MUSINGS ON OWNING AN AGA

I'm about to become an AGA owner - I realise this is usually reserved for smugly middle class, middle aged types who like to cook joints of meat, and not 31 year old vegetarian urban dwellers, but the house we've bought has one in situ.

Well, at least it was there when I went to view the house, and after failing to spot that the particulars didn't actually include it, we ummmmed and ahhhhed, and finally offered them a cash price to leave it there. 

I'd done my research - read about all the different models - and come across this article in the Telegraph 

"I hadn’t always been an Aga aficionado. I regarded them as status symbols that people pretentiously described as “best friends”. They were the toys of Marie-Antoinettish pseuds who wanted to play at living in a farmhouse in Wales – when actually they were hedge fund managers from Notting Hill. Madonna and Guy Ritchie had one, just as they donned Hunter wellies and Barbours and claimed to love hunting and fishing. (Now I wonder if maybe they divorced after a row over the gas bill.)"

and I was also aware of George Monbiot's rant, which even reading now, after the deed is done makes me feel pangs of guilt - argh! So when the sea levels rise and Norfolk is swept away - y'all can blame me.

Still the heart wants what the heart wants, and if it proves prohibitively expensive we figure we can just sell it on.

It was tricky to find inspirational images of AGAs in modern interiors, instead of cutesy country kitchens but I love how these ones work so well with the clean lines of kitchen, and in the top image of chef Anna Barnett's kitchen (which is the latest in the Habitat Voyeur series) is just the right side of  cosy.

Still - how do you cook on the damn thing?

Without getting too technical, as there's plenty of advice out there. I've invested in Mary Berry & Lucy Young's newest book that, without being super hot on vegetarian recipes, still covers the ways that simple things like making a risotto will change (start it off on the boiling hotplate, then cook for the rest of the time in the simmering oven)

Instead of controlling the temperature of the oven or the plates using dials like you would on most other types of cooker, you use the zones of the oven or the plates to cook. To preserve heat you can bring to the boil on the plates, and finish off in the oven, just like the aforementioned risotto - how that will work without being stirred constantly I am yet to find out.

I've also learnt that

- You make toast by using the 'toaster' griddle directly on the boiling plate. Same goes for cheese toasties - I sense I'm going to get fat.

- Pizza cooks really well on the bottom of the roasting oven as it heats the bottom too

- Ditto any kind of pastry or tart - no need to blind bake.

- You can slow cook something all day in the bottom of the simmering over.

- You can cook halloumi directly on the simmering plate with the help of Bake O Glide (a name that I don't know whether it makes me want to laugh or cry)

I'm also looking forward to a warm kitchen this winter and locking away the toaster and kettle in favour of doing everything the old fashioned way, and hopefully limiting the amount of central heating we use.

Does anyone else have any tips for cooking on one?