Helpful hints and tips for Christmas cooking with your AGA cooker to help you get ahead on the big day.
Make Use of Your Ovens
An AGA excels itself at Christmas, with its cast-iron ovens that provide radiant heat which gently cooks food locking in flavour and moisture for sumptuous roasts and delicious vegetables. The AGA cooker’s simmering and warming ovens come in to their own, as you can slowly cook sides and dessert or keep food warm, giving you more time to relax with your family.
If the simmering oven is completely full of food cooking, allow a longer composite cooking time than for when cooking just a couple of pans, especially in the case of root vegetables. The cooked food will keep hot without spoiling.
Choosing the Right Size Turkey
AGA cookers are known for their large ovens, but we are often asked 'how big a turkey can I fit in my AGA oven?' The answer is, the roasting oven is big enough for a 13kg (28lb) bird.
When choosing your turkey or goose, you should bear in mind the number of guests you are having. For turkey, allow 450g (1 lb) per person weighed when plucked and drawn or 225g (8 oz) per person for boned and breast-only roasts.
For goose, allow 900g (2 lb) per person, weighed when plucked and drawn or 450g (1 lb) per person, for boned and breast-only roasts.
This allows for second helpings and a manageable quantity of leftovers that can be safely used up within two to three days.
Re-Heating the Christmas Pudding
To re-heat your Christmas pudding on Christmas Day you don't need to re-steam it in the conventional way. Simply wrap the china, plastic or foil pudding basin in several layers of foil and place in the simmering oven all morning, next to the turkey if necessary.
Over several hours it will slowly heat through ready for serving piping hot at the end of your meal.
Custard and brandy sauce may be made towards the end of the morning and kept hot until wanted, covered, in the warming or simmering oven.
Warming Plates Before Serving
Many of the newer AGA models have a separate warming oven, which is ideal for warming plates and dishes.
If you have a lot of plates and serving dishes to heat, fill your dishwasher with all your china and put it on a heat only (drying) cycle, or on the shortest wash option. Do a test run beforehand, if necessary, to time the length of the programme, and then you can set the dishwasher off at just the right time to result in hot dry dishes ready for your Christmas meal. This tip never fails to impress onlookers.
Serving dishes and gravy boats are best warmed at the back of the top plate of the AGA, where they heat through without the handles getting too hot. Protect the enamel by using a Chef's Pad or cloth.
Traditional AGA Models
When cooking a lot of food on a traditional AGA model (oil, gas or electric), requiring a high temperature in the roasting oven, avoid using the hotplates apart from essential tasks and keep the lids down as much as possible.
For those with an older AGA cooker (with a single heat source) remember the AGA 80:20 rule. 80% of your cooking should take place in the ovens and 20% on the hotplates.
In more recent AGA models, the hotplates are heated by separate electric elements and therefore do not affect the heat output in the ovens.
Quick Christmas Snacks
Freeze a batch of mince pies or sausage rolls ready to quickly defrost when you have carol singers or unexpected Christmas guests.
Simply bake in the roasting oven for 25 minutes of 10 - 15 minutes if cooked already.
Use the Turkey Bones
Use the simmering oven to cook the simplest tasty turkey stock overnight, ready for delicious turkey noodle soup on Boxing Day.
Or, if you've got too much to think about on the day itself, just freeze the turkey bones and save the stock making for a cold January day.
Place the turkey bones in a pan with a carrot, onion, a piece of celery, several black peppercorns and a parsley stalk. Cover completely with cold water, bring the boil, put the lid on and transfer to the simmering oven for 6 - 8 hours or overnight.
Warming Sauces
Use your simmering and slow cooking ovens as your microwave - jugs of sauces or custard covered with cling film or foil heat beautifully in 20 - 30 mins.
Cartons of custard even heat in their cartons. Snip the corner if you like or place in an ovenproof dish.
