Ready, steady ( be sure to read the manual)….cook!

How quickly things can change …until ten days ago this blog was going to be some observations during my travels on the common lavatory …….but not any more ( you’ll have to wait for that one Dear Reader!!!)

Now I know what you’re wondering ….what happened ten days ago to change my mind ? Well it was the purchase of an Air fryer ….let me explain. We need to go back just a little bit – most of you know of the DB ( Dearly Beloved, the present Mr Harding , my better half – or if the winds blowing in the wrong direction, Victor Meldrew!) – well, he is a Yorkshireman which means the phrase “ How much?” comes to him as easily as breathing in and out! So when the crippling rises in electricity and gas costs were mooted, he tucked himself away in his study, to calculate any money saving methods he could muster . Research showed that an air frier used 80% less energy to provide perfectly cooked food ! Well you can’t argue with that …..particularly when I knew he had read re-read and then read again every available piece of information on air fryers he could. You see Dear Reader this is where he and I differ …. I hear they use 80% less energy and decide – right we’ll have one, that one looks nice …… order ….next day delivery …and off we go – decision made in 5 minutes !

So after much deliberation , we have a new piece of cooking equipment in the kitchen with all the trepidation that brings ….and it took me right back to when we had our kitchen re- done about ten years ago. In my previous life I had always cooked on Agas and whilst I would have loved an Aga here , we opted for the next best thing ( well in looks anyway) a Rangemaster stove ( very posh with two ovens and a grill, a wok ring, four gas rings and two electric rings which serve as a brilliant pancake cooker!

Now, one of the ovens is multifunctional the other a fan oven – when I listened to the sales lady talking me through what you could use each function for I was amazed! What I couldn’t do with this stove was nobody’s business – I could defrost, use it as a normal fan oven, a fan grill, a fan assist, a conventional oven, use the browning element at the top, and also base heat ( apparently very good for pizzas) at the bottom ( surprisingly!!!) Anyway, as a purchaser of this piece of equipment I would be invited to a morning of cookery demonstrations where I would learn all functions and more . What could go wrong Dear Reader?

Our kitchen was completed September/October so in good time for our family Christmas and what’s more , I was booked in for my demonstration one Saturday in November. Excellent , and to celebrate we will order a designer turkey from the local farm( I think it was a Norfolk Black but could have been a Mulberry or Louis Vuitton for the price I paid for it!) to christen the Rangemaster’s first Christmas.

Then, to my disappointment the cookery demonstration was cancelled and even more upsetting, there wouldn’t be one before Christmas. Well no worries, I had my User Guide with all the notes I’d taken from the sales assistant transferred across – the most important of all being “ Turkey overnight – 110-120 conventional *cover turkey slightly*”

Now, I remember from my childhood the turkey being ceremoniously placed in the oven on Christmas Eve to cook overnight – marvellous I thought, no need to be faffing on Christmas Day ! I mean along with this designer bird, I had prepared every possible accompaniment- 3 stuffings ( or seasonings if you prefer …I chuckle at this point because I always remember my late father in law telling me it wouldn’t be right to ask a lady if she would like stuffing ……..and seasoning sounded far more polite!!!), sausages, bacon rolls, pigs in blankets and dates in bacon ….there may have been more, remember Dear Reader this was the first Christmas in our new kitchen and we were going to celebrate with the family ( all 10 of us) in style!!

So in style the bird was loosely wrapped and at about 10 pm , placed in the multi functional oven on the conventional setting ( well so I presumed) and we breathed a sigh of relief ! Bring on Christmas Day!

When I got up in the morning and started to walk downstairs , I was overcome by the smell of cooked turkey …..very good , I thought ! So I opened the oven door to have a look at this Christmas Day Centre piece … only to shut it again quickly . Surely I hadn’t seen what I thought I had …. open the door again and all will be well …surely? So I opened the door again and had to face the stark reality … the beautiful designer turkey seemed to have disappeared, the foil was flat across the roasting tin. I barely dared look – but when I did the harsh reality was that the turkey had cooked to a point, that the whole carcass had collapsed!

So with some trepidation I mentioned to the DB that there might be a problem with our Christmas Dinner …….downstairs he came, took one look and said “ Well I can’t carve that, I’ll just pick the bones out !” Then one by one the children arrived downstairs “ Turkey smells good ….oh oh…what’s happened” was their sympathetic approach before howling with laughter unable to control themselves!!! Fortunately, I have always been able to laugh at myself – an essential skill, I believe, for anyone – so took all the hilarity on the chin. We had plenty of food without the turkey – though some did brave it ! On that Christmas Day, Turkeygate was born …and continues to be referred to , to this day!

So back to the beginning -our latest piece of kitchen equipment …. the DB is more confident with it than I am . However, I decided to make a Christmas cake the other day ( there’s a theme here Dear Reader!) and when I read it would take over four hours in the conventional fan oven, ( I mean what would that do to our energy bill never mind the DB’s blood pressure) I suggested we try baking it in the Air frier. So we did …….the message popped up on my phone “ your food is ready”( oh it’s all very clever, somehow it’s linked to my phone and I think the DB said I could programme it remotely ……not a chance!!!) Out it came ……but a bit like Turkeygate, clearly we need a bit more practise ……it wasn’t cooked on the bottom, in fact it was raw whilst being cooked almost too much on the top……so into the fan oven it went for a further two hours on low covered with foil……and now I’m pleased to say we have a fully baked Christmas cake , and yes a few more pennies on the electricity bill!! “A twice baked fruit cake?” I hear you ask “Oh , will it be ok?” Of course it will !…….by the time I’ve fed it with all the brandy I’ve put aside for it ….no one will know how many times it’s been baked!!!

Like much in this life, lessons learnt Dear Reader ! Always do a practise run before your main event- it goes without saying, I have never cooked turkey again in our oven – not because I was put off by the Turkeygate saga- but because we prefer other meats. Now, of course ,providing we buy a small turkey, we may be able to cook it in our Air frier ( a misnomer I have to say, as there is no element of frying involved whatsoever – a better description would be a mini turbo oven) next year!

I’ll leave you with the following

When you are the first to laugh at yourself, everyone else laughs with you….not at you …..worth remembering I think!