I hate my oven. Really I do. And it hates me. There is no question about it. We have officially and irrevocably fallen out. There was never much love there to start off with, but now, nada, zip, nothing but mutual loathing. What, I hear you ask, could have caused such a breakdown in that which should be a mutually supportive relationship? Well, symbiosis only works when both partners gain something from the experience, and this weekend saw the stew that broke the cooker’s back. Well, it wasn’t actually a stew, but that sounded better. And it wasn’t the cooker that ended up a broken, shattered mess, it was me.
I should explain myself, before venting! When we moved in here the kitchen came equipped with a gas hob and separate electric fan-assisted oven. However, the oven is one of these blessed oven/grill combination things. One unit. I’m not even sure it is fair to use the word ‘combination’, which would at least imply that they had been designed to work together, which clearly is not the case. So, if you have the oven on, you can’t grill anything, and if you want to grill something, the oven is rendered useless. All I can assume is that the ‘genius’ who came up with the notion of these ‘combi-cookers’ has never tried to cook a meal that needs roasting AND grilling at the same time. A good example seems to be almost anything ‘n’ chips, where the chips need 25 minutes in an oven and the ‘n’ needs to be grilled. Can’t do it. The ‘n’ has to be oven-baked whether you like it or not! And let us be honest here, we’re a nation of ‘n’ chips lovers!
Now to add insult to injury, the oven comes with a single shelf and slide-in grill pan. On first inspection you may be forgiven, dear reader, for thinking that this would not present a problem. But how wrong you would be! If this were a game show you’d be hearing the ‘quack quack ooops’ claxon of failure right about now. Wrong answer! To understand the problem I should provide a little information about the design of said stove. The heating element, which has to perform the function of a grill OR to heat the oven, is located, as you would expect, at the top of the ‘box’. There is a fan at the rear to circulate the heat when the oven is in operation. Sensible. Until you consider that the grill pan is a solid block of metal that slides in a third of the way down the oven and acts as a perfect heat shield. Having only one shelf means that I have to use the grill pan as a second level – you just can’t DO roast chicken, roast potatoes, Yorkshire pudding and stuffing balls on a single shelf about 18 inches square! So I’m forced to employ the layering option provided by the grill pan, which then effectively seals off the upper third of the oven, raising its temperature to a degree that even a pot of molten iron might begin to mutter, “It’s a bit on the warm side in here”, and preventing any heat from reaching the poor raw chicken sat in its tray on the lower shelf, failing to break into a sweat let alone turn out with the golden brown crispy skin seen only on roast poultry or TV antiques show presenters.
I mentioned the fan, and those among you equipped with advanced engineering degrees who understand the mechanics of such domestic annoyances will be hopping up and down on the spot, brandishing set squares, blue prints, calculators, smug expressions and almost wetting yourselves in the need to remind me that the fan is there to circulate the heat. Does it bollocks circulate the heat! The grill pan creates such a superb barrier that all the fan does is shift cold air around at the bottom of the oven, chilling its contents more effectively than the blasted fridge, and intensify the scorching temperatures above the grill to a point where the laws of physics break down!
Now I’m a creative type, I rise to most challenges and I don’t like being beaten by inanimate objects, and even more so ones that clearly have it in for me. I’ve worked out strategies to out-smart the bloody thing. I start off by turning it up full for half an hour, to get it really primed, no grill pan in at this point, just an empty oven that, if Corus sent an engineer round they’d probably be able to certify it for alternative use as a blast furnace. Anything for the upper quadrant needs placing ‘naked’ on the grill pan in readiness for a rapid insertion. The joint, or any said slow-roast item then has to be wrapped in enough tin foil to protect it from temperatures akin to those experienced by the shuttle on re-entry. Whip open the oven door, standing well back and fully anticipating the loss of eyebrows/hair/clothing (NEVER wear synthetic clothes for this part – I’ve found a blacksmith’s apron to be the most suitable, since they banned asbestos). I used to tell people I lost my eyebrows because of the chemo, but the truth, just between you and me, relates far more to a particularly argumentative Shepherd’s pie which struggled a bit as I tried to put it in the oven, causing me to be caught in the flashback. So, slam in your meat (Matron!!!), and shut the door again like your life depends on it – which it probably does unless you prefer to be called Cinders for the rest of your life, but, unlike the eponymous heroine, sadly find yourself lacking in the ball department.
Next, turn down the oven to about 5 or 6 degrees C, but wait for at least another twenty minutes before, with lightening agility and the best oven gloves money can buy, shove in the grill pan, with its contents, and pray that a) you’ve managed to retain enough heat in the lower section to keep cooking the meat and b) ‘upstairs’ has cooled enough to cook (not char) the spuds/Yorkshires.
Delia Smith never has these problems. HER oven always cooks perfectly evenly, at the specified temperature and her, “one I prepared earlier” is always browned to perfection. Cow. I hate her. She lies about Yorkshire pudding recipes (her ‘guaranteed’ toad-in-the-hole came out like a sausage pancake! Bitch!) and her used pots and pans seem to just disappear, instead of ending up in a pile of twisted metal and burnt-on carbon residue that need steeping for several hours before you can even THINK about introducing them to the dishwasher! I can see what has driven Gorden F’ing Ramsey to his current addiction to profanity though! No wonder Rosemary Shrager always looks like she’s swallowed a wasp – some pimple-faced producer who has never so much as boiled a kettle before has provided them a set with an all-in-one grill/oven nightmare! Don’t get me going on Nigella ‘slowly caress its length with a drizzle of delectable juice and nibble the nuts from your spotted dick’ Lawson! I don’t need to see you seduce a scone, wank a waffle, suck off a sausage or fuck a flan! I just want to be able to cook a decent meal!
I was brought up in the era when celebrity chefs were confined to the radio, occasional guest appearances on The Generation Game (Good Game! Good Game!) or the odd appearance in Black and White when the BBC had run out of anything better to show on a Saturday morning. Yes, I am old enough to remember Fanny Cradock and the (in)famous continuity cock-up which lead to the immortal phrase, “Mmmm delicious! And I hope all your doughnuts turn out like Fanny’s”. I will always remember though, in ‘Butterflies’ when Wendy Craig was trying to make a trifle following the instructions on a TV programme and it all went horribly wrong – the jelly didn’t set, the custard was liquid and she ended up throwing fruit on top of the whole disaster.
And I must admit, I felt waves of empathy for Ria and her trifle recently. We had some friends over for a meal the other night. Nothing too adventurous; I still have to pace myself in terms of what I can do and what I can eat, so the menu was simplistic but safe: French Onion Soup (Oh how we wept), Chicken breasts stuffed with cheese and wrapped in Parma ham (see my previous blog “Did I mention I was wet?” on 3rd July for the full procurement rigmarole) with garlic bread and salad (out of the garden, no less – the salad, that is, my garlic bread tree failed to deliver this year, despite all attempts to get a baguette to germinate), all followed by fresh fruit salad and coffee. NOTHING hard. NOTHING that the average school-kid couldn’t cook for their Home Economics class (or whatever the current SAT attainment level curricular stipulation pre-defines as what used to be called Domestic Science). All I needed was for my oven to play nicely, just once, and cope with cooking the chicken fillets and garlic bread.
I know how it works, I know the game by now. And for weeks I have been nurturing, complementing and fawning over the oven. Telling it how slim it is looking, how its silhouette is that of an oven half its age, how its sleek lines and perfect curves are even more beautiful than when we first met. I’ve let it watch its favourite programmes on the telly, bought it flowers and chocolates and wine. I even told it that it could see other appliances behind my back (I think it has a thing for the microwave as I sometimes see them winking at each other). Hell, only the other day David pampered it with the oven equivalent of spa treatment: a soak in a bath of essential oils, with candles and the sounds of distant toasters lapping on a Mediterranean beach and a full body scrub.. (Well, a good douse down with Mr Muscle oven cleaner but I assume that in cooker terms that’s the same thing). All I asked in return was one night of good behaviour.
Do you think ovens get jealous? Maybe it was the fact that we were cooking for someone else that upset it? But we’re allowed to have friends! We’ve never cheated on it. It’s not like we were seeing them behind its back or anything. Nothing HAPPENED. Honestly. I promise. We wouldn’t DO that. It was just a meal.
But Hell hath no fury like an oven scorned. And it is more fun to reduce garlic bread to a smouldering cinder in under three minutes, when there are ‘new people’ around to witness the desiccation. Ah ha! But I had anticipated a degree of oven opposition and was ready with a backup plan. Some bread rolls which just needed 30 seconds of attention with some herbs, butter and a garlic press before hey presto, garlic slices!
A harsh lesson learned though: never underestimate the level of sheer evil that can be inflicted by an oven when it thinks someone is trying to get the better of it. I mean, evil that makes Beelzebub seem like Father Christmas, evil that makes Adolf Hitler seem like he was just a little mischievous. Pol Pot was a puppy, Stalin a softy. You’ve heard of Ivan the Terrible? Meet Oven the Terrible, his much nastier big brother!
So Garlic bread Mark II is prepped and slipped unostentatiously into the sulphurous pit of Valhalla and I swear, the oven door had not been shut more than 10 seconds when smoke started billowing out from round the edges. The chicken, meanwhile, is shivering in its baking tray on the lower levels, muttering something about brass monkeys (which to the best of my knowledge were not on the original menu) and I think turning blue from cold. So, keep guests in living room, open patio doors, make comments about ‘someone seems to be having a barbecue, I’m sure I can smell burning’ and turn up music to sufficient decibel level to cover sounds of frantic scraping. Be gone burnt bits, for there is NO plan C!
Luckily, removal of grill tray allowed the near solar temperature to be distributed more evenly around the chicken which did, after much anxiety, several prayers (just in case there IS a god) and a few choice Ramsey-isms, actually start to cook.
25 minutes at 200C my arse! Let’s just say that if I had to swap kitchens with Nigella, she’s have made love to several puddings, a large pot of coffee and half the camera crew before her main course was ready. Even the more appropriately titled “Can’t Cook, Won’t Cook” would have found itself running way into the News and probably interfering with a weather girl. So part of the meal cooks in about 10 percent of its designated time and part of the meal takes a good extra 90% longer than it should. I suppose mathematically that adds up to 100% and when reduced to an equation everything was actually ready on time! Maths was never my strong point. And the kitchen timer is only any use when the oven agrees to work to the same temporal rules as the rest of reality. Which it doesn’t.
But in the true English traditions of stiff upper lip, carrying on regardless, staring adversity in the face and grabbing defeat from the jaws of victory I soldiered on and managed to drag the soup course out for long enough to cover required extra cooking time. (Here’s a tip you don’t find in Mrs Beeton or for that matter post-prison Martha Stewart : small spoons! If you need more time, ditch the soup spoons, which are tantamount to mini ladles anyway, in favour of tea-spoons, or if you have enough, the spoons one might use for draining veg – you know, perforated to let the liquid drip through. And if you really need more time, give your guests forks and turn it into a party game!)
I’m pleased to say that the chicken WAS cooked in the end, and fears of salmonella were averted, but the garlic bread lived down to all expectations. Still, you can’t go wrong with fresh fruit salad, can you?
Today, having refused to go within 20 yards of the oven for a full 24 hours (a point needed to be made, even if it meant the expense of a take-away) I reluctantly decided to at least wipe down the hob and try to chip some of the charred remains off the grill pan. And it was then that I noticed something for the first time: The manufacturer’s logo on the oven door. Never paid it much attention before. Quick look, register what I thought was the name, good brand etc. But you see, upon closer inspection, it doesn’t say Indesit like I thought. Oh no. Now it all makes sense. When they moved out the previous occupants left me In-de-shit!
Posted: July 6th, 2009 by OberonUK | Filed under Life's misadventures
