I've found a device that cooks perfect rice so I'll never go back

I've been cooking rice for decades, usually once a week and, if I'm honest - probably not doing a very good job. Chilli with rice is one of the staple dishes in our house - along with the occasional risotto, paella, chicken tikka, rice salad and every now and again a rice pudding.

But despite my ineptitude, I've continued to cook rice the 'traditional' way - whack it in a saucepan of boiling, salted water and let it cook away for 10 minutes. Well, not pretty but it does the job.

So I decided to give the Cosori Rice Cooker a try to see what I'd been doing wrong. If you've tried a Ninja Foodi this is like a miniature version of that. If not, its a plug-in device with an inner bowl, a steaming dish, a measuring jug and a couple of serving utensils. It has a heating element underneath and on top and works like a combined slow cooker/pressure cooker to get the job done.

The Cosori 1.8-Litre Rice Cooker comes with an instruction book and a recipe book - but operating it is very simple. There is a touch screen panel at the front that lights up when you plug it in. Choose the type of rice you want to cook and it will set the time based on how much water and rice you're using.

The instructions on how much to use are based in cups - very American - and rely on you using the plastic cup to add your rice and water. The cup holds around 100g, 4oz, and that's more than enough for one person. For a long-grain white rice you're going to be using about one and a quarter cups of water for every cup of rice.

Make sure to give your rice a good wash before you start off. Then just press the buttons and leave it to do its thing.

Right from the start the Cosori turned out perfect rice - firm, nutty, sweet and cooked to perfection with just enough bite and absolutely no mush.

The device is engineered to cook rice, so it is no surprise that it does it very well indeed. On the second try I decreased the portions as one cup produced just a little too much rice for us, and still it worked perfectly.

There are downsides - the cooker is not fast. With most modern devices one of the draws is that they save you time. An air fryer, for example, will cook anything on average 20 per cent faster while we all know how quick a microwave can be.

But rice for three in the Cosori takes around 45 minutes. That's not really a problem if you factor it in. And It was great to set the timer earlier in the day and leave the Cosori to cook the rice (it stops when the rice is cooked and keeps it warm for a while). When the rice was cold in the evening it was perfect for making an egg fried rice to go with stir fry.

Another downside, the main instructions aren't crystal clear - but as I say it is very simple to work out what you need to do thanks to the very straightforward touchscreen. There is a simpler leaflet in the box with tips and basic instructions so stick to that if you get stuck with the main booklet.

And finally the number of recipes it comes with seem designed more for showing off the full range of functions of the device. As mentioned at the start it basically acts like a much less expensive Ninja Foodi so you can use it for making a huge range of things, from sauces, james and coolis to cakes.

The recipes included feature everything from Coconut Curried Chickpeas and Beef Stroganoff to Chocolate Cake and Lemon Chicken with Rice Soup.

So if you get bored of making rice it does soups and it sautes, steams, slow cooks and cooks other grains such as porridge and quinoa, as well as brown rice. You can use it for everything more making stews to steaming fish and veg. Rice cooker really doesn't do it justice.

A range of simpler recipes would be welcome, but you can work it out as you go along.

The device also has a range of handy options. It has a delay function if you want to set it for the rice to be ready when you get home and its indicators tell you very clearly what it is up to.

You can manually adjust the timings up and down if you want to. And there are 'quick' and 'slow' functions. The 'quick' doesn't really seem to cut much time off but I guess rice takes as long as it takes!

And none of the minor problems detract from how well the device cooks rice. I even experimented with using it to make rice pudding. It made quite a mess inside the device with milk and spices across the inside of the lid.

But the Cosori is very easy to clean, the pieces of the lid simply come away with the press of a lever and are simple to wash with soapy water. The inner bowl obviously comes out and is again simple to clean. So despite the mess I'll definitely be doing that again - and will even try risotto and paella.

The Cosori is also compact so if you've got a little space in a drawer or cupboard it can pack away, with the cord and utensils inside, until you need it again.

The Cosori is simple, elegant and precision-engineered to do the job it is designed for to perfection and adaptable enough that you can make up your own recipes and experiment with no fuss, and no fear of doing any damage.

It is fair to say I won't be going back to sticking dry rice in a saucepan and boiling it until it surrenders.

The Cosori 1.8-Litre Rice Cooker is available on Amazon for £99.99 and the full Cosori range can be viewed on their site.