AGA - General Information
The Unique AGA taste.Owners talk with boundless enthusiasm, even passion, about the unique AGA taste. Certainly no other cooker in the world produces flavours and moist, succulent textures quite like it. |
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| So often in life the simplest ways are the best and, fundamentally, AGA cooking is simple and stress-free even when you're entertaining. By using the hot plates and ovens in combination you have every level of heat you need for every kind of cooking. | |
Simmering: gently does it.The Simmering Plate provides a gentle heat for warming milk and bringing your custards and sauces to velvety smooth perfection. This plate is also a natural griddle, the home of heavenly drop scones and blinis. In most cookers simmering ends on the hotplate but not with an AGA: you also have the Simmering Oven that plays such an important role in AGA cooking. For example start off your casserole on the Boiling Plate then transfer to the Simmering Oven for the most tender slow cooking you've ever tasted. Fast boil root vegetables, drain, then pop them into the oven to quietly finish cooking in their own steam. The Simmering Oven also cooks beautifully in its own right: AGA creme caramel and similar delicate dishes are unsurpassed. |
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Boiling, stir frying and hot buttered toast.Did you know that the Boiling Plate on an AGA can boil water as quickly as most electric kettles? It's a sustained high heat that cooks vegetables so quickly their colour stays vibrant, their nutrients locked inside. This same plate is also ideal for creating fast stir fries and, using the toaster supplied, the famous AGA toast that's crisp on the outside and blissfully soft within. |
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Roasting, baking and grilling.Heat is released in the oven cavity evenly and constantly using the time-honoured 'hot top, cooler base' heat zones, just as in those wonderful old bakers' brick ovens. This is why the mere aroma of bread, pastries and cakes emerging from an AGA is usually enough to fill your kitchen with appreciative faces. Classic roasts are another AGA hallmark, the outside dark and crisp, the inside succulently moist. Not that an AGA is only for serious food of course, it's equally adept at perfect pizza and oven chips. Or in the morning there is nothing better than cooking sizzling sausages and bacon in the top of the oven for breakfast. |
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The AGA Difference: How it Works.Beneath the classic looks of every AGA is a heart of cast iron: the entire cooker is an outstandingly efficient energy store, steadily transferring the heat from its core into its ovens and hotplates. An AGA is always ready to cook instantly and there are no switches and dials because the AGA looks after itself. Thermostatic control maintains consistent temperatures while high levels of insulation within the outer casing and beneath the hotplate covers ensure that every AGA uses fuel economically. The AGA releases a unique source of gentle, friendly warmth into your kitchen. When you add AIMS to your AGA (available for 13amp electric and gas models) you add another dimension to its control. Still ready for whenever you want to be able to use it, AIMS allows you to lower the temperature (and fuel consumption) for the times when you know you won't be using it. |
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| Heat is transferred into the cast iron ovens and released steadily from all the inner surfaces simultaneously. This is an altogether gentler process than the fierce direct heat from the elements or flames in most ovens and is the reason why AGA cooking preserves more of your food's moisture, flavour, texture and goodness. | |
| If you go for a 2 oven AGA then one oven will share the duties of baking and roasting where as the 3 oven AGA has a third Baking Oven. In a 4 oven model there is a separate oven for each of these activities so that you can do both at the same time. The fourth oven is a Warming Oven designed to keep food piping hot without drying it out, and also to warm plates and serving dishes. | |
| Moving to the top of the cooker every AGA has a Boiling and Simmering Plates beneath those two distinctive hinged covers. A 4 oven AGA also comes as standard with a large Warming Plate ideal for keeping courses warm before they go to table, or simply to keep the coffee pot warm during the day. | |
| The choice of heat source is entirely up to you as there are models to run on natural or propane gas, oil or electricity. The important thing to remember is that unlike other cookers every AGA has identical cooking characteristics no matter which type of energy you choose. | |
| The other very obvious benefit of an AGA is of course its resilient nature. It is quite literally a cast iron investment that will, like the best cooks, get even better with age. | |
An individual choice...With lots of different combinations of colours and specifications to choose from, you can be sure that your new AGA is as individual as you are. |