****** - Verified Buyer
4.5
Makes great rice of all kinds as you'd expect. So far I've tried regular brown long grain, brown short grain and mixed rice (I'm still having fun trying and learning all the different settings for softness and taste). The GABA rice setting turned plain old long grain brown rice into a tastier and healthier meal- I wound up eating the whole amount I cooked plain. But I'm even more excited about two other features. I can now finally make Korean Japgobapi (mixed rice, grains and beans). The Cuckoo cooks it perfectly, the beans come out soft without the rice being mushy (the settings also allowing degrees of softness). And although it doesn't explicitly say so in the manual and there is virtually nothing anywhere on the web, you can also make plain ole beans using the multicook function. I've cooked garbanzos twice by themselves and both times they came out well. I did soak them over night but then they cooked in 20 minutes. The first time I used 1 cup of dry beans soaked with two cups of water and found some water on my counter after cooking. The second time I used 1 1/2 cup water and the beans came out fine and there was no water on the counter. At this point I think the Cuckoo can be very useful making beans if you want them for other dishes and uses, lets say instead of canned, but not as useful if you want a thick creamy bean "gravy" .Oh, and for anyone who's never used either a rice pressure cooker or a pressure cooker of any kind before like myself: don't be alarmed when the Cuckoo hisses like an angry rattlesnake midway through cooking. Never having had or used a pressure cooker before I was startled and more than a bit nervous the first time I heard it, but apparently that is normal with a pressure cooker, Also at the end of cooking the steam release (when cooking beans in multi-cook) is like an old fashioned locomotive pulling into a station.I believe this is the best 3 cup rice cooker on the market. With that said, there is a learning curve. Much of the user manual and button-function-descriptions are lost in translation. It is the best cooking, best built and best looking rice cooker out there...but it took me a while to figure out how to use it. It does a great job on beans as well.Let's start with the glossary of terms;Glutinous rice = Sweet rice or sushi riceSoft Glutinous rice = Jasmine or Basmati riceNu Rung Gi = Scorched RiceMulti Cook = Beans and other foodMixed Rice = Mixed brown rice or rice with other vegetable, meats and spicesNutritious Rice = A vitamin fortified type of rice. This is probably the machine's most useless option, in my opinion.All of these rice cooking selections, except for soft glutinous, have a "high heat" option. This is more useful than I thought it would be. The rice has a lightly carmelized bottom, which works especially well with brown and red rice. The manual states the high heat option results in a "more soothing rice."There is also a turbo cook option for glutinous or mixed rice. White rice in under 15 minutes and brown/mixed rice under 30!Perfectly cooking beans has never been so easy. Pre soaked garbanzo beans finish in 15 minutes on the multi cook function.There is a verbal warning and a locomotive soundtrack before the pressure release function. This little machine spits out a huge stream of steam! It's hard not to love all the things this machine does.The Cuckoo EHSS0309F is fantastic rice cooker that is built to last. Just be ready to read the owners manual for the first few weeks. Also, make sure to buy a cheap rice washing bowl. The inner cooking pot is not good for washing rice.Have fun!I've wanted a Cuckoo rice cooker for the longest time because I heard nothing but good things from Korean friends about this brand. This model came with a full stainless steel inner pot makes one of the main reason for buying this rice cooker. This model also comes in English language which come in handy for set up. Some may not like the voice playing but I prefer to use this as warning to my family to stay away from the rice cooker while its at work. This is a pressure cooker and at 3-minutes mark before completion of cooking, the voice will inform that the steam is releasing from the cooker. Good especially when you have kids or clueless husband in the house. Rice cooked using the Glutinous rice mode will turned out sticky and with a little chewy texture (if you are using Japanese short grain, make sure to wash the rice until the water is clear. A common practice in Asian household). If you prefer the soft fluffy texture, then choose the soft glutinous rice mode. I believe the word glutinous rice is a little lost in translation here. IMHO, the Glutinous rice is better known for sweet sticky rice (commonly used in Thai dessert) and I was a little confused at first using the Cuckoo rice cooker. But because most Asian short grain rice has a sticky texture, it probably being translated as glutinous rice here. So I went on to use the Glutinous rice mode to cook my short grain and came out fine.I have used both the 6 cup version and this 3 cup version. This three cup version is perfect for a single person or a couple. With the 6 cup version, the minimum is 2 cups and there was always left over rice.The machine works really well, and cooks brown rice in 45 minutes, or you can make gaba rice over 12 hours or more. Its reasonably quiet, and easy to clean.The only negatives are- the high price (you can buy a pressure cooker for less than 1/3 the price)- the layout is not very well designed. Unlike various Japanese rice cookers I have had, which have been easy to use, I find that I need to actually read the manual on this repeatedly. Just to change the language from Korean to English or changing a mode might entail pressing a button 11 times or something. This is really a major flaw - which continues to annoy year after year. If you just make one thing the same way each time, its ok.
