- Ah, I have to be honest.
I don't know what to do.
The technology is getting in the way of cooking.
Eugh.
Okay.
(upbeat music)
Welcome back to "Chef Out of Water."
I'm Alexis, your chef who is always up for a challenge.
That's why I've taken to the internet
for you to decide what I should cook with next.
At the end, a surprise guest will come on,
and they'll have to guess what I used to make the meal.
I don't know who I'm cooking for,
and they don't know what I'm using.
So let's see what's next.
Okay, okay.
These are like the most basic rice cookers on the planet,
but this feels fine.
You know, if I can make it work with a blender,
I think I can make it work with a rice cooker.
Of course, I've used a rice cooker to make rice before,
but never anything else.
I've got a lot of questions.
Do I get research?
- [Producer] Yes!
- Great.
So it turns out people make all sorts of things
with rice cookers.
There's cakes, there's curries, there's sauces.
I feel like there's a lot of possibilities here.
A little rice cup.
Little spoon.
Steamer.
I think this is gonna be really interesting,
that it only has two features, which are cook and warm.
If I can get the bottom heated and use it to saute things,
the world is my oyster.
I feel like I'm ready to go.
My confidence level today is actually like an 8.5.
Am I gonna kick myself for saying that?
I'm gonna start off with the dessert.
I am going to try to make a chocolate cake today.
I think the first thing I need to do is put it on.
There's not really an on or off button.
It's just plugging it in, which feels pretty dangerous.
No idea how long it takes to preheat,
but we're gonna let that go.
I've got some room-temperature butter.
Brown sugar.
White sugar.
Eggs.
Vanilla.
I'm gonna add some yogurt,
which I know feels a little out there,
but it's just adding more fat.
Flour.
Cocoa powder.
Baking powder.
This is all very standard.
Again, this is all gonna be by hand
because I am not allowed to use anything else.
Rice cookers are basically steam.
So it'll be more like a steamed cake than a baked cake.
So I'm hoping it can be really light and fluffy.
But I don't know temperature this gets to.
I don't know how consistent the heat is.
So it all feels a bit fake.
Cake ready.
I'm gonna grease this down, but to prevent sticking,
I'm gonna put parchment on the bottom too.
Fancy trick time.
To get a perfect circle,
you take a piece of parchment bigger than your surface.
You fold it over like this.
And then you put it over your bowl
and you just cut like this.
Circle.
Oh (beep), ow!
The pot is hot.
So cake batter in the rice cooker.
This feels very weird.
This cake usually takes about 35 minutes.
I have absolutely no idea how long it's gonna take,
but I'm just gonna keep an eye on it
and move on to my next course.
Chicken and potatoes, a classic.
This actually isn't a chicken.
It's a Cornish game hen
because this is so small a chicken wasn't gonna fit inside.
I'm gonna try to get some color from the bottom,
but just in case I can't get a crispy skin,
I thought doing some paprika rub
would help give it some color.
I've got paprika, cumin, coriander, salt, pepper.
It's beautiful.
Great color.
Okay, something concerning.
The rice cooker has switched from cook to warm.
And when I press cook, it just goes to warm.
Every time it switches to warm,
I need to take the entire thing out,
unplug it, replug it, and put it back in, switch it to cook.
This definitely derails my plan a bit
in terms of cooking and consistency, since clearly,
it's not gonna go for more than a few minutes.
I'm just cutting some aromatics right now
to add some flavor to the base of the chicken.
Oh, this is gonna be a long day.
This narrowly fits in it.
(sizzling)
It's making the right sound.
The chicken smells amazing.
It sounds right.
It smells right.
I'm gonna give it a flip.
Wow.
This is gorgeous.
Whee!
Fly free.
I'm just gonna get a little more color on...
Oh, this has switched to warm too, huh?
Ah, I have to be honest.
I don't know what to do.
I can't cook a chicken in a warming vent.
It feels like something's wrong with this machine.
It can't be me.
I know about machines.
So my chicken got browned,
but the machine keeps going on and off.
We have looked at Amazon reviews,
did a lot more research on the internet,
and I think it just needs more moisture.
So onions are going in.
Garlic halved.
Some flavor.
This cake is cooking.
It's not fully cooked yet, but...
It's quite good.
Okay, new plan.
I'm gonna make another cake batter
that's a little more moist, steam it in the steamer basket,
put in water below, keep switching it on and off.
It is cooking, so I think I just need to be really diligent.
This feels like a little out of sorts,
but my confidence level is still pretty high.
I would say I'm at a seven right now.
I thought this was gonna be such an easy one.
I was like, "Rice cooker? No problem."
Some problems.
So the cake looks like it's actually staying on cook,
which I think is because of the water in the base.
I think for the chicken, I need to get it back to cook
and then cook it with some white wine
so that it adds more moisture.
It smells absolutely incredible.
Okay, so I've got my onions,
my garlic, my chicken, and wine.
It's on cook.
Lid on.
We wait.
I was thinking like, do I serve this as a whole hen?
Like a little cute hen?
My cake looks wild, but it's definitely cooking.
The day started off with a few snafus,
but I think we're back.
I think I figured out the power.
If I can just keep the heat on and consistent, I'm golden.
You know, it doesn't have that crispy skin
because it was kind of like in liquid, kind of poaching.
But there's some browning.
It's quite pretty.
This is gorgeous.
There is like all this sauciness.
It's garlicky, onion-y.
I'm gonna try to just cook it down for a few more minutes,
as long as the cook is gonna stay on.
It's divine.
Like you could just dip bread in this and call it a day.
And now that my chicken's done,
I'm gonna get my potatoes ready.
The steamer basket worked for the cake.
With the potatoes, it makes even more sense.
So we'll try it.
Oh.
Potatoes, going.
Cake.
Maybe we should be steaming cakes more often.
It feels really good.
That was like pretty painless.
(beep)
Oh!
Eugh.
Okay.
(beep)
Looks like my potatoes are nearly ready.
I'm just gonna heat some milk and heavy cream.
Some rosemary.
I have a whole head of garlic that I crushed.
I'm just gonna get that warmed up
so it'll get really infused,
and I'm gonna incorporate that into the mashed potatoes.
Got a potato ricer, which is a tool,
but it's not a mechanical tool, so I think it's okay to use.
This is like my favorite thing in the world to do.
Whoa, it's so weird!
Oh my god, I love it.
That looks so beautiful.
These potatoes are gorgeous.
If I had a better rice cooker,
I think this would be actually pretty effective.
Because the rice cooker doesn't have a lot of power,
it took honestly like 40 minutes
for the potatoes to become tender,
and they could have been tender in like 10 minutes
on the stove, but the result looks great.
Ooh, okay.
My milk-and-cream mixture looks like it's ready.
Ooh, it's actually boiling.
Damn.
Oh my god, it smells so good.
If you dumped all of the milk and cream in here,
it would just become like a gloopy mess,
but if you do it bit by bit,
it'll get absorbed into the potatoes.
They're so good.
Oh my god.
My confidence, if it's about these potatoes, 10.
My chocolate cake is cool.
It looks kind of like a brain.
It's got all these really weird ripples.
Anyway, I'm gonna make a chocolate frosting,
and I thought I could melt some chocolate
in the steamer basket.
I'm gonna treat the rice cooker
as if it was a double boiler.
So that means water in the bottom.
I also have mini chocolate chips
because I thought they would melt faster.
I'm gonna make the base of the frosting
while the chocolate melts, so.
This would be about a billion times easier
with a hand mixer or a stand mixer,
but you know the drill.
I've got really soft butter.
Vanilla.
A little bit of cream.
(blows raspberry)
Oh god, this is gonna be a pain.
Oh no.
Oh.
I'm gonna take my cooled cake,
and I'm gonna cut out three mini cakes
and kind of make like a mini chocoler.
Chocoler?
I'm gonna make a mini chocolate layer cake.
Okay, if I stack three of them,
that looks absolutely crazy.
But I could cut them in half and do thinner layers.
(gasps)
I could make a four-layer cake.
This is so fun!
The chocolate's good.
It's only right to try the frosting with the cake.
Mmm!
This looks ridiculous.
Four looks crazy, but go big or go home.
I think I'm gonna lean into the rustic look
and put some berries around it to serve.
Finally, a dish that makes sense for a rice cooker.
I'm going to make mussels in white wine.
Super easy.
Mussels are in so many fancy restaurants.
I think it's definitely something people associate with
a higher price tag, but the whole joke
is that mussels are actually super inexpensive.
They're one of the most affordable seafood options.
And they're so easy to make.
I thought I would make the broth and the base
and then put the mussels in the steamer basket on top.
Onions, garlic, pepper flakes, white wine.
I want the alcohol to be cooked out of this
and just have the flavor of the wine.
You don't need much to give mussels
such an incredible flavor.
The taste tester better like mussels.
That would be so sad.
My broth is ready.
I'm just going to add the steamer basket right on top.
Lid.
Cook them until they open, so it should be a few minutes.
It's the moment of truth.
Wow, they're so pretty.
Ooh, this broth looks so good.
I just added some lemon.
Adding parsley.
It looks absolutely perfect.
Can I be the taste tester?
I'm so excited.
Honestly, confidence level 10.
I'm ready.
- Hi, I'm Ryan.
I'm a video producer at Buzzfeed.
I make branded content.
My favorite food is sushi.
My least favorite food is my mother's Brussels sprouts.
I cook out of necessity.
I don't cook for pleasure.
Like last night, I had plain chicken and plain pasta,
and I ate it in the dark.
Alexis has made a three-course meal for me
with a mystery appliance.
I don't know what the appliance is,
but I'm going to try and guess.
- Okay, you know what?
Bring 'em in.
(gasps)
- [Ryan] Ah!
- Such a treat.
- Hi. I'm a treat?
- You're a treat. - You're a treat.
- Are you ready?
- I am. Are you?
- I am about a level 10 right now, so I am so ready.
- 10 out of--
- 10 out of 10.
- Cool.
- Okay, okay.
For your first course, you have mussels in white wine.
- [Ryan] Very nice!
- Do you like mussels?
- I love mussels.
- Yay! - Yeah!
- That's what I was worried about.
- Okay. Cool, cool, cool.
Mm-hmm.
That's great.
They're cooked well.
- [Alexis] I am gonna take that as a win.
- Yeah, of course.
Of course, it's a win.
- Great. Great, great, great.
- Oh, I have to stop?
- You don't. You can keep going.
- All right.
Oh my god!
- I'm so glad you're hungry,
because this is a Cornish game hen,
which is a little smaller,
over some sauteed onions and mashed potatoes.
- It's really good.
I just can't talk right now.
- [Alexis] I'll give it a try.
- [Ryan] Okay, go ahead.
- Mmm.
This is so good!
- Yeah, it is.
- It is.
- Well-seasoned.
This is probably like a $30 meal right here.
Whoa!
- So for dessert, you have your own mini chocolate cake.
- Oh damn, that's good.
- What do you think I used to make this meal?
- There had to be enough heat to get this crust
and like this...
A curling iron?
- No.
- I want to get it right.
Rice.
Wait, you already did a rice cooker, no?
Or did you?
Did you do a rice cooker?
- I don't know.
- A bathtub.
Oh, that's a bad guess.
That's such a bad guess.
- When you said rice cooker before, you were right.
- I was right? Wow.
- Rice cooker! Yay!
Does that make this more or less impressive?
- Oh, totally impressive.
It ups the wow factor.
Thank you very much.
- You're so welcome, Ryan.
- This is a treat.
And I'm gonna go now.
I'm probably gonna take some food with me.
- Take whatever you want.
- Awesome.
I'm gonna spill for sure.
- Oh, I like that combination, cake and mussels.
- Mm-hmm, mm-hmm, mm-hmm.
It balances out.
- Bye. - All right. Bye.
- I'm so glad he liked it.
Honestly, it was really, really good.
Like, after the blender, after today,
I'm feeling good and really confident.
Whatever's next, I'm ready.
Comment below to let me know
what you've made in a rice cooker.
(upbeat music)