It’s that time of year again when we start to plan the most important meal of the year; Christmas Lunch. With military precision, households up and down the county are writing menus, schedule timings, and opening whichever bottle comes to hand first.
If you have a beautiful Aga oven and are looking for some handy Christmas cooking tips for your Aga, we’ve pulled together all of our best tricks, here at Capital repairs. Make the most of your Aga cooker to cook all the festive favourites including turkey, roast potatoes, vegetables, Yorkshire puddings and even the traditional sprouts.
When you know your Christmas Lunch menu, you can plan your cooking order and timings accordingly. A marathon runner doesn’t simply put on their shoes and go, expecting to complete the course and Aga cooking is no different.
Turn your Aga range cooker up at least the day before you decide to do your cooking to build up as much heat as possible. Cooking in large numbers can quickly deplete your heat stores.
Pre-cook as much as you can before Christmas Day. The plan is to make life as easy as possible and not stress about all the cooking, missing the Queen’s Speech
Make sure all the trays you will be using will fit and where they will go. Maybe shelves will need to be moved or removed? Add this to your initial plan (see point 1) to make sure you stay on track.
Opt for a continental breakfast on the big day; Bread, pastries, fruits, juice, and coffee. Not only does this save all the heat in your Aga, it’s a refreshing alternative that leaves you satisfied but not too full to enjoy your Christmas Lunch.
Do not cook your turkey or your preferred meat straight from the fridge. Let it stand in a cool room to come up to room temperature slowly for around one hour. Cooking straight from the fridge means that all of your heat energy will be used before you even have a chance for your roast potatoes.
Use your hotplates as little as possible or better, not at all. Hotplates are a sure-fire way to use up your built-up heat. Use your simmering oven for vegetables and sides, as well as your electric kettle for boiling water. If you have a two or three oven Aga, you can either use a rack or even tea-towel on top of your hotplate lids to make use of the radiating heat to warm your plates.
If you have a four or five oven Aga, take advantage of the warming ovens and plates for pre-warming your pots, plates, pans, and trays.
Make sure you know your oven and the temperatures you’re working with by using an oven thermometer. Don’t open the doors to ‘check’ on your food. Have faith in your timings and allow the Aga cooker to do its job.
Check your fuel supplies in advance and that the ovens, control panel and flue is clean to prevent any unfortunate preventable mishaps.
There are plenty of Aga range cooker recipes around and online for all your Christmas Lunch food favourites like Blake & Bull’s Roast Potatoes, Aga Living’s Ban Wrapped sausages With Honey and Rosemary, even Mary Berry’s Traditional Roast Turkey (with Aga instructions at the bottom). Don’t forget that Christmas day is about family and making memories. Your guests will remember the delicious succulent turkey, achieved by slow cooking, that one person who always just doesn’t get the cracker joke, and how there are never any batteries when you need them. They won’t remember that Christmas Lunch was an hour later than planned.
