuring cup.
Well, not always. A little spatula.
This is a steaming tray, which is optional.
Some don't have that and others have like grilling plates
and everything where you can cook in it and do so much more.
You have this removal bucket which is actually
really important because you do not want to be cooking
on the heating element which is basically
where it all comes from.
I've only had rice from a rice cooker once
and it did actually blow my mind,
but I was like, well, just cooks rice.
But that's not the point of today's video.
I remember that rice being super fluffy
and it kept warm, right?
So it was a party, it was made hours before.
And like with this one,
you've got a warm setting where you can just
keep it there ready until people want to have it
and it stays just as good with like minimal effort.
All the rave stuff right now is about air fryers
as I'm finding they're pretty cool
but I think a rice cooker is quite underestimated.
In fact, I found a review
by someone of this actual rice cooker.
It was a student and it completely changed her life.
She doesn't use the hob at all.
Literally cooks all her dinner in there
and it kind of made me go crazy
in terms of the ideas we can do today.
I could have spent like a whole weekend cooking this thing.
We can do four things. All right?
But on that review, that person mentions how she did pizza,
like pull-apart flatbread.
So already made dough fillings,
more stubborn grains like couscous,
did a chilli, mac and cheese and pasta,
porridge, or some of you might call that oatmeal,
bow buns, those steamed bow buns with those baskets.
With that steamer thing,
like I say, they don't all come with it.
That can replicate that.
Then you've got things like risottos
and paellas plus creamy rice pudding.
But I'm gonna do four things that really
intrigue me in true Barry style.
We're gonna do rice first of all to showcase it,
we'll showcase the steaming basket.
Then we're gonna try and cook some ribs in it
in its own barbecue sauce that's gonna bubble away.
And then we're gonna try a Japanese jiggly cheesecake,
which I'm really, really unconfident about,
but that is not it.
I'm just trying to show the diversity of this today.
So let's get going. We'll take the lid off.
We're gonna need this thing.
Apparently with the instruction manual for this one,
most of them come with that.
Tells you the exact portions that you need
for the rice quantities and the water.
It's all about that and that water does get hot.
Mrs B. absolutely hates it whenever
I open packets of rice 'cause normally
I just get really like, oh I'm just gonna cut it off here,
and I'll just rip it and then she's like,
why don't you use that thing and then end up
using the wrap master and covering
it in loads of cling film.
They have different types of rice.
This is basmati, but they also had easy cook basmati.
I'm not fully sure the difference between the two
but apparently these cookers work really well for more
stubborn rice that I find like jasmine and things like that
which sometimes you want a little bit harder texture anyway.
And depending on the fluffiness,
it's all about that water ratio you put in.
Normally it's one to one.
Your manual will normally help you
or you can always Google it.
There's some amazing rice like websites
out there to get you perfect rice.
But I'm expecting amazing things from this.
(rice falling)
Washing the starch off. Do that with any rice you can.
Just try and do that automatically. It really does help.
Lid goes on and I wonder if it's gonna be a little bit
like popcorn 'cause that is quite low down.
Popcorn, you can put like one piece in and it's just like,
boom, the kernel turns into loads of them.
Oh, green light. So it's got warm or cook.
So I think we wanna push it down to cook
which is gonna warm that heating element right
up to 100 degrees to boil that water.
So, we're cooking rice.
This is a good start, I'll keep you posted.
And in terms of energy use compared to, say,
like a slow cooker when it's doing some like preheat
like that or the actual cook side,
it's probably using a fair bit of power
but when it's on the warm setting,
just sitting there for hours,
'cause it doesn't actually have an on off.
These rice cookies generally, it's like, right,
do you want me to be like cooking or do you want me warm?
It's kind like me on a beach.
I don't know what I meant by that.
It's up to you if you wanna stir the rice as well.
I'm feeling fairly confident, fairly,
but of course there is the risk
that it could burn if the water dries out.
So you need to make sure you've got your eye on that one.
Ooh, wow.
Yeah, okay. It got us.
I can confirm though that that rice is cooked wonderfully
and it's still got that a little bit of moisture
coming to top because it's on now that warm mode,
which is where you can leave it.
It's good to do that anyway
after the first batch of the cooking the rice
anyway, but that was when I went to that party.
It's like, yeah, I made this like three hours ago.
So that is the great thing.
It can just sit there now,
it will not burn it but I'm kind of keen to taste it.
All right, so I've left that to steam for about 10 minutes.
Oh, it's all like fluffy and not soggy and crunchy
and actually most importantly it's not burnt underneath.
That is amazing. Let's see what it tastes like first.
Oh, it feel, yeah, it looks great.
I've never judged rice so heavy.
There's people that do art on like grains of rice.
That's amazing.
Hmm. Well, that is incredible.
I mean it's quite bland.
I don't mind rice. I love it.
But that texture is amazing.
Right, so we're now actually gonna self stock.
I'm going to wash out our little bucket there.
We're gonna pour some water and then stick a stock cube in
and then steam some salmon and vegetables
in a similar time to the rice actually.
Says we can only do a maximum of six cups of this
when we are steaming it.
Minimum of three, a maximum of six.
And in my opinion I think you should always go
for the most you can just in case,
prevents that option of it all completely burning out.
I've got a stock cube in here as well.
We're just gonna stick that in
and this is the steamer tray.
You can see I've got it on some baking parchment
but I've left a gap for a few holes
so the steam can still get up and around the salmon,
broccoli, and the corn.
I've given it a bit of salt and pepper on there.
But of course you could do like butters and things
because all of that is gonna fall into that below.
So again, adding that more fluid in there,
you're gonna end up with a pretty cool stock as well.
The lid goes on.
Well, that looks quite pretty in there, doesn't it?
The other thing to say, of course,
is steaming as a cooking method.
I feel like there's sort of other people that do loads
of it or there's people are like, nah,
it's actually quite underrated as well.
It's insanely healthy and there are ways
of like portioning up where you are steaming
where you can have different things cooking at different
times and then add them at later dates.
There's also some pretty good appliances for that.
So, yeah.
And also you get a free beef smelling beauty facial
but you can see the colour
of that salmon's just changing now.
So another's sort of six minutes or so and, yeah.
Woo. Tell you what, even from the rice and this,
that's an amazing lunch.
As my arm just found out when I showed you that camera angle
and I gently put it over the steam, steam's hot.
You got a little bit of that stock and drizzle it over.
Oh, if you're wondering why rice
has suddenly appeared in that tub,
it's because I took the opportunity
there to take a thumbnail.
Mm, oh, that's nice.
It's small sweet corn though.
So if it was a fatter one
I would need a longer steaming time.
You'd wanna put that in first.
Broccoli. Mm, I love broccoli.
It's like you're eating a hedge.
Salmon, absolutely delicious,
and actually dripping a little bit of that stock on,
really added to it. Right, the timer didn't go off.
I'm hopeful for this next one.
We're gonna cook some barbecue ribs.
Well, they're not barbecue. Rice cooker ribs in here.
All right, make no bones about it,
and these are ribs with bones in, sorry for the pun, ribs.
Okay, we're gonna get some sugar on these,
which is hopefully gonna caramelise
but we're gonna cook them
in the rice cooker on their own in oil too.
Brown sugar. Okay, dark brown sugar going on.
We'll leave the rest in the bowl
'cause there is quite a bit there.
We want to use all of this to help create
this sauce that is gonna bubble away in, all right?
Here is our dish and we're gonna add in some oil.
We're gonna do cook to get that oil hot
with the ribs in right now, okay?
Just to brown them before dumping the other stuff in.
Just washed my hands. Not sure if you can hear this.
That oil is warming up.
Ah, and we just wanna lightly brown.
I mean you could do this on the hob
but my aim is to try and make it all cook in here.
It's very easy to forget that there is actually oil
in here, so be very careful. Keep it turning.
But all I'm gonna do is finish this, a few more minutes,
and we'll have it drained out. All right?
Suddenly feeling really confident about this.
Cheesecake, I don't know.
So back in with all of that extra sugar.
All right? Oh my goodness.
We're now now gonna follow up with some beer.
You could use any beer that you want, really.
And also some barbecue sauce. All right?
Nice big sticky barbecue sauce,
that is really gonna work with that sugar.
Look at that, big rice cauldron.
I'm just gonna help it stir through a little bit.
But a little bit like the stock with that salmon earlier.
It probably won't need much help.
This smells incredible.
Lid on and I will see you in an hour.
I'll keep you posted if anything crazy happens
like Boston does the tango or something,
but the smell alone, I think this is gonna be awesome.
Folks, it's about 20 minutes to go,
and it's reduced down enough that there was a gap
where I could actually stick the tray in again.
So I'm cooking up some more salmon, corn,
and broccoli so that Mrs. B. can have that for a lunch.
So if you're doing this like that,
like you could be cooking pasta or another sauce
in the bottom half and then steaming your salmon
or other vegetables to blend in with it as one pot meal.
That is pretty cool.
How's that?
- Very tender and soft. It's lovely, thank you.
- [Barry] A bit of barbecue sauce on it,
but we won't talk about that.
- Okay.
- Folks, that has been an hour.
I'm now flicking it up myself
to the warm mode because I don't about you,
it has reduced down massively, and let me show you.
Oh, and obviously this is warm too,
so it will thicken up as it cools down
but it has reduced down by at least two thirds.
It's up to you. You can keep pushing it.
But I do like the idea of having that sauce to dunk in.
We've come from extreme healthy steamed salmon
to sugar coated beer ribs. All right.
Oh my goodness.
Absolutely stonking, tender, not quite falling apart.
I could push the cooking length a little bit longer,
maybe add a little bit more water
in there to buy us some more cooking time.
But absolutely phenomenal. Right.
That has been a massive success.
I need to wash up my bowl,
prepare myself to see if we can make this cheesecake.
You can make other cakes in there easy,
but this seems like a challenge.
This recipe could fail.
This is some cream cheese that I've warmed
in the microwave but has now cooled down.
Apparently the importance is to keep
this thing really smooth.
This is two egg yolks, it might not look like it,
but there's one and the other one kind of exploded.
Thank you. Keep it as smooth as we can.
Apparently this is the important thing
but I really think this is gonna burn.
So now we shimmy in the sugar.
Very bizarre folks, not gonna lie.
This was not where I was intending to go
or indeed where this rice cooker thought it was gonna go.
Some lemon juice now, some flavour.
In this sieve is gonna go some cake flour.
So just super light flour basically.
I might pass the whole batter through a sieve in a minute
just to try and get it as smooth as I can.
And then some skimmed milk.
I don't know why skimmed, but hey.
There's sugar in there already.
That is incredibly smooth.
I mean, more like a pancake batter now.
Just to be on the safe side
I'm gonna pass it through that sieve.
Yeah, okay, there's a few lumps still there.
So hopefully we've got a nice smooth batter.
Dun dun dun dun dun dun dun.
Hedwhisk, egg whites.
All right, nice stiff peaks.
So we'll take it in batches,
like thirds, and then just fold it in.
Okay? Oh, nearly there.
That's taking blooming ages, folks.
So yeah, I think I'm gonna take that.
I don't want to over stir it. Right.
Apparently we have to grease the bowl.
Now I am really worried about this going to cook mode
which is like the 100 degrees temperature, all right?
I'm really worried about that
because apparently some rice cookers
have something called cake mode,
which apparently is perfect for this recipe.
I don't have cake mode, I have cook,
which is gonna basically boil the batter, or warm.
So that is what we're gonna do.
We're gonna try and just keep it warm
and slowly cook it through, oh my gosh.
To give it the best chance I'm going to,
it is actually cold right now, but as we know,
we can put the lid on, make sure it's on warm,
and it's gonna stay on warm.
So 65 degrees-ish rather than 100.
That is gonna be our best chance for this to cook.
I know the other way it would be hilarious
but I kind of want this to work.
Apparently in 40 minutes we should have a jiggly cheesecake.
I am really, really not confident about this.
The one thing I'm gonna say, well,
apart from forgetting my cardboard cutouts today,
this thing I am not taking the lid off.
The steam is what's gonna give it that rise,
and particularly at a lower temperature
I need to keep that heat in there.
Any sort of cool down could make it flatten.
So I've just gotta do it by eye and, well,
I'll give it the full time and maybe beyond,
but it's been 10 minutes. It's not burnt yet.
And maybe with a slightly biassed eye
it's looks like it's risen slightly.
So I'm clinging onto that hope.
Folks, I've been here an hour now,
so there's my coffee I've been having,
it's supposed to leave it for less than an hour
in its entirety. 40 minutes is the most.
So it was on the slow cook mode.
Nothing was really happening.
So I thought periodically I thought,
well, just boost the temperature a bit.
When I put it down to the actual cook from the warm mode
it's suddenly like got completely crazy and it's gone
to like this weird sort of cauliflower texture.
The only thing is I have overcooked it potentially
from the time. I can't see the bottom.
It could be completely burnt,
but at the same time I could turn it out
and it might completely be all raw in the middle.
I don't know what to do. I don't know what to do.
Help me.
I think I'm gonna give it another 10 minutes
and then we'll just go for it because
it's on a hot surface underneath that.
I mean we turn it out so that'll be that side facing up.
It could look gold and brown maybe,
but it could also look like charcoal.
I can smell burning.
I've just turned this off, actually, let me show you.
I can see potential. It has come away from the sides.
Yeah, it's got a little bit of wiggling it.
We'll give it that,
but it looks like it's shrinking by the moment.
I've got a trivet there. We'll stick this down.
Ha ha, ooh. That definitely fell out.
Oh no. Oh no.
Oh no. Look at that.
Well, that is not puffy at all, is it?
Oh no. Oh no.
Oh no. Ah.
Just that a shot down there is a big blob.
See, that was my fear with it.
I left it on the low setting for ages.
About sort of half an hour into it I'm like,
it's not doing anything. It was still raw.
You could see it.
Turn that heat on just intermittently every couple
of minutes just to boost it,
and then it started to help.
Mm, I tell you what. It is cooked through just.
If I was gonna do this properly, I mean,
we've lost that rise entirely. It's gone so flat and thin.
The next step was to chill it, but it's not worked.
That rice cooker isn't designed for it.
It does taste amazing though. I will give it that.
I have had a lot worse things.
There were so many other things that I could have done
that would've been easier to showcase that rice cooker
that absolutely I knew would've worked,
but I wanted to have some fun with that
and I'm not that disappointed about it.
'Cause I think we found today those things that you've done,
the list that I gave at the start
is just a minimal amount of the things
that you can make in this.
But for 25 quid, I'm actually gonna keep hold of this.
I've always wanted to have a rice cooker
and based on the rice alone it was blooming stonking indeed.
(Barry laughing)
Even Boston turned his nose up at it,
but I think he would like ribs. Cheers.
(upbeat music)
For context, three days ago I filmed those scenes,
and yesterday with Chloe
we attempted to make it again based
on some advice that I got.
Basically switching it to cook like you would
with the rice and it'll know when to change.
We lined it with a baking parchment
and it was scary and okay looking, promising at stages.
That is actually jiggling. Had a solid hour in there.
Ooh, I think that might be burnt still though.
Oh my gosh, that does not sound good.
Oh no.
Look, I destroyed the baking parchment!
But if I peel it back, it made its way through. Oh my gosh.
So I think conclusion with this one in particular
for your first introduction to rice cooker,
maybe get one with a cake mode.
But I'm not gonna let this defeat me.
I'm gonna keep trying this over and over
but maybe I'll make some porridge tonight.
But even hopefully from this video
I've shown that there are lots of things you can do
with it and it might kind of surprise you.
So maybe I'll do a follow up video if you wanna see it.
I don't know.
It's up to you if you get one
but we are 100% keeping this.
It's rather stonking indeed. Hope you enjoyed the video.