Getting more flavour and a chewier bite

NOW that you've got the best quality rice, how do you do justice to it when cooking? That's where your rice cooker comes into play and even then, not all cookers are created equal. Enter, then, the Hitachi IH Rice Cooker which is made in Japan and carries a commensurate price tag that starts at $999. But would you pay one grand for a rice cooker when a $40 no-name brand cooks your daily serving of Thai rice just fine?

Therein lies the rub. While there are those who swear by the quality of Tsukiji market cheap sushi, the reality is that the price-quality ratio applies to rice cookers as much as it doe…