Newb question about cooking rice

Anova Precision® Oven
1

The instructions I have found about cooking rice have you spread it out on the pan and pour the water in.

Is this necessary? Will the time and temp controls be the same if you put the rice & liquid in a bowl or other cooking pan?

My goal is to cook the rice along with other compatible dishes, to get most bang for the kilowatts (in our off-grid solar-powered house).

The recipe I am looking at is for brown rice, 212 degrees, 100% steam for 75 minutes:

Perfect Long-Grain Brown Rice by Kate Itrich-Williams for Anova Precision® Oven. Perfect Long-Grain Brown Rice | Combi Steam Oven Recipes

Thanks in advance for any insights!

2

Is the low energy instant pot a no go for pressure steaming in your house then?
(I enjoy its energy frugality, which is why I also sous vide a lot with my SV stick)

I cannot bear heating up a large oven void unnecessarily.

I favour the pot in pot method for rice which I cook 2 cups of most days, it also excels with decent green lentils (another low energy, high protein foodstuff I am smitten with)

Link below, scroll down till you get to the rice section, I used to eat brown rice but found it too harsh, I use a large indian s/steel dish with handles which fits perfectly in our 8 litre unit, keeps the inner clean for whatever is going in next as it just sits in its bowl on the trivet, ready to go.

Nice to meet another renewables oriented person on here (too many carbon heavy steaks;)

3

Thanks, Mr. Gus!
Great resource. We will make use of that.

It is a great point. We do have an instant pot which will be great for this sort of thing. We are in the middle of a construction zone and just got the Anova, so we have been using it for lots of stuff (in our future bathroom because it at least has a floor and a working electrical circuit, unlike our future kitchen). We are Anova-Oven-crazy at this point because we need to learn how to use it, but probably many items will make more sense in the Instant pot. That is still over in our greenhouse; we need to bring it to the construction zone and do some side-by-side comparisons.

In the Instant pot I have done the pot-in-pot to cook rice with a steamer on top holding a cornish hen. I did similar in the oven with quinoa (much faster than brown rice) with chicken thighs nestled in the quinoa, and a whole cauliflower on the upper tray. A nice thing about that over the instant pot was the browning stage (we don’t have an air fryer instant pot).

In the oven for this first try at brown rice, we cooked the rice on one tray, and on the upper rack we put a bowl of leftover soup and a separate bowl of kale with scrambled egg for an egg bake. They were all done by the time the rice was done (the eggs went in 1/2 hour after the rice). I imagine there would be times when having the rice in a serving dish rather than on the Anova tray would be useful… not sure if that would work the same as in the Instant pot, but we will try it some time to see.

I wish for a resource on combining cooks like that. It would be nice for the instant pot, as well as for the oven. Gotta get as much cooking out of one session as possible!

Thanks again for your helpful note!

4

We have 3 instantpots (yeah, no comment needed)

We bought the original back in 2015 ish (8 litre) because we cooked a lot for our boxer dogs for a healthier diet than can junk, liver heart, gravy etc, they insulate well (as you are aware) so excel in terms of a low energy cooking option, then we realised that we needed one pretty much just to batch cook for the dogs never mind us.

Wandering around costco the other year we found the 8 litre version that comes with two lids (one being an air fryer) which does work well for browning a chicken but not an xl bird due to the inner air fryer holey pot that sits within the s/steel inner greatly reducing it’s useability as a general airfryer, & whilst it did (removal of af inner) accomodate & brown the top of a chicken, without the proper lift (yes the trivet does ok) it is still better off finished in a small airfryer for 17-20 mins (wife bought a hypsantia) because we simply do not trust the anova ovens performance nor durability, nor service, nor app, too many angst ridden posts of problems resulting in a junker or anova sending another oven out… cost prohibitive therefore in the uk, a mass of slow to fix physical design problems etc (sorry to say)
So we use anova SV wand (well I have a few) stuck on a spare 8 litre instantpot inner with a silicone lid for insulation & tight sv stick cut out, water stays in for a week (unless garlic tainted) then used elsewhere if possible (plants, mop & bleach bucket) etc
The pot has 50+ mm of foil faced (complete wrap) to sit on & then the same on the sides, this makes it very efficient in terms of thermal losses, far more than a mere towel wrap.

The point to consider with a water immersion SV stick is that the water will sit at say 23-27c (uk summer) & the remainder of energy to get it up to steak / chicken temps is minimal, as is the dwell time potential for cooked product eating later than anticipated.
Whilst it is another piece of kitchen kit, I find being able to run 2-3 energy efficient items to put a supper together easier to bring together.

The sv stick is superb for eggs (tasty proteins) & whilst I tend not to care about “snotty eggs” if you were to do a decent soft boil it is advisable to do the 3 min boil (induction hob for efficiency) before banging it in sv water for 45 mins, …they stay good all morning if left for a “when you want to eat, eat” delayed scenario, an sv wand also helps make a decent poached egg with minimal water swirling (protein losses) in a pan if serving to someone who is precise & particular.

SV wand really useful running with solar for keeping energy spikes / draw to a minimum,
Sadly I don’t get too adventurous with veggies as I tend to hammer lentils & rice done minimalist, & fish aplenty, the odd steak, veggie burgers (beyond beef) which drew our family unit into preferring them to minced beef burgers, though I will more or less hammer a whole head of steamed broccoli added to rice & seasoned with a decent furikake, soy sauce & kadoya toasted sesame oil (pure, japanese)
Sadly had a very bad early veggies relationship that I continue to strive to get to grips with cauliflower, …split & baked aubergine halves was my most recent win! which I must practise on.

No idea how haggis cooks in the anova oven but again for dedicated sous vide this type of dense foodstuff “puddin” is another one I cannot leave unfinished, “everything bar the BAAA” that I often have ready to go, never even gets to see a frying pan. I have yet to try a vegan haggis type thing but never say never!

I wish you luck with the oven cooking endeavours.

5

Thanks @MrGus for great information.

6

If the rice is steamed or submerged doesn’t make a significant difference as long as there is enough moisture to absorb.

Same goes for pretty much everything else (eggs for example) if you don’t want the surface erosion of boiling water or the ease of cooking something on the stovetop then steaming at high moisture is roughly equivalent to cooking.