Main Oven Cookery Notes, Oven Positions

MAIN OVEN COOKERY NOTES

Since a Circulaire fan oven heats up more quickly, and generally cooks food at a lower temperature than a conventional oven, pre-heating the oven is often unnecessary. However, foods such as bread, scones, Yorkshire pudding, should be placed in a pre-heated oven.

The charts on pages 30 and 31 are a guide only, giving approximate cooking temperatures and times. To suit personal taste and requirements, it may be necessary to increase or decrease temperatures by 10˚C.

Unless otherwise indicated in the charts, food is placed in a cold oven, i.e.

without pre-heating. If food is placed in an already hot oven, the suggested cooking time should be reduced, depending on the type and quality of food being cooked.

OVEN POSITIONS

Since the distribution of heat in the Circulaire fan oven is very even, most foods will cook satisfactorily on any shelf position, but the shelves should be evenly spaced. To ensure even circulation do not use meat pans larger than 390 x 300mm

(15ins x 12ins) and baking trays no larger than 390 x 255mm (13ins x 10ins), these should be positioned centrally on the oven shelf.

Food or utensils should not be placed directly on the floor of the oven for cooking. Never use more than 3 shelves in the oven as air circulation will be seriously restricted.

Note:There are two rod shelves in main oven, but the top oven rod shelf can also be used in the main oven to provide a third shelf position.

To avoid unnecessary cleaning, rod shelves which are not in use should be removed from the oven.

TEMPERATURE AND TIME

When three shelves are used to cook large quantities of food for home freezing or parties, it may be necessary to increase the cooking times given in the charts on pages 30 and 31 by a few minutes, to allow for the loss of heat due to the extra time taken to load the oven, and the larger mass of food. Baking trays should have an equal gap on all sides to allow even air circulation.

N.B. Recipes in cookery books give times and temperatures for cooking in ordinary ovens. The Creda fan oven makes it possible, in most cases, to:–

a)reduce the recommended temperature by 25oC (45oF).

b)reduce the recommended time by approximately 10 minutes per hour.

c)make pre-heating the oven unnecessary for certain foods.

TO PREPARE MEAT AND POULTRY FOR ROASTING IN YOUR FAN OVEN

a)Wipe the meat or poultry, dry well and weigh it. Meat which has been stored in a refrigerator should be allowed to come to room temperature before cooking, and frozen meat or poultry must be completely defrosted before placing in the oven.

b)The weight of any stuffing used should be added before calculating

the cooking time.