Oven Cookery Notes
Oven Control | With the oven door closed, heating of the oven is achieved by |
| turning the control clockwise to the required “oven temperature” |
| scale on the control panel, as recommended in the temperature |
| charts on pages 14 and 15. The pilot light will immediately come on |
| and go off during cooking as the thermostat maintains the correct |
| temperature. The “Oven Temperature Charts” 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 10OC. |
| At the end of the cooking period there may be a momentary puff of |
| steam when the oven door is opened. This will disperse in a few |
| seconds and is perfectly normal characteristics of an oven with a good |
| door seal. |
Note | Remember to switch off the oven control after cooking is finished. |
To prepare meat for Wipe the joint, dry well with a clean cloth, kitchen tissue, etc., and
roasting in your weigh it. Meat which has been stored in a refrigerator, should be
electric oven allowed to come to room temperature for approximately 30 minutes before cooking. Always completely thaw frozen meat before cooking. Beef, lamb and mutton may be lightly floured, but pork should have the rind scored, brushed over lightly with olive oil, and sprinkled with salt for crisp crackling.
Place joint in meat pan supplied with your cooker (small joints weighing less than 1.5kg (3lbs) should be roasted in a smaller pan/meat tin, or they may be 'pot roasted' – a small joint in a large meat pan causes unnecessary oven splashing). Additional fat should not be used, except for veal, very lean meat, poultry, which can either be ‘larded’ with fat bacon, or brushed over very sparingly with melted fat/cooking oil. When potatoes are to be roasted round the joint, they only require to be coated in melted fat/cooking oil. It is not necessary to baste, when roasting in an electric oven, and liquid/stock should not be added to the meat pan.
Temperature The secret of succulent, tender meat, is not to roast it too quickly at
and timetoo high a temperature. Best results are obtained when roasting is carried out at a low temperature. When a lower temperature is used, joint loses less weight, is more tender (too high a temperature causes meat to be tough and dry), and the splashing of fat on the oven interior is reduced.
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