Gas cooker guide

If you buy a good cooker, and look after it, you may never have to replace it. When choosing a cooker, you should think about whether a cooker is suitable for the type of food that you like to cook, and the way in which you want to cook it.

Although electric cookers are invariably cheaper to buy and run, especially in this age of soaring gas prices, they are looked down upon by professional chefs and foodies alike as being a poor relation to the gas cooker in terms of performance.The recent TV-led boom in gourmet home cookery has led to a massive increase in demand for gas cookers, despite their increasingly high running costs.As a result, the cooker manufacturers have responded with an increasing range of ever more exotic gas cookers aimed at satisfying the culinary desires of this growing market.

Have a look at the features that are available on various models, and decide which ones you couldn't live without, and which ones you'd be unlikely to use. The cheapest gas models start at around £250 when new.

This should meet most of your basic cooking requirements and last you for a number of years.Unless you are planning to do some fairly elaborate, large scale cookery, you might not need anything more than a basic model. As you begin to start looking at the more expensive cookers, you will notice that they usually have a lot more in the way of features, which may or may not be useful to you depending on your circumstances and cooking habits.The more expensive cookers tend to fall into the ‘professional' category, and feature a less homely, more industrial-looking sturdy stainless steel aesthetic.

The question that you need to ask yourself, if you are looking at units such as this, is whether you really need a cooker that is powerful enough to be used in a commercial catering kitchen.

If the aesthetics of your kitchen are all-important, but you don't feel you can justify splasing out on a professional cooker, then there are many semi-professional cookers which share the professional looks of their pricey older brothers, but have a slimmed down feature set. In the majority of cases, these units— which usually cost between £800 and £2,000 will work exceptionally well for years, providing they are looked after.

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