A slow cooker is a necessary item for any kitchen.
They are great to put your favourite dish on and let it cook slowly during the day whilst you are doing other things. Then come dinner time everything is ready and you can sit down and enjoy your favourite meal.
Read the guide to what to look for when buying your slow cooker
Whether you use your oven regularly or every now and again it pays to give it a little check once and a while.
If you are planning a major dinner party or just want to get yourself ready for the festive season when your oven will be used a lot then it is a good idea to give it a check.
A bit like your car or any other equipment a good check up is a good thing.
The worst thing you want to happen is that your oven does not work properly when you are in the middle of your best dinner party. What a scene stealer.
Here are our 5 Best Tips to getting the most from your oven
Just because the oven temperature display or indicator says 200° degrees does not necessarily mean the oven is heating to the 200° degrees.
Even if there is a 5% margin for error at 200° degrees this means there could be a 10° degree if temperature with what you are cooking.
The temperature could be too hot or too cool for what you are cooking. Remember some foods require that you cook at a set temperature to make the best dish.
If the food takes longer to cook than required then it will taste different as well.
The 2 main browning reactions in cooking are temperature dependent, so if your oven is too cold you won't create the rich flavours you associate with roasting.
The best way to guarantee great roasts, perfectly cooked fish, and juicy birds is to heat them to the right temperatures, ones that cause some of the fats to melt and some of the proteins to denature.
For fish, this is somewhere between 160° C and 165° C.
For meats, most of us prefer them cooked between 180° C and 160° C. For more info on cooking temperatures check out this article from BeefandLamb.com.au
Why not measure the temperature directly, instead of relying on a guesstimate with a timer?
Tuck the probe into the food, run the cable out the oven door, and set the digital thermometer’s alarm to beep a few degrees under the target temperature.
You’ll get consistent results time and time again. If your foods are overcooking, drop the target temperature a few degrees the next time.
An important way that foods cook in an oven is by infrared radiation.
This is what you feel when sunlight hits your skin.
The inside of your oven is designed to normally bounce infrared radiation around.
If grease is on the walls of your oven then you will reduce the effectiveness of your oven.
Cleaning your oven is an easy fix.
Depending on how often you cook food that splatters grease you should clean your oven at least every few months. We recommend that you clean your oven every time you cook a roast, lasagne, pizza.
If you can’t remember the last time you cleaned your oven, it’s probably time.
I find it easiest to run the oven’s cleaning cycle mode, which turns that grease into easily-swept-away ash, but a good scrubbing with a scouring pad works, too. If you are using your oven’s cleaning cycle, leave your pizza brick in the oven during cleaning—it’ll come out cleaner too!
If you use a Pizza Stone or Pizza brick in your oven then you are adding thermal mass to your oven. (It is funny I can remember growing up and my parents or grandparents always talking about adding a brick to the oven so it cooks better.)
By adding the Pizza stone to your oven there is more material to heat up and cool down.
This means the oven will take longer to heat up, but when you go to add poultry or a roast into the oven, the temperature won’t drop as much, meaning faster cook times and better browning.
Let your oven pre-heat for at least 30 minutes, even if it claims to be ready sooner.
Check out our Pizza Stone
Higher humidity means more heat transfer, even at the same temperature.
Depending on where you live, humid summers will cause foods to cook faster than they will in the dry of winter.
The type of oven also matters:
If your roasts are coming out dry on the outside, try covering them for the first half of cooking, using either aluminum foil or a container with a fitted lid.
The baker’s trick of adding a pan of water on a lower rack can also help by increasing humidity.
You should find that if you follow these tips you should enjoy an improved experience with your oven and some wonderful dishes that you have cooked.
Check out our range of Ovens and Appliance Packages
Are you spending more on your oven for the nice extras that you will never use. With the improvements in technology and manufacturing it is sad to see people spend a lot of money on an oven because it had all these nice gizmos but they will never use them
They are just throwing money away.
Sometimes less is more and it is better to spend your money on what functions you will actually use and not over commit on your oven.
We explain the different oven functions here:
We stock a full range of ovens in 60cm, 90cm and Freestanding. To see our full range of click here: Ovens
Now when plan to buy an oven you are a little betetr informed about what the different functions are. Hopefully then you choose the oven that best suits the requirements of you and your family.
Thinking of buying a new cooktop?
Can't decide whether it should be gas or induction.
We believe that induction cooktops are fantastic and we don't know wht so many Australians aren't installing more induction cooktops.
To help you with your decision Matt Risinger gives you 5 reasons why you should buy an Induction cooktop instead of a gas cooktop.
There are 5 reasons for buying an induction cooktop instead of gas.
If you are thinking of buying an induction cooktop check out our induction cooktop
To watch Matt's full video click on the video below.
Check out our video on the four steps you should follow to cook a moist roast. We find that it is best to keep things simple when you are cooking, that way you don't get overcome with cooking.
Cooking should be fun and enjoyable. Sometimes we make things so complicated and difficult.
Hope you enjoy the video.
Talk soon....
Are you buying an oven?
Sometimes it can be a little confusing to understand all the different functions. With so many functions now available it is important that you understand how each one works so that you don't over commit when buying your next oven.
Sometimes you can get all caught up in the different functions of an oven that at the end of the day you pay for something that you don't use.
Our video explains the cooking functions of most ovens.
We hope you enjoyed the video.
Leave a comment and let us know how we could improve our video and give you more information.
Enjoy the week.
Talk soon......
There are 3 simple questions you should ask yourself when selecting your oven, once you work these out then everything will flow easily for you.
Let’s face it no matter what anyone says you do have to clean your oven. When you cook in an oven there is fat, grease, steam in play. They have to go somewhere and generally it is the wall or floor of an oven.
Even with Pyrolytic ovens (which incinerate the greases and fats) you still have to wipe the oven out with a cloth. The old way was the standard enamel and then you have to use harsh chemicals to clean the oven.
The alternative to both pyrolytic and standard enamel is the revolutionary aqua enamel. This enamel is where you just use water which is converted to steam by heating the oven and this process softens and loosens the grease and fat from the oven wall so that they can be easily wiped clean using a damp cloth. This type of enamel is standard on all Gorenje ovens.
The aqua enamel will take approx. 30 – 40 minutes for you to clean your oven the other 2 alternatives will be much longer than this.
Telescopic shelving is fantastic. This form of shelving allows you to pull your dish out of the oven so that you can check your dishes. The telescopic shelves can take more weight than the standard shelves plus they allow you to easily pull them out and to push them back in.
The telescopic shelves will allow you to have 2 free hands so that you can check your cooking whereas other shelves may require you to use one hand to balance the cooking. You will also discover that you don’t have to place the cooking on the oven door to balance it (which you really shouldn’t do as it can lead to breaking glass) as you can easily lift the pot off the telescopic shelves with 2 hands.
I ask you what is more important the width of the oven or the height?
When you cook is your turkey or roast high or wide. In most instances it would be high. A number of people want a wide oven because they do a lot of cooking for a large family and as such they think they need a wide oven. In reality all they probably need is an oven that can take a higher dish.
Even if you are cooking a lasagne or slice or cake then a 60cm oven allows you to use a number of different levels if you have a number of dishes to cook.
This way you are not giving up cupboard space to accommodate a larger oven that won’t be utilised as much as the extra space for storage would be.
Once you are clear in your own mind about these 3 things you can more easily select your oven by looking at functions and style and the impact you want to create in your kitchen.
Let me know your thoughts.
Talk soon….
