Shinboners

Love them too. It's the small details like the seamless inside cavity and the accuracy of the heat. But it's the big details like the price that put Miele out of my range. Incidentally, we found a toy oven, complete with Miele labelling, in a kids shop last week.

Cake mixes are almost foolproof, so that probably explains their popularity. AS my fiance pointed out (during my rant about being forced to use pre-mix), they're popular with young children who want to learn how to bake. I'll do the same when we have kids, but only as a stepping stone to teaching them how to bake from scratch (if they're interested, that is). I baked three cakes on the weekend using the mixes (don't ask), and they all turned out fine. It's just a pity they taste like crap. However, I also baked a cake from scratch (the lemon-yoghurt cake from G&L Malouf's "Arabesque") and that turned out a treat. It had texture, it had flaws, but it had flavour and it was so much better than the premix cakes. Incidentally, one of the flours I used for the cake was an organic flour I purchased from Safeway.

Over here, spatchcock is another term for poussin - a chicken that is slaughtered at 3 to 4 weeks old.

I've been reading through various cookbooks (Wolfert, Bourdain, Strang etc.) about the variations of cassoulet - it's just a shame that you can't try the different varieties without travelling to France. Speaking of which, I've just found out that Wolfert's "The Cooking Of South West France" is getting re-released in a couple of months - with extra recipes. I'm going to Bistro Thierry next Monday, so if it's on the menu, I'll let you know.

I went to Paris Go last night and had cassoulet for the first time. I'm not sure when PCL last had cassoulet there, but it seems to me that they've changed the recipe. The one I had last night didn't have any tomato in it, there was a cutlet (I think it was lamb) in it in addition to the sausage, bacon, and the 2 duck legs. Incidentally, in regards to the duck legs, my "legs" came from the large bone that makes up the wing section of the bird rather than the far meatier real leg. There was no crust and no hint of parmasen. Whilst the meat component of the dish was nothing special, it was the beans that shone out. They were tender, smooth, and creamy in the mouth. Glorious, just wonderful.

Well, I buggered up the garfish. A combination of not cleaning out the guts properly, and allowing them to half-fry, half-stew rather than a nice clean grill. However, what was more successful was the rib roast. Three kilograms of meat, in two pieces (5 ribs in all). I salted it 24 hours in advance, brought it out of the fridge in the morning to give it time to get to room temperature, another sprinkle of salt and generous splash (or two) of olive oil to coat. The Neil Perry recipe says 75 degrees for 4 hours, but I went for 90s degrees for 4 hours, plus a further hour for the meat to rest. The result was a delightful brown crust (only a millimetre or two thick), but once that was cut open, it was all tender, moist, pinkish-red meat. It all went down a treat with the family. The bones are in the fridge, ready for me to make beef stock tonight. I am well and truly won over by electric ovens, especially the one I've got. In other shopping news, I bought a set of Global knives for around $260 at Supply and Demand in Richmond. I am a very happy camper.

I went to the Queen Vic market today. Bought some salmon (for the missus) and garfish (for myself) for tonight's dinner. I'm going to make another trip tomorrow morning as I'm favouring doing a roast rib eye of beef for Sunday night. I think I'll follow Neil Perry's slow roast recipe in his "The Food I Love" cookbook. Off memory, I think it involves roasting at 70 degrees for around 4 hours. The upside is that it'll taste really good, especially with the fat slowly melting into, and basting the meat. The downside is that with two expectant ladies at dinner, neither will stomach the sight of pink meat. But the upside of the downside is that it'll mean more for me. Still, I might get around this problem by slicing off the two end sections and grilling them 'til they're as dry as a bone.

I went to Interlude last year. The food was very good, although I reckon the portions could have been a little bit larger. I remember the prices for the entrees were in the high teens and for the mains, they were in the low to mid thirties. Mind you, our spending was blown out of the water by our entree of the air freighted French field mushrooms (with a thin slice of black truffle) at $25. My fiancee loved Interlude more than I did, and I felt the service could have been a little bit warmer.

The repairman came yesterday and he told me that the computer board that controlled the lights was faulty. They're going to order a new one, so hopefully it'll be fixed by next week. The oven will still get a workout on Sunday. I am starting to favour doing a standing rib roast of some sort....hmmm....pork, lamb, beef, or veal.....probably whatever looks best at the market. If today's rain keeps on going through the weekend, then a braise of some sort will be on the cards too.

Sorry to hear about the 4X4. Ouch! As for the oven light, I figured that it would stay on when the oven is being used. But the damn thing stays on when the oven is turned off! And one of the lights has already blown. Anyway, I gave Blanco a call and they're sending someone out on Wednesday to fix it. I did the roast pork on Sunday night. The oven did the job superbly and I ended up with the best crackling that I've ever done. The only downside was that I left the pork in for about ten minutes too long, so it was a touch bit overcooked. The pizza on Saturday night (well, pita bread with the toppings required for a margherita pizza) also worked out well. Sometime in the next couple of nights, the wok burner will get its first workout.

I ran the oven for an hour to "burn off" the oily smell (as advised by the instructions and the electrician). What else do I need to do to season the oven? Anyway, I'm not sure whether it's a problem with my oven or a quirk of the Blanco ovens, but I've found that I cannot turn off the oven light. There is no switch for it, and no mention of a switch in the instructions. Unfortunately, Blanco customer service won't be available again until Monday - but if anyone out there knows anything about the oven lights, let me know. Onto the stovetop and I replaced the enamel trivets with the cast iron ones - very good to look at and it'll withstand my wok and cast iron cookware. I played around with the smallest burner, and got the smallest flame that I've ever seen. I can't wait to make my next batch of chicken stock. With winter approaching, I'm going to try and make my first ever batch of veal stock. I also played around with the other end of the scale, the wok burner. A beautiful large flame, it looked like a firey hand was holding the base of the wok. I am looking forward to some lovely wok hay in the stir fries. PCL, how is your search for a new oven going?

The new oven and stovetop got installed today. I'm looking forward to cooking with them this weekend, and I'll let you know how it goes. The stovetop will get used this evening, whilst the oven will get used on Saturday and Sunday night when I make pizzas and roast pork respectively. The big test will be the following weekend when the family will come over for dinner.

We're supposed to be going to a Blanco cooking demonstration. I'm not sure whether it's at Clive Peeters or at the Blanco showroom, but if you're keen to come along, let me know.

Are you living in Australia? If so, keep an eye out for the end of financial year sales. If you do a bit of research now, you should be able to get a good bargain late-June/early-July. Retailers are struggling in Australia right now, and many of them will bend over backwards to get a sale. You could always get the sale completed and arrange for delivery of your new oven/cooktop when you move into your new home.

Did you check out your possible new toys? How did you go?

I've now ordered my new oven. I eventually went with Clive Peeters in Ringwood. They were superb with the sales and giving me a very good price. I got the Blanco oven and cooktop (as described earlier in this thread). Also added in were the extended 5 year warranty, installation, and cast iron trivets. All up, it cost me just under $3,100.

Thanks for the tip Mikey. I took a look, but I've pretty much decided to go with the Blanco. At the moment, I'm just haggling on prices, but with any luck, I'll have everything purchased by the end of this week. If I don't, I'll just sit tight for another six weeks and wait for the end of financial year sales. If anyone is interested in Kleenmaid appliances, apparently they are having some sort of warehouse clearance sale this weekend - I think it's being held in Maribyrnong. Ring your local store for details.

The oven needs a good clean, so I haven't used it yet. It's a fairly basic sort of oven, but very usable. After spending some time renting, I've now bought my first home. I've never really been interested in spending money on a flashy car or one of those home entertainment systems. But, I've always wanted a really good oven and stovetop - so it's a bit of indulgence on my part. I also want to improve my baking skills, so I figure that a better than average oven will help me in that regard. I really don't need the top of the range stuff unless a good deal can be struck (hence the likes of Miele, AEG, and Kleenmaid getting scratched off the list). But I do want something that will last a while (which is why I'm favouring Blanco).

I've had an interesting time looking at ovens and stovetops. Thanks to everyone here with their tips and advice because if it was left to the salespeople, I'd still be in the dark about what to look for. As tempting as the Miele oven and cooktop is (with Kleenmaid coming in a close second), I think I'll probably go for a Blanco set up. The oven is a Connoisseur single oven with the usual array of grill settings, venting system, A-class European energy rating, and pyrolytic cleaning. This should cost around $2,000. As for the cooktop, I'm going for one with 5 burners (BCG95) - one triple ring for the wok, one of those long burners for fish and grill, and three other burners. The outputs are 15MJ, 12 MJ, 10.6MJ, 5.3MJ, and 4MJ respectively. I'll get one with flame failure protection as well, so the cost should be around $1,100. Has anyone else used Blanco ovens? Good or bad experiences? It's time for a rant, and I would have to say that kitchen salespeople are only slightly below computer salespeople in their selling skills. In fact, I would say that apart from two of the salespeople that I spoke with (at Kleenmaid and E&S Trading), none of them seemed to be interested in cooking or were able to ask me questions to find out the right unit for me. So, here are my quick comments: Kleenmaid (Hawthorn). The woman there was superb. She asked me what I enjoyed cooking and showed me a few of the tricks that Kleenmaid ovens and stovetops have. She knew the answers to all the questions I asked and gave a very good sales pitch. In regards to prices, the Kleenmaid was expensive compared to my other options (even more expensive than the Miele), but she was able to bring down the price as they were having a sale. Since I wasn't going to buy for another month, she took down my details and said that if a demo model became available, she'd give me a call. My only quibble was that despite saying that I wouldn't be interested in the "preprogrammed cooking functions", she still told me about all the tricks the oven could do (which for me, takes the fun out of cooking). If she was at a shop that sold different brands, I would have been happy to buy from her. E&S Trading (Ashburton). A pretty shaky start as the sales rep didn't seem to take me too seriously. He didn't ask me any questions about what I wanted to cook and what sort of price range I was looking at. But once he realised I was serious, he did show me the products on offer and spoke about their good and bad points. Still, he made comments like, "I think good cooking is more about the chef than the oven", but I wasn't sure whether he was insulting me or bringing me into his confidence. Later, I rang up and spoke to a different sales rep to ask about a few other things, and that rep was excellent. He also hinted that it would be possible to negotiate a better price - I just wish he was the bloke I spoke to when I first went to the shop. Elite Appliances (Carlton). I went in, and it was one of the junior staff members who offered to help me. Once I told this guy what I was after, a senior staff member came over and said, "I'll take care of this". I wasn't impressed. The only thing the guy asked me was, "Will you be using the oven a lot?", showed me two models, but didn't say much about them. Camberwell Electrics (Camberwell). The service was good, but not great. The problem is that these people know the products on a technical level, but not on the more intimate, "I cook and this is what I/you should/could look for". The Good Guys (Bayswater). A good range and good service. The guy showed me their product range, but as with Camberwell Electrics, these people don't seem to cook. Harvey Norman (Nunawading). Awful, dreadful, pathetic service. By this stage, I know more about their products than the sales rep did. They seemed to be very keen on pushing the LG range of products, but had very little to say about Miele and Blanco. It's very disappointing because Harvey Norman usually have some of the best sales people around.

At a Chinese restaurant (which shall remain nameless as I'm sure the serving of possum was illegal at the time), I ate a dish that supposedly contained possum. It was slow cooked in master stock in a clay pot. I only twigged that it was possum because the meat had a really unusually gamey flavour, and that there was several sections that looked like a curved tail. After asking my dad, he said that the meat was possum (although there was always the chance that he was pulling my leg).

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Thanks for all that info Dim Sum. I'm slowly gathering a list of essential, optional, and "don't need it" things for the oven. I'll probably post the list in a couple of weeks to see what people think. I haven't really decided on the cooktop. In all the time I've cooked at home, I've very rarely used 3 or more burners at the one time. But then again, I'd like the security of having a 4th burner available - you just never know. The rangehood will stay. I have no idea what brand it is, but it's a powerful unit. It looks almost band new as well.

Whilst an oven that heats up quickly is preferable, I'm usually fairly well organised when it comes to pre-heating. In our old place, the oven would usually take about fifteen or so minutes to reach around 180 degrees, and probably another five to ten if I wanted a really hot oven. I'm really not sure how efficient that it compared to other ovens, but I was comfortable with it. The running costs will be an issue though. Generally, gas is cheaper than electricity, and I have a fondness for slow cooked food. So when my first electricity and gas bills come in, I'll do some calculations on the running cost for leaving the oven on for 3 to 7 hours. If there isn't much difference, I'd probably favour electric right now due to mezemuse's comments on temperature control and its benefits when it comes to baking. After reading mezemuse's comment that the AGAs are on all the time, I'll probably have to give them a miss. Having constant heat in the kitchen would be great in a Melbourne winter, but not so good in summer. Another concern for me will be the amount of space I have to play with. The current oven appears to take up a slightly smaller than standard space. I'd rather not have to get some minor renovation work done to fit in a larger oven. Again, it becomes a price vs benefit argument.

PCL, the oven I've got is a Westinghouse Marinade. There is a heating element at the base of the oven. The kitchen is very disorganised at the moment, so I haven't had the chance to test out the oven. I will give the oven a chance, but I suspect that I will get a new one sometime in the next couple of months. Thank you to memesuze - I will keep the electric ovens in mind. I'm probably being very unfair on electric as I HATE cooking on electric stoves. They drive me nuts. And thanks also to paddleduck_nz. I will look into the aga cookers. I've seen the AGA cookers advertised in the local newspaper - they look bloody cool. But I need more than sexy looks, so what makes them so good? Anyone have any views on Smeg, Miele, etc.?

According to today's Epicure, the new Vue de Monde is due to open in the city on May 26 - around two months behind schedule. The report also said that he will not be keeping the old Carlton site.