Have you ever thought about buying a basic rice cooker?

Cooking rice on a stove isn’t exactly difficult, but most of us have messed it up a few times. We’ve either burnt it or made it too mushy. A rice cooker, on the other hand, cooks perfect rice every time. All you need to do is add rice, measure water, and press start.

A basic rice cooker has a built-in thermostat that tracks the temperature of the pot. The water starts to boil and steam, and once the thermostat hits a certain temperature, the heat is reduced and the appliance shuts itself off, or switches to “Keep Warm” mode.

When cooking for large numbers of people or families, particularly on a budget, most of us need to bulk out main course meals of fish or meat with some carbs and often a simple portion of boiled rice is the easiest way of doing this. So, if you do a lot of cooking for many people and make a lot of rice, you will want to save some time and effort. By getting even a basic rice cooker you’ll free yourself up to concentrate on assembling and cooking other ingredients.

A conventional rice cooker generally comprises four components: the cooker’s main outer body, an inner cooking pan, a heating plate which is located on the bottom of the main body and a thermal sensing device in the centre of the heating element.

To use it you simply place the water and rice in the inner cooking pan, measuring out the rice and water in the cup provided with the machine according to the guide on the inside the inner bowl where there are usually graded marks etched on to indicate the required quantities of rice. So once you’ve put the rice and water into the main body of the rice cooker all you do is just plug in and turn on.

The heat plate brings the water to the boil and when all the water is absorbed the machine turns off the heater automatically.

In some models, the on/off switch flicks to the ’off’ position when the rice is done and there is no light to indicate the rice is done.

If you require an entry level  simple basic rice cooker why not try the 10 Cup Kitchen Genie Rice Cooker & Steamer