What to cook in a rice cooker Xiaomi: Expanding horizons

Owners of Xiaomi smart appliances often buy rice cookers to focus on their main purpose - making the perfect rice. However, the functionality of modern models such as the Mi Smart Rice Cooker or Mijia IH Rice Cooker allows you to significantly expand the culinary horizons. Built-in programs and accurate temperature control make this gadget a complete replacement for many kitchen appliances. If you wonder what else can make this compact "smart pan", then the answer will pleasantly surprise you.

Xiaomi’s modern rice cooker is not just a container with a heating element, but a complex microprocessor-controlled device. Intelligent heating algorithms allow you to not just boil water, but maintain the complex temperature regimes necessary for languishing, fermenting or frying, opening up opportunities for creating dishes that previously required constant presence on the stove or the use of a bulky multicooker.

In this article, we will take a closer look at the variety of menus available to Xiaomi rice farmers, from traditional oriental cereals to experimental baking, how to maximize the potential of your device. Using the right modes will save time and cook healthy meals without undue effort.

Cooking porridge: from buckwheat to oatmeal

Although the device's name indicates rice, Porridge is one of the most popular modes for CIS users. Unlike simple rice cooking, this mode involves a longer languish at moderate temperatures, which is ideal for boiling hard-coated cereals. You can safely load buckwheat, millet, barley or oatmeal into the bowl.

The main advantage of using a Xiaomi rice cooker for cereal is that you don't have to monitor the "runaway" of milk or water. The smart temperature sensor prevents active drilling by putting the device in a maintained heat mode. This is especially true for making milk porridge for breakfast: you lay the ingredients in the evening or in the morning, and after a set time you get a ready dish of the desired consistency.

⚠️ Warning: When cooking milk porridge or adding butter, be sure to monitor the bowl filling level. Milk foam can block the vapor exit valve, so do not fill the internal container above the maximum mark for the Porridge mode».

If the ratio is usually 1:1.2 for rice, then buckwheat or millet in porridge mode may require more water, such as 1:3 or 1:4, depending on the desired density. Experiment with the settings in the Mi Home app, where sometimes more subtle cooking time settings are available than on the physical button.

Preparation of soups and stews

Xiaomi's Soup or Stew mode mimics the languishing process in a Russian oven. Prolonged heating at about 95-98 degrees allows extracting the maximum taste from meat and vegetables, making the broth saturated and the meat soft. Unlike boiling in a pot, there is no active evaporation, so the taste remains concentrated.

The rice cooker is great:

• 🍲 Brewed meat broths made of chicken or beef.
• 🥣 Vegetable soups that do not burn to the bottom.
• 🍖 Stewed meat in its own juice with minimal water addition.
• 🍜 Noodle soups where it is important not to digest pasta.

The design feature of the non-stick bowl and even heat distribution allows you to stew vegetables and meat without adding a lot of oil. This makes the dishes more dietary. You can use the delayed start function so that by the time you come from work, the soup is ready and cooled to a comfortable temperature in the heating mode.

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To prepare a transparent broth, use the steaming mode for 10 minutes to blanch the meat, drain the first water, and then turn on the soup mode with clean water.

You should not try to fry foods in soup mode, as the temperature is not high enough for the Maillard reaction (crust formation). However, to pass vegetables before adding water, you can use the Fast Cooking or Rice mode for a short time, constantly stirring, although this is not the main function of the device.

Yogurt and fermentation

One of the hidden but highly useful features of Xiaomi rice cookers is the Yogurt mode, which is capable of keeping temperatures in the 40-42°C range for 6-8 hours, which is the ideal condition for fermenting milk, which turns your rice cooker into a full-fledged yogurt maker of high volume.

The preparation process is simple and does not require complex manipulations:

1. Boil the milk (or use pasteurized milk) and cool it to 40-45°C.
2. Add the sourdough (ready-made yogurt or a dry strain of bacteria) and mix thoroughly.
3. Pour the mixture into jars or leave in the main bowl.
4. Turn on the Yogurt mode for 8 hours.

The product is different from the store counterparts, the absence of preservatives, starch and excess sugar. You control the fat content of the milk and the quality of the leaven. In addition to yogurt, you can make homemade fermented milk if you use ghee milk, or even put dough for yeast baking, creating ideal conditions for lifting the opar.

Bake bread and biscuits

Many users are surprised to learn that a rice cooker can bake full biscuit or even bread. Cake or Bake mode provides uniform heating on all sides, including the bottom and walls, which is similar to the principle of the convection oven, the result is soft, moist and evenly baked.

To make a biscuit, you'll need a standard dough (eggs, sugar, flour) that you'll need to whip to steady peaks. The cup of rice cooker needs to be smeared with butter. After pouring the dough, the mode is set on, and the main advantage is that the biscuit never burns from the bottom, because the intelligent control system regulates the heating power.

⚠️ Warning: Never open the rice cooker lid while baking biscuits. A sudden temperature drop and loss of steam will cause the dough to fall.

And in yeast bread, the rice cooker is a heated baking mould, and you can knead the dough by hand or in a bakery, let it come in Yogurt mode, and then bake it in Pie or Rice mode, and the crust is pale, but the pulp is great, and it's a good option for those who don't want to buy a bulky breadmaker.

Steaming and dietary nutrition

Many Xiaomi models come with a special plastic steamer basket, which makes a rice cooker a great tool for healthy eating, so you can cook rice or porridge in the main bowl at the same time, and steam vegetables, fish, chicken fillets or dumplings in the basket above it.

This way of cooking preserves up to 90% of the vitamins and minerals that are normally destroyed when cooked in water or frying. Steam evenly envelops the products, making them juicy without adding fats. It is an ideal choice for baby food or diet menus.

In steamer mode, you can:

• 🥦 Cook broccoli, cauliflower and carrots.
• 🐟 Steam fish fillets and seafood.
• 🥟 Cooking dumplings, manta and hinkali.
• 🍳 Make steam omelets.

It is important to monitor the water level in the main bowl so that it does not boil completely during long steaming, and it is also not recommended to fill the boiler basket too tightly so that the steam can circulate freely between products.

Other culinary experiments

Xiaomi rice-makers’ fantasy goes beyond standard recipes: With precise thermostating, the device can be used to make jam (slow boiling mode), melt chocolate, or even brew soap (keeping a constant temperature), some craftsmen even brew beer in them using a yogurt mode to keep the congestion temperature at bay.

You can make pasta in a fleeting way using the Rice mode to roast minced meat (neatly stirring) and then stew pasta, and it also does a great job of boiling eggs in a bag or hard-boiled, if you use a timer and water heating mode.

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Xiaomi Ricemaker is a versatile food processor that replaces a yogurt maker, steam cooker, multi cooker and even an oven for baking biscuits.

Don't be afraid to experiment with modes. For example, the "Fast Cook" mode can be suitable for heating ready meals, and the "Rice" mode with an open lid (if the design allows it to be safe) - for passing vegetables. The main thing is to remember the material of the bowl and not use metal spoons so as not to damage the coating.