Halogen oven story

The Ubiquitous JML Halogen Oven

To be honest, when my wife first sent me a text telling me she had bought an Halogen oven, I really had no idea what an Halogen oven was. She described it as a glass bowl with a light in the lid, what the hell is that I thought? Anyway even when I probed a bit more as to how it worked I couldn't make any sense of it. In the end she gave up trying to explain how it worked. I was left all afternoon trying to work out what she had described to me. I tried all sorts of thumbnail sketches that turned out to be nothing like the real article but they did make my wife laugh when she saw them.

When I arrived home that evening the kitchen light was turned off. This was unusual because I knew my wife was home. She always started cooking as soon as she got home from work so that we could eat early. Then we would have the rest of night to ourselves, she would always say.

As I closed the car door a bright light came on in the left hand corner of the kitchen. That put me into a panic. All I could think was, she had set the kitchen on fire. No sooner had that thought crossed my mind, the light went off. I still rushed to the door and opened it as fast as I could. I shot into the kitchen like a bat out of hell, expecting a chip pan fire. And there she was in the middle of the kitchen staring at the bright light in the corner of the room. She turn round and she had the biggest smile on her face,

"look at this, it's fascinating," she said.

So we both stood there staring at the new Halogen oven. And it was fascinating, even though you should not stare into a bright light we could not stop looking at it. I asked why the light kept on going off? That's simple she said. As soon as the cooker reaches the set temperature it turnes its self off. As the temperature goes down it turns the heat back on, so that it maintains an even heat.

The whole chicken that she had put in the oven cooked in a fraction of the time that the gas oven would have taken. No pre heating needed as the Halogen oven creates instant heat from its halogen light source.

My wife had bought a JML Halogen oven but there are other makes out there. The choice is yours as to the make and size you purchase. As there is only the two of us she chose the small one (ten litres) but we did later buy an extension ring to improve its capacity. The other factor for buying the model she did was it was in the sale at Tescos for the princely sum of £20.00, very lucky as it was the last one on the shelf.

 

 

Some basic information about the Halogen oven that we bought.

 

• Glass bowl volume - 10 litres

 

• Glass bowl external diameter - 33cm

 

• Glass bowl internal depth - 16cm

 

• Power consumption - 1300W

 

• Power supply - 220-240V~50Hz AC

 

To my tastes the food cooked in the oven was much tastier than food cooked in a conventional oven. One of the first things we cooked was a full breakfast. It all went in at the same time. My wife used the different stands that came with the Halogen oven to make sure the slow and fast cooking items were placed at the right height. She soon realised that the mushrooms were over cooked. So she put some in the frying pan but I insisted on trying the over cooked ones. They tasted beautiful, a bit dry but compared to the fried ones they had a much better taste.

 

Here is a sample of cooking times for the Halogen oven.

 

 

Food.                       

 

Roast Chicken - (1.6kg)

Temperature - 200C

Time in oven - 70mins

 

Roast Beef - (1kg)

Temperature - 180C

Time in oven - 75mins

 

Turkey - Whole

Temperature - 200C

Time in oven - 60 - 90mins

 

Duck - Whole

Temperature - 200C

Time in oven - 50 - 60mins

 

Steak - Medium rare

Temperature - 250C

Time in oven - 8 - 10mins

 

Lamb Roast - Medium

Temperature - 200C

Time in oven - 60 - 70mins

 

Lamb Roast - well done

Temperature - 200C

Time in oven - 80 - 90mins

 

Egg - Poached

Temperature - 200C

Time in oven - 5 - 6mins

 

Frozen pizza

Temperature - 200C

Time in oven - 9mins

 

Cake - one layer

Temperature - 200C

Time in oven - 20 25mins

 

I hope this as been a bit of a taster into the the halogen cooker experience. I know we love them, I hope you will get to love them too.

 

One final thing, there are other Halogen ovens available, all equally as good as each other. Have a look on the internet for the best bargains.