How to cook rice in a donabe

My rice cooker died this week. It was a simple and cheap one with only a few features. I made everything from regular white rice to brown rice to heritage black rice in this cooker. It was pretty good at handling きのこご飯 kinoko gohan, mushroom rice, and たけのこご飯 takenoko gohan, bamboo shoot rice. Sometimes when I was busy, I slung some rice, a few tablespoons of kimchi, and some chicken pieces in the pot and the dish turned out well and made for a hearty dinner and bento box lunch the next day.

I thought about getting a new rice cooker, and there is a huge range of cheap ones with simple functions. If you are willing to pay a premium, there are all kinds of fancy ones with amazing features. Really, all I want is hot, fluffy rice. And then there’s the space issue. My kitchen is small and as it was, I placed my rice cooker on the floor. And do I really need another appliance dedicated to a single cooking task?

Then I remembered I have a donabe! My trusty 土鍋 donabe, an earthenware pot, gets heavy use in winter for all kinds of warming and filling hot pot dishes. A winter weekend dinner staple for me is 寄せ鍋 yosenabe, a hot pot with seasonal ingredients simmered in miso broth.

So I dusted off my donabe. Mine is a typical one suitable for cooking a meal for two. You can get donabe specifically made for cooking rice. These have an inner lid and an outer lid. Mine is the simple kind with a single lid.

To cook rice in a single or double lid donabe is not complicated. I used my  一合 ichigo rice measure. The traditional ichigo rice measure originated in the Edo era and is still used today. It is equivalent to 180 ml of rice. For the two-person donabe, I usually use two measures. I rinse and drain the rice. Then I put the rice in the donabe with about 100 ml of water. This is just the right amount of water for two measures.

After 20 minutes, I put the donabe with the lid on the gas ring at medium heat. It takes about 10-15 minutes until it starts bubbling and steam escapes from the hole in the lid. I turn the heat off and let it stand with the lid on for about 20 minutes. In winter I usually wrap a bath towel around it to keep it warm.

The result is fluffy, shiny rice. Sometimes I put the donabe back on the gas ring for just a minute at low heat to get お焦げ okoge crispy rice.

Have you tried cooking rice in a donabe? How did it work out?