9.100
USING THE MAIN OVEN - ELECTRIC
Slow cooking ( Setting or 100°C)
• Make sure that frozen foods are thor-
oughly thawed before cooking.
• Do not slow cook joints of meat
or poultry weighing more than
2¼kg/4½lb.
• Preheat the oven to 170°C and cook
for 30 minutes, then adjust the oven
control to or 100°C (slow cook
setting) for the remainder of the
cooking time.
• Slow cooking times will be about 3
times as long as conventional cooking
times.
• Do not open the oven door unneces-
sarily during slow cooking, as this will
result in heat loss at low tempera-
tures.
• Always use dishes with tightly fitting
lids. To rectify badly fitting lids, place
foil over the dish underneath the lid.
Aluminium foil
Use foil only to cover food or cooking
dishes, using foil to cover the shelves or
oven base creates a fire hazard.
Cooking with a fanned oven
As this is a high efficiency oven,
you may notice the emission of
steam from the oven when the door
is opened. Please take care when
opening the door.
If you are used to cooking with a conven-
tional oven you will find a number of dif-
ferences to cooking with a fan oven which
will require a different approach:
There are no zones of heat in a fan oven
as the convection fan at the back of
the oven ensures an even temperature
throughout the oven.
This makes it ideal for batch baking - eg;
when planning a party as all the items will
be cooked within the same length of time.
Foods are cooked at a lower temperature
than a conventional oven, so conven-
tional recipe temperature may have to be
reduced. Please refer to the conversion
chart.
Preheating is generally not necessary as a
fan oven warms up quickly.
There is no flavour transference in a fan
oven, which means you can cook strong
smelling foods such as fish at the same
time as mild foods - eg; milk puddings.
When batch baking foods that will rise
during cooking - eg; bread - always
ensure that enough space has been left
between the shelves to allow for the rise.
Notes:
When 2 or more shelves are being used, it
may be necessary to increase the cooking
time slightly.
Because the 2 oven shelves are wider
than in many ovens, it is possible to cook
2 items per shelf - eg; 2 victoria sand-
wiches or 2 casseroles.
Although you need to keep in mind the
points ‘To help the air circulate freely’
with careful choice of dishes and tins, it
is possible to cook a complete meal, and
perhaps something else for the freezer, in
the oven at the same time.
When roasting meats, you will notice that
fat splashing is reduced, which is due in
part to the lower oven temperatures, and
will help keep cleaning of the oven to a
minimum.
Because a fan oven has an even tem-
perature throughout the oven, there is no
need to follow the shelf positions given in
the baking guide.
