OK so how do you cook with a gas aga?

[Wisp]

We're due to move into our new house in about 5 weeks. Its a 200 yr old cottage with a gas aga.
It supplies hot water for the central heating which DH has tried to explain to me !
But I dont understand how I cook with it It had plates on the top with hinged lids then two oven things in the doors at the front.

As you can tell I just dont get it! And starting to worry how the hell I'm going to feed the family!

Ive been looking at aga websites, and I still don't completely get it!

Always had electric fan ovens, and I love the idea of an Aga, just havn't a clue how it works!
Do I need ceramic pans and things too?
If it's heating the house does it need to be on all day?
Any help really appreciated.

Get a Mary Berry Aga cookbook

You leave them on all the time apart from high summer

The downside is they can be very expensive to run. We had one in our last house, and I found that to get the oven hot enough to bake a cake I'd have to turn the whole thing up and the kitchen would be punishingly hot. The lack of a grill is a bit of a problem too.

I've since noticed that lots of people who have them also have electric ovens too.

Thanks everyone! I dont ever use the grill in my oven, so hopefully should be able to manage with just the aga !! Its sounds so cosy

Have just moved into a house with an aga and sorry to hijack, but how do you clean them?

Even if you cook directly on the hotplate?

You don't need special pans but ones with good heavy bases work best. It'll take you a while to get the hang of it but I love AGAs. I learnt to cook on one and then had to learn how to cook on a normal cooker when I left home. My mums is on all the time even in the summer as they take so long to heat up.

They do self clean but we also have a wire brush to give the hotplates a scrub every now and then.

Tis a piece of piss.
Left plate is very hot.
Right plate is not so hot.
Top oven is hot
Lower oven is slightly warm

If you leave lids up,heat plummets.
If you turn up the gas knob,heat goes up.

Easy to read thermometer on front.
Yes.get Mary Berry book until more confident.

I bloody miss mine.

Ooh, so jealous! My mum got one in 1990 and suddenly her cooking shot into a different league....

(I will probably never have one because dh doesn't like one and he does at least half the cooking.)
Re. pans, it's v important for them to have good flat bases (preferably ground) to get the best contact with the hotplate. You will also make much more use of the ovens than normal, so it's useful to get pans that have metal handles so you can stick them inside the oven to keep warm or even simmer.

You will need a special cookery book, eg the Mary Berry one, to get used to how the different places in the different ovens relate to normal oven temperatures. Then once you've got the hang of it you'll be able to use your normal books.

You also use them for drying laundry (lay it over the hotplates and hang over front rail, though beware of hot spots or you may melt the elastic in your socks) and if you have a 4 oven one you can apparently hatch eggs in them too.

oh yes MaloryTowers, also "sun"dried tomatoes.

Brilliant-Thanks for all that information. I'm getting the book