Halogen oven recipes: Making brunch with Andrew
Posted by Fiona Nevile in Kitchen equipment, Snacks Breakfast Lunch | 25 comments
Photo: Andrew our Halogen oven
“What do you think of breakfast?”
“It’s not nearly as good as yesterday. Are they the same sausages? They taste cheap.”
We’ve had Andrew around for a few weeks now. He always makes us weekend brunch with delicious results. This morning he was busy defrosting a chicken so I had to use the conventional grill (broiler) on our old oven to prepare the sausages and homemade bacon. It was a palaver – I had to keep on pulling out the grill tray to turn the sausages – in Andrew you can see what’s going on in the giant glass bowl, so nothing gets overcooked by mistake.
Using the same brand of sausages and the same home cured bacon as yesterday, I produced a brunch that was OK but nothing like the tastiness of brunch cooked in Andrew. This proved to us once and for all that the method that Andrew uses to cook food really brings out the flavour. As he uses a fan system the food cooks from above and below so there’s only the need to turn the sausages once. Even the cardboardy frozen hash browns that D likes become golden, and almost edible, in Andrew.
We are trying to use Andrew as much as we can and are planning to develop a series of recipes for halogen ovens as soon as possible. Meanwhile here are the timings for a brunch with frozen hash browns, mushrooms, tomatoes, well cooked sausages and bacon.
Andrew’s halogen oven brunch for two
Ingredients:
4 frozen hash browns
4 good quality breakfast sausages
4 rashers of bacon
4 mushrooms sliced fine
Small knob of butter
2 large tomatoes (halved)
4 eggs
Method:
No need to preheat oven.
Place the sliced mushroom in a small oven proof dish or foil saucer with the knob of butter. Put the dish on the lowest wire tray. Put the hash browns directly over the mushrooms on the taller tray. Set the oven to 225c/437f for 5 minutes.
Turn over the hash browns. Put in the sausages, and the tomatoes. Turn the temperature down to 200c/390f for 10 minutes. When the time is up turn the sausages and add the bacon. Set the oven timer for a further 10 minutes.
Meanwhile, make the toast and fry the eggs in the noraml way on the stove top, timing them to be ready at the same time as Andrew. I’m now going to try cooking the eggs in Andrew as well but I need to experiment a bit with that.
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First the dehydrator, now the halogen oven. And I thought I was immune to appliance envy!
There appears to be one main brand available in the US (Morningware), and it’s gotten mixed reviews on the sites I’ve seen. Still, the people who like it LOVE it, and the people who don’t often seem to either be doing something wrong or have gotten a defective unit. It’s going on my wish-list.
If you start singing the praises of really expensive stuff — tractors, industrial-strength ranges, greenhouses — I’m going to have to stop reading before I go broke.
My Andrew tends to do a lot of baked potatoes, and I’m convinced the taste is better than the proper oven. I’m glad your test with brunch gives the same result…
Maria, yes to both your questions. The only thing you might have to do is experiment a bit to get the times and temperatures – I usually find that food is best cooked at the given temperature for about three-quarters of the given time.
We don’t have an oven but do have a hob. If I am away Tom survives on microwave meals and you would be surprised how many of the tastier ones need an oven. Would Andrew take the place of an oven for these sort of ready meals? Would it cook pizza?
Our Andrew has had his ups and downs. Sausages have definitely been a huge success (done on the top rack on a frying plate), along with re-heated pizza and toasties. He (or more likely we) were disaterous with a beef stew. It took longer than in a conventional oven and we had to stir quite a lot to (a) avoid burning the top and (b) get the bottom contents as hot as the rest (for some reason the fan wasn’t achieving this). We learned rapidly that foil is one of Andrew’s greatest friends. We had mixed results with a chicken (oiled but naked on the bottom rack). Cooking time on a lower heat (170) was the same as usual for the size of bird, the skin browned well and the flavour was good. I think next time we’ll crank up the heat a bit more or let it go longer. It was properly cooked but somehow lacked depth of cooking, if you know what I mean? However, it was the roast pots that dind’t work out brilliantly. Par-boiled and skiffled, tossed in a little oil and then put in with the chicken at the start, they cooked well (along with the root veg we threw in too) but never crisped up. Not enough oil? Not hot enough? Possibly both and I think we may have to put them on a bedding of some kind with their own oil next time. Or just use the other oven.
One thing we seem to be learning about Andrew is that it’s often best to go with standard times and heat settings, checking in with what’s going on to prevent disasters. Thinking that he will do the job faster or on a lower heat hasn’t always worked out for us. But we still have much to learn!
Steelkitten, I have a Remoska and love it. It uses 470 watts for the standard size, and while it may be slower than the halogen oven it uses a lot less energy overall. I suspect it is smaller and easier to fit into a kitchen, too. I have roasted a pheasant in mine, baked cakes in it, will do Janson’s Temptation this week, it does frittata well, and roast vegetables. Check http://www.hoorayforhomecooking.co.uk/
for recipes to see if it would suit you.
This is great. I had never heard of a halogen oven before reading it on your site and have been looking into it on the net.
I read a Daily Mail report which gave the Andrew a big thumbs up re. quality and price. Not being a huge gadget person, I wanted to be sure before investing. So, looked for recipes. I didn’t find anything that really convinced me – apart from the saving in energy. What I wanted to know was how it coped with basic things. I like to think I’m fairly creative once I’ve learnt the basics of how something works and how the ingredients “behave” inside it.
So, I am watching this space with huge interest. I have got an inkling that it will become as versatile and reliable as my slow cooker, but am still on the fence.
Oooh this is difficult! I’d love to be able to justify the expense of an Andrew, but I can’t. As the Rayburn is on all the time – & cooks consistently delicious meals (so long as you remember that you put something in there in the first place…!) Hence regrettably, I think an Andrew would actually end up costing us money to cook.
However it’d probably justify the expense & prove useful in the Summer when the Rayburn is off (if we ever get another summer that is…!).
Now if Andrew was also able to give foot massages & back rubs….!!
Well I shall be looking forward to your future Andrew reports!
So do you cook the sausages directly on a rack or put them in a dish?
Jackie
I’ve never heard of an Andrew before. I’ve heard of a Polish Romoska, which I think is a similar sort of oven, and have been saving the pennies to get one. I understand the savings in gas and electricity are not to be sniffed at!
Interesting it affects the flavour as well…
This was a very interesting flavour comparison today. The mind can play tricks and I guess we really wanted our investment in the Andrew James halogen oven to pay off.
So – were we just imagining that brunch cooked in Andrew was better than the conventional stove method, or was it our wish for success that was swaying our opinion and imagination?
Nope.
Andrew does indeed deliver a far tastier meal, certainly as far as weekend brunch goes. I think it’s because it’s partly baking as well as grilling.
The most striking difference was with Fiona’s home cured bacon that is really delicious when cooked in Andrew. Today, it was really flat and disappointing. An amazing outcome, really.