Rice cooker Coloring Pages

A Machine That Cooks Rice

The Rice cooker is a machine that cooks rice for you.
When you put in rice and water and press the switch, it cooks soft and delicious rice with just the right amount of heat.
Even after it is cooked, it can keep the rice warm for you using the keep-warm feature.

How a Rice cooker Works

Inside the Rice cooker, there is an inner pot where you put the rice and water.
Inside the inner pot, there are lines to help you measure the right amount of water.
Inside the lid, there is a round plate with lots of small holes that lets out just the right amount of steam.
On the front control panel, you can choose how to cook your rice, like plain white rice or mixed rice.

Fluff It Up with a Rice Paddle

Once the rice is cooked, you mix it gently with a rice paddle by scooping it from bottom to top.
This lets extra moisture escape and makes the rice taste even better!
On the 1st coloring page, you can see a Rice cooker and a rice paddle side by side.

In the Past, People Used a Stove

Before there were Rice cookers, people cooked rice on a kitchen kamado stove.
They put a big pot called a hagama on the stove and burned wood underneath to cook.
If the fire was too hot, the rice would burn, so someone had to stay next to it the whole time to check the heat.

Helping to Wash the Rice

Before you cook rice in a Rice cooker, you need to wash the rice with water.
You put rice and water in a bowl, stir it gently with your hand, and pour out the cloudy white water.
After you repeat this a few times, put the rice into the inner pot and add water up to the line.
Washing rice is a great chore that kids can help with!

Be Careful of the Steam

While the Rice cooker is cooking rice, hot steam comes out from the top of the lid.
If you put your hand near the steam, you could get burned, so please do not touch it!

Rice is at the Heart of Life in Japan

In Japan, rice has been the main food for a very long time.
In Japanese, the word for cooked rice is used for breakfast, lunch, and dinner, showing that rice means a full meal!
That is why the Rice cooker is an essential appliance in Japanese kitchens.

3 Coloring Pages

There are 3 coloring pages: a Rice cooker and a rice paddle, freshly cooked rice, and an old-fashioned kitchen stove.
The coloring page of the stove shows an old farmhouse kitchen, and it is a fun picture with lots of great details to color!

Colors of the Rice cooker

Many Rice cookers are white or black.
For the white Rice cooker on the first page, if you color just the side in light gray, the round shape will look 3D!
Try coloring the second Rice cooker in black or dark navy blue.

Make the inner pot dark

Color the inside of the inner pot with dark gray or black.
If you leave a little white line along the rim, it will look smooth and shiny like a real pot!

Leave the rice white

For the freshly cooked rice on the second page, leave most of it uncolored to use the white of the paper.
Just add a little bit of light yellow or light gray for the shadows between the rice grains, and it will look fluffy and yummy!

Kitchen with a traditional stove

On the third page, try coloring the stove in gray, the cooking pot in black, and the wooden lid and firewood in brown.
Color the wall dark brown and use light yellow for the light coming through the window grid to make it look like an old-fashioned kitchen!

Add some rice balls, too

Try drawing some rice balls or rice bowls around the rice on the second page!
Color the seaweed black or dark green, and the pickled plum red to make them look delicious.

Color of the rice paddle

Try coloring the rice paddle on the first page in white or light sky blue.
The tiny bumps on the surface of the rice paddle keep the rice from sticking to it!

Draw the fire in the stove

Try drawing a burning fire inside the stove opening on the third page!
If you layer red, orange, and yellow, the fire will look like it is crackling away!

It cooks rice by itself

In 1955, Toshiba sold an automatic electric rice cooker that cooked rice with just the flip of a switch.
Before that, people had to watch the fire carefully on a stove or gas burner.
It made cooking rice so much easier!

First a low heat

There is an old saying for cooking delicious rice: "Hajime chorochoro, naka pappa."
This means starting with a low heat, and then turning it up high.
Today's Rice cooker also changes the heat automatically while cooking inside.

The wings of a hagama pot

A hagama pot used on traditional stoves has a ledge that looks like wings all around it.
These wings fit right over the hole of the stove to keep the heat inside.

Takikomi gohan

With a Rice cooker, you can make white rice, and you can also make takikomi gohan by cooking other ingredients together with the rice.
You can enjoy different meals every season, like bamboo shoot rice, chestnut rice, and matsutake mushroom rice.
Some Rice cookers can even bake cakes!

Rice cookers around the world

Japanese Rice cookers are popular with people from other countries because they make such delicious rice.
Some people even buy a Japanese Rice cooker as a souvenir when they travel.