FAN OVEN
TEMPERATURE AND TIME
When all 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 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 allow an equal gap on all sides of the oven.
NB. Recipes in cookery books give times and temperatures for cooking in ordinary ovens. The fan oven makes it possible in most cases to:
-Reduce the recommended temperatures 25˚C (45˚F).
-Reduce the recommended time by approximately 10 minutes per hour.
-Make
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.
c.Place meat / poultry in the main oven meat pan supplied with your cooker. Small joints weighing less than 1.75kg (31/2lb) should be roasted in a smaller meat pan / tin - or they may be ‘pot roasted’ - a small joint in a large meat pan causes unnecessary oven splashing and evaporation of meat juices.
d.Additional fat should not be added, except for veal, very lean meat or poultry which can be ‘larded’ with bacon fat or brushed very sparingly with cooking oil or melted fat.
e.Beef, lamb, mutton and poultry may be dusted lightly with seasoned flour to give a crisp outer surface. The skin of duck and goose should be pricked to release excess fat during cooking and the rind of pork should be scored, brushed lightly with oil and rubbed with salt to give crisp crackling.
f.Meat and poultry wrapped in, or covered with a tent of aluminium foil will be juicy and tender. Roasting bags offer the same advantage. Always follow the manufacturer’s packing instructions and remember to reduce the temperatures given for conventional ovens by approximately 25˚C and the time by approxi mately 10 minutes per hour.
g.Potatoes for roasting only require to be brushed with cooking oil or melted fat.
h.It is not necessary to baste when roasting in an electric oven and stock or liquid should not be added to the meat pan since this only causes unnecessary soiling, steam and condensation.
FROZEN MEAT AND POULTRY
Joints of meat and whole birds should be defrosted slowly, preferably in a domestic refrigerator (allowing
16