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Post by Deleted on Dec 1, 2009 12:03:08 GMT
What type of stove do you cook on? Gas,electric? Big,small?  Here is my stove.1940's Chambers,gas,4 burners,small oven,warming oven on the right,griddle with broiler underneath on top left. There's also a 'soup well' on top designed to keep soups and stews hot without being under direct heat. It is old,weighs a ton (took 4 men to move it into the house),the oven is small but we love it. I inherited it from a friend who passed on and no one in his family wanted. |
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Post by bjd on Dec 1, 2009 12:04:13 GMT
Gas burners and an electric oven.
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Post by lagatta on Dec 1, 2009 12:40:56 GMT
I also have an old stove (1950s) small and cute, but movers astonished by the weight. Unforrtunately it is electric - surprisingly for the number of foodies here, there are few household gas stoves. I once had a gas stove that also heated the dwelling - at least as old as Casimira's, perhaps even 1930s, but unfortunately the landlord ripped out the gas and went "tout-électrique" so I had to find an electric stove as old and cute. In Europe I've seen many modern fridges with a rétro lookk - unfortunately old fridges aren't up to modern energy norms to those sold are just used for film and TV décors or made into cabinets or something. Here is a small Canadian company that produces both "rétro" 1950s appliances and reproductions of antique 19th-century cookstoves: www.elmirastoveworks.com This company is based on a family business that continued to produce wood-burning stoves and replacement parts for local "old-order" Mennonites, who don't use electricity. A question for casimira: did your husband make the vat of gumbo on that stove, or do you have one of those big (gas or electric) cooking pots that people often use outside (to make big vats of tomato sauce ... or distill grappa)? |
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Post by bazfaz on Dec 1, 2009 12:58:06 GMT
The cooker installed in the kitchen here was designed by someone who didn't cook. It has an electric fan oven and 5 gas rings. When I say it was designed by someone who didn't cook this is what I mean. The back left burner is powerful - but it is too close to the back to use a big wok on. Then there is also a big burner stuck right in the centre. But if I put the wok on that then it overlaps all the other four burners.
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Post by imec on Dec 1, 2009 13:24:54 GMT
cas, that's a beauty! I've never seen one like that - as lagatta mentioned most stoves up here are electric due to the availability of cheap hydro.
I cook on a 5 burner gas cooktop (sometimes called a hob in Britain) and double, built in electric wall oven.
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Post by Deleted on Dec 1, 2009 13:35:04 GMT
I remember seeing your oven in the pizza thread imec. Was jealous of how roomy it is.
Yes lagatta,T. cooks his gumbo on this stove,the burners on this guy have incredible flame control. It does get tight sometimes cooking for large company,particularly when everyone wants to hover around the kitchen. But,we don't do too much entertaining.For the size of our kitchen which is small,it's perfect.
Baz,about your stove. That sucks,particularly with your culinary skills.
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Post by Deleted on Dec 1, 2009 15:37:41 GMT
I have a vitro-ceramic cooking surface for four pots or pans.
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Post by imec on Dec 1, 2009 16:05:34 GMT
I remember seeing your oven in the pizza thread imec. Was jealous of how roomy it is. Big enough for visiting guests to sleep in once the pizza and brioche and so on is out of the way.   |
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Post by lagatta on Dec 1, 2009 16:26:00 GMT
I don't need anything that large, nor have the room (or the budget) for it, but I'm jealous of the set-up of your cooking burner surface.
I do need something better for the wok - I use my wok a lot, and a standard electric burner just doesn't get hot enough even if you let the wok heat before adding oil and food, and the only reason it is stable is because my favourite wok is not a true wok but a westernised "Peking Pan" with a small flat surface in the middle. Some East and Southeast Asian people and Western wok aficionados use a portable catering stove (think it is butane-powered?) I'm kind of afraid of them. They are dirt cheap and take up no room, but I'm still not convinced the pressure bottle of fuel is safe.
There are actually modifications possible in a cooking surface like imec's, with a curved wok insert and the gas burner beneath it. (Journalist Jan Wong described hers once).
Other than its cuteness, one of the main reasons I bought my little (apartment-sized) stove is the fact that the oven is NOT very big as I'm mostly cooking for one or two people - most typically roasting a chicken or making an oven-braised dish. But I have entertained up to eight guests. I don't do real parties here and any work or community receptions I'd be involved in take place elsewhere, nearby. Closest place (one block north) has professional-grade cooking facilities which can be rented along with a nice little hall with lots of wood panelling - for a most reasonable sum.
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Post by imec on Dec 1, 2009 17:16:35 GMT
There are actually modifications possible in a cooking surface like imec's, with a curved wok insert and the gas burner beneath it. (Journalist Jan Wong described hers once). The one at the near left is actually a pretty fierce, 18,000 btu burner with a curved grate designed to accommodate a wok...  |
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Post by lagatta on Dec 1, 2009 19:10:03 GMT
Yes, that must be what Jan has. I couldn't see the curve from above. That makes the wok much more stable, and you can use a true wok. My Joyce Chen "Peking Pan" is good carbon steel and nice to use, but it is a compromise.
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Post by hwinpp on Dec 2, 2009 5:01:00 GMT
I've got gas, two flames.
I'd love something like Cas has and for absolute luxury siomething like Imec. I'd just use it, even if I didn't need to...
I will buy an electric oven, at least big enough to roast a chicken.
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Post by bazfaz on Dec 2, 2009 10:17:02 GMT
Our village doesn't have a gas supply. We get ours in "bottles" - actually cylinders. It doesn't seem to me to give much heat, which is a bummer with a wok.
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Post by Don Cuevas on Dec 2, 2009 13:54:56 GMT
A 6-burner, gas, GE-Mexico range and gas oven. Decent, fairly reliable, nothing fancy. Our gas is also delivered in heavy cylinders. (Each gas delivery truck has its own special "song". That's a different topic.) I want one of these, as soon as I enlarge the kitchen and after winning the lottery  |
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Post by lagatta on Dec 2, 2009 14:23:55 GMT
That looks like a professional kitchen stove. Wonderful, of course, but unlike imec's set-up, it always seems a bit intimidating when I have to use one of those to cook one egg or little piece of fish (this happens when I'm in Amsterdam).
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Post by bixaorellana on Dec 3, 2009 4:09:21 GMT
I may win for the most pitiful entry, although it sounds as though HW & I are on the same level. There is a little story behind my stove. Around six or seven years ago I moved from a house with a built-in stove to one with no stove. The first day in the new neighborhood I was walking around the block obsessing about having to get a stove on top of all the other expenses of moving. I saw a sign on a house, knocked, and a few minutes later was the owner of this stove for $15. I figured it would work until I got a better one. Well, it's worked out nicely for me as Mexican kitchens are skimpy on storage -- I already had the cabinet atop which the stove sets. Also, I bought an electric oven that's perfect for my needs. I did have to get the stove fixed a few months ago, which cost more than I paid for it. Edited to say that tinypic ate the picture I posted originally, but here is an internet shot of something similar:  |
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Post by hwinpp on Dec 3, 2009 5:27:09 GMT
I've got exactly half of that, Bixa, lenthwise.
And I have a fridge to store my aubergines, I don't need to store them there.
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Post by bixaorellana on Dec 3, 2009 6:13:17 GMT
Smart aleck. Please look again, and you will see that the eggplant are being roasted over the flames of the stove. Most of the time I'm not using more than two burners when cooking, but I'm glad I have four burners. An aside for Don Cuevas: try taking the grill off the stove and setting a wok ring around one of the burners to hold the wok. If the height is right, the wok will be more inside the flame. It's still a pain in the neck, as you can't use the other burners while the grill is off. Well, maybe if you had a bunch of wok rings.  |
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Post by hwinpp on Dec 3, 2009 10:32:46 GMT
Now that is very interesting!Another paralell between El Mehico and Prathet Kampuchea! We do exactly the same here to get a slightly bitterish taste into our dips  By the way, have you seen this? It's a stunning anthropological study of monastic cooking in El Mehicooo!  |
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Post by bixaorellana on Dec 3, 2009 15:26:31 GMT
HW, I have to admit that I absolutely love that movie and laugh all the way through it. Be aware that as you watch it, you are gazing upon the very ground which Bixa treads. It was filmed in & around Oaxaca.
In all honesty, the eggplant roasting is one of those things I learned from another person. It wasn't part of my personal cooking culture. It's certainly not Mexican, as no one uses eggplant here.
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Post by Deleted on Dec 21, 2009 15:38:07 GMT
You can buy grilled eggplant and grilled courgette at the Picard frozen food stores here. Not bad either, and you don't catch the kitchen on fire.
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Post by bixaorellana on Dec 21, 2009 17:58:13 GMT
Where's the fun in that?
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Post by Deleted on Dec 22, 2009 12:07:40 GMT
You can buy grilled eggplant and grilled courgette at the Picard frozen food stores here. Not bad either, and you don't catch the kitchen on fire. Don't understand this at all! Why would one want to purchase (unless in a hurry or for a picnic already prepared) roasted or grilled eggplant? One of the easiest things in the world to do.  Catch the kitchen on fire?  |
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Post by Deleted on Oct 16, 2014 15:18:28 GMT
Prompted by Bixa's recent post in the Blah, Blah, Blah thread, I'm pulling this thread back up.
We have so many "newer" members since this thread was initiated, I thought it would be interesting to update.
My beloved Chambers is still with us and hopefully will remain so.
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Post by Deleted on Oct 16, 2014 16:47:19 GMT
Let's see, I have three "residences" with various cooking devices. In Vancouver I have a circa '70s apartment-sized electric range that is perfectly acceptable. I live in fear of the day the landlord thinks it needs updating and it's replaced with the cheapest piece of crap available, like they did with my fridge. In Seattle, my husband has a larger electric stove, again quite old. It doesn't have a light in the oven! How can you have an oven without a light? On Whidbey I cook over the fire if the weather agrees. If not, I use the world's most useless propane cooktop ever invented. The iron grates don't stay in place and skate all over the surface, and the three burners are spaced so closely together that you can only fit two pots on it at a time. Aaargggh! And the BTUs are so low that it takes up to half an hour to cook pasta.
Shorly we're fitting the Irish Stanley Waterford wood stove into our cabin. It's so tiny and cute, about the size of large shoebox. I'm looking forward to making stews and scones on it.
My dream stove looks like casi's. But when I finally get my house I also want an open fireplace in the kitchen to cook on, and I've been promised an outdoor bread/pizza oven one day.
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Post by mickthecactus on Apr 5, 2016 7:30:09 GMT
How about cooking on this?  |
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Post by bjd on Apr 5, 2016 7:43:18 GMT
That's a barbecue. Lots of them around here although I wouldn't have thought it particularly adapted to an English climate. What there are more of here than before are bbqs running on gas, although most people still use charcoal. In houses with gardens, many people here have bbqs built of concrete or something else solid.
To update from the beginning of the thread, in our apartment at the coast, I have an induction cooktop. Just as efficient for coooking as gas, much easier to clean, more energy efficient.
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Post by mickthecactus on Apr 5, 2016 7:45:43 GMT
Oi! Our weather isn't that bad!
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Post by Deleted on Apr 5, 2016 10:29:47 GMT
I am beginning to circle closer and closer to the induction tops at the store.
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Post by onlyMark on Apr 5, 2016 11:24:12 GMT
We have a five burner gas hob and a gas oven. I like the hob but I'd prefer an electric oven. We don't have the electrics for it though. We use the ordinary and widely supplied gas bottles, which normally last about two months and can last up to three. With it being cold we've been using the oven a lot so the bottle runs out after about two weeks.
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