Panasonic SR-TEG10 5 cup Rice Cooker is simple to use, works well and cooks really delicious rice.
We do not like small appliances on our kitchen counter, so it took a lot of convincing for us to want to buy a rice cooker. Rice cookers are large and take up a lot of counter space. This 5 cup rice cooker, the Panasonic SR-TEG10, however, is really easy to use, convenient and cooks excellent rice every time. In a nutshell, this rice cooker is great.
We really did not need a rice cooker, or so we thought. We cook rice in a Corel Pyrex dish, in the microwave. The rice is pretty good, taking about 25 minutes. The only problems were that excess water would drip out and dirty the microwave turntable, and that we were afraid that Little Weed would either drop the pyrex container, burn himself, or both. Safety concerns had us thinking about alternatives.
If you are Asian here in Toronto, Canada, you have an Asian branded rice cooker. Asian rice cookers are much superior in quality to the North American brands, which manufacturer their rice cookers in China. Asian rice cookers are manufactured in China, Thailand, Viet Nam, and Japan. A North American rice cooker might be Ok for some, but I doubt it. The Salton model we bought lasted 2 weeks before it started peeling its teflon coating. What a waste of money, and never again.
Traditional rice cookers are so easy to operate. Scoop rice to the amount you need into the inner pot, wash the rice thoroughly, then add enough water. Place the pot back into the rice cooker and hit the single button. In 20 minutes the rice is cooked and the rice cooker goes into “warm” mode, keeping your rice just right until you plug it out. This process can be done my kids and is perfectly safe for latchkey kids.
Rice cookers come with a few accessories. There is the rice paddle, for scooping out the rice from the pot to your bowl. The paddle handle fits into a specially designed hollow in the rice cooker, so the paddle need not touch the counter. This keeps the paddle and your counter clean. It is also harder to lose the paddle. The paddle does not block access when you open the top door.
The rice measuring cup is smaller than a traditional kitchen 1 cup measuring cup. The rice measuring cup is fashioned off of the traditional Japanese design, and holds about 2/3 of a cup of rice. You really need to use this specialty cup because the pot has an embossed legend for the amount of water you need, which is calibrated to this smaller cup.
The rice cooker came with a steamer, which is in the box and remains unused. If we want to steam veggies we have a stove and a bamboo steamer set.
One really convenient “accessory” is the retractable electrical cord. This electrical cord is spring loaded and retracts into the base of the rice cooker. It works really well, and the retracted cord makes your counter much cleaner.
There is a steam vent at the back of the unit, as well as a small container to catch excess water. This small container, called a “dew collector”, is recessed into the side of the rice cooker and is very unobtrusive but works well.
The rice cooker is white with a shiny aluminum band all round, making it nice looking but not outstanding. There are no flames nor fancy paint jobs to call attention to itself.
There is debate on the internet as to the benefits of the newer computer based rice cookers vs the older traditional design. As a technologist I had to research the new ones. The new technology is supposed to make even better rice and can do varied types of rice, but at a much higher price, double the price of the traditional rice cooker. The other main problem with the new design is the cooking time, which can take up to an hour. This is one hour as compared to 25 minutes in the traditional rice cooker or the microwave. For us, the cooking time was the deal breaker. We would rather not, nor could not, wait for 1 hour for rice.
Of course with online research comes the plethora of name brands and models. After thorough research we went to Market Village in Markham to talk with the local shop keeper. Living in a very Chinese area of Toronto has its advantages when buying Asian goods. Our local guy told us that he has been selling rice cookers for over 25 years, and is an authorized seller and service depot for Panasonic, Zojirushi, Sanyo and a couple of newer Taiwanese and Chinese brands. He could sell us either the traditional style or the newer microprocessor style. More importantly, he could tell us which brands had the best reliability. Any given brand name manufacturers in different countries, and the quality varies by country of manufacturer.
He recommended the Panasonic SR-TEG10 model because of its long-term reliability and convenience. If we washed the pot right after use, and stored cooked rice in another container the pot and its teflon coating would last many years. Of course do not drop the pot and dent it.
We could have gone with the larger 15 cup model, but really we only do 2 or 3 cups of rice at a time. We’ve actually never done 5 cups so far, and if we did we could scoop out the rice and cook another batch.
While it is too soon to tell about long-term reliability, the Panasonic rice cooker does an excellent job in cooking white rice. Simple, easy to use and safe, even the Little Weed had no issues using it, and has been doing so by himself. There is no dripping of water on the counter, unless you overfill the water. Yes, we could do without it, but the rice cooker makes our life easier. We would buy it again.
