Whole oat groats in a rice cooker?

[Paid In Grapes]

Has anyone here used a rice cooker to prepare whole oat groats? If so, instructions would be helpful.

I've looked online for some information, which is sketchy at best. I'm asksing the question for someone else, I don't have a rice cooker so I can 't experiment. The type of cooker uses fuzzy logic if that helps at all.

 

[Mad Cook]

I haven't used a rice cooker to cook whole oats but a slow cooker makes good porridge. Start it off with hot milk otherwise you'll be there for days

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[Sir_Loin_of_Beef]

I make Irish oatmeal in my rice cooker all the time. It has an oatmeal function button and a recipe in the owners manual. I will see if I can find it.

 

[tenspeed]

I've never made whole oats, but I've made steel cut oats in my Zojirusihi microprocessor controlled (aka fuzzy logic) rice cooker. The Zoji has a porridge function, which is lower temperature than the rice cooking function, which is necessary if you are cooking the oats with milk. For steel cut oats I use a 2-1/2 to 1 ratio of milk to oats.

Beth Hensperger's cookbook says to treat whole oats like rice, but she doesn't say what kind of rice. My guess would be to try a 2:1 ratio of water to oats, and use the mixed rice function (Asian white rice is different, and the mixed rice setting is recommended for American long grain white rice). The porridge function takes about an hour, as does the mixed rice function, so that should get you close. If the oats are too crunchy then try the brown rice function, or possibly increase the amount of water.

According to Zojirushi Asians prefer softer rice. Some Americans find the brown rice function produces too soft of a rice for their liking, and use the mixed rice function to produce a firmer brown rice.

One of the things I've learned about the Zoji is that you can vary the texture of the rice by varying the amount of water, but you will always get good results.

 

[Paid In Grapes]

Thank you for the replies.

The person for whom I'm asking makes steel cut oats all the time in their rice cooker on a porridge setting. Whole groats take usually take at least twice as long to cook, and more resemble barley or rice, and actually makes a great rice substitute. On my stove it takes about 50 minutes for for rice-like al dente, and about 60 for a softer barley-like texture.

I specified the rice cooker as this is the only option that fits this person's lifestyle at the moment. No slow cooker, no instant pot ( no room), no presoak over night (can't commit to the time).

My wife and I have oatmeal for every breakfast, and if it's just our usual steel cut oats I make 4 cups once a week which fills two 2 quart Cambro containers that we keep in the fridge. I make it on top of the stove using a 3:1 boiling water to oats ratio. After I add the oats to the boiling water I stir it for a minute or two turn off the heat, and cover. I let it sit 3-4 hours till the pot is cooled down, and absorbed the water. At breakfast we add some extra water to in our bowls of oatmeal,stir, and microwave for 3 mins. Not quite as good as making it fresh everyday, but very close and so convenient. This method doesn't fit with how our friend's schedule actually works. He likes the whole groats, but it isn't that much better he will sacrifice the time to try and experiment with it.

 

[tenspeed]

In that case it sounds like the brown rice function will work. My Zoji's brown rice function has a soak period at elevated temperature to cook the bran on the brown rice. Just don't try it with milk, as it will most likely boil over.

 

[Paid In Grapes]

Tenspeed,

Thank you for the information. I thought brown rice setting might work, but since I've never used a rice cooker I had no real idea. I'll pass it along and see if he tries it. I'll make sure and mention the cautionary about milk.