AGAs - the good, the bad, the ugly

[carrie74]

We've had an offer accepted on a house that has an Aga in the kitchen. It's the 2 oven model, and is oil-fired. The lovely owner gave me a fab demo of how it all works, she was very favourable, and is planning on an Aga in their new place, but I remain unconvinced. It seems to me as though I'll need to buy new pans (without handles), spend hours planning meals, new roasters, and generally resent it full stop.

I don't think we'll be in a position to remove it (but out of interest, has anyone done that NOT as part of a complete kitchen re-do?), so I will probably have to come to terms with it, so please can I have some honest opinions.

Can you do the Xmas turkey in it? How do you know how long to bake things for? If you're out of the house at work/school all day, is it easy to whip up dinner, without having to have planned in advance?

Thanks Everyone

I'm not going to make any rash decisions yet, I need to move in first! We'll see how we get on...

I confess I’ve never had an Aga but I just don’t see the point. It’s only run part of the year, you need an ordinary cooker to run alongside it, you can’t control the temperature and it costs a fortune both to buy and to run. I wouldn’t want to have damp washing festooned all over it and if the dog/cat wants to get cosy then it can lie against a radiator. To me it just seems like some sort of Joanna Trollope fantasy/status thing. I really don’t get all the hype.

Love my Aga. Grew up with one. Never thought I would own one as they are so damn expensive to buy, but bought a house with one in situ. I don't have laundry 'festooned', just a drying rack, same as millions of other people, just everything dries quicker, so it is folded and put away much quicker.

I have made no adjustments to my cooking style. Can do anything and everything that can be done in any other oven.

I don't have another cooker running alongside. I use it all year round. We almost never use any central heating.

Even MIL is a convert. Having been 'scared' of it for the first couple of years.

You simply can’t understand what a joy, despite the cost, it is to have one till you get one. Same as having a child.

You won’t have to spend hours planning meals, in fact it’s quicker to get a meal on as you don’t have to wait for anything to heat up. You don’t need any new pans, (not sure why you think you’ll need ones without handles?) although it would be handy to have aga specific roasting tins. They suspend directly from the runners so don’t take up oven shelf space.

Christmas turkey is no problem. The ovens are really big, so you can do it in the top, or you can cook it overnight in the slow bottom oven.

With baking you’ll learn to recognise whether the oven is running hot or not and you may need to adjust timings accordingly. You just get used to checking how things are doing a bit before the timings in the recipe book. The aga doesn’t loose its heat when the oven door is opened to take a look.

Grilling is a lot more forgiving, too. You just put your chops/sausages/fish fingers at the very top of the top oven. There’s no need to keep such close eye on them and it renders the fat on chops perfectly.

I grew up cooking on an aga and i has just your concerns when I moved to cooking with a ‘normal’ cooker. How the hell do you do Christmas with one and a half piddly little ovens and no massive warming oven? Why is baking so faffy rather than just stick it in and take it out when it looks done? When will I ever learn to turn it on to pre-heat ten minutes before I need it?

I’ve learnt to manage, but still slightly resent that I’ll never, ever be able to make meringues and choux as good as I used to in the aga.

Gas one here. Can do heating and hot water too. Not the cheapest thing but bloody lovely. We have it as our sole source of heat overnight and during the day for our very well insulated house. Wood burner tops up heating in the evening.

I grew up with them. We use electric oven in the summer and have extra gas and electric hobs.

I’ve got a four oven gas - it’s great. You get used to it very quickly, and I miss it when it is off. I also have a “summer kitchen” though. Not a cheap or environmentally friendly option, so I wouldn’t buy one, but give it a try. It’s a different way of cooking, but it really works if you’re good at forward planning.

You simply can’t understand what a joy, despite the cost, it is to have one till you get one. Same as having a child.

I’ve never understood that one either. 😄

Fair enough😂 I guess it’s as hard for AGA owners not understanding someone not wanting one as the age old ‘but surely you want kids’ attitude!

We'd probably be more convinced about the Aga if it was the sole source for cooking a meal. I've not met many Aga owners but they have all had additional cookers. That doesn't come across as a glowing recommendation, unfortunately, even if they love them.

We bought a house with one....it broke the week before Christmas and turns out the engineer had been telling them it needed serious repairs for 2 years. It was an old one and took a lot of phone calls to get get someone to take it away.

Cooking on it was actually a joy but energy inefficient and the kitchen was boiling in the summer.

They are a commitment! Costly to run and costly to dispose of. Do you know how old it is?

I didn't have an alternative cooker ( and nor did my predecessors at the house) for many years. I do now have 2 gas rings and a combi microwave which we use in high summer b cause a refit of our kitchen brought double glazing and a new south facing window but we hadn't missed alternatives previously

So Aga aficionados how good are these new Total Control ones? To my mind, the fact you need to turn it on when you need it means you might as well have a range cooker? And they cost about £12-£15k!!! Our ancient 2 oven gas one just eats money and takes up so much space for what benefit you get (there is a disused Aga heating boiler next to it, so takes the space of a 4/5 oven Aga without the benefit!)