Gas Oven Burns ANYTHING

[Happy Expat]

Our cooker is a Sauter Catalyse running on bottled gas. The burner in the oven is circular and below the floor of the oven. No matter what Regulo setting is used anything cooked in there will burn on the bottom and be undercooked on the top. Using different shelf levels seems to make little difference. My poor wife is tearing her hair out as she enjoyed cooking before moving and now cannot bake anything at all. Any help/advise is most welcome.

Bob & Jane (47)

[Patf]

This is a well known problem. It helps a bit if you stand the baking tin on another tin lined with several layers of newspaper. Good luck - Pat.

[Hereford]

Our Rosieres oven is just the same.  We have decided to give up and go electric!

(Mrs) H

[Happy Expat]

Thanx for your help folks! We can certainly sympathise with Hereford as we were thinking of electric until a few minutes ago. Jane has just baked a cherry crumble which has turned out perfectly. Someone suggested putting the large tray that comes in the oven at the bottom and placing a dish of water on it - that has done the trick and saved us the expense of buying another cooker :-))

Bob & Jane (47)

[Teamedup]

The best advice I was given when I first got here was buy a good cooker as french ones are crap.

And the cheap ones are really.

 

So I bought a really expensive cooker that lasted 20 years, but as we are leaving I bought a cheaper one three or four years ago. It wasn't that cheap really, but I am not happy with it. It is electric and fan assisted, but I still have to keep my eye on things and constantly juggle things around. And my yorkshire puddings, I am ashamed of them since I have had this cooker.

 

The best advice I can give to you is bite the bullet and buy a De Dietrich cooker. It will cost a pretty penny, although nothing to compare as to how dear they used to be. And if you do, I reckon that you will have happy cooking. I most certainly used to.

[Val_2]

I have had 16 years of flaming french gas ovens and no more. My Sauter cooker is just 5 years old,wasn't particularly cheap and has completely packed up in the oven dept. I am now going over to an electric oven, the most expensive we can afford as the savings are greater in electricity consumption and a lovely glass topped Scholtés hob which will be gas. We sat and worked out the maths on the electric oven and to cook a turkey for 4.5 hours will cost approx 3,80€ and it is self-cleaning too.  Our elderly friends have just chucked their gas cooker out too cos they can't lift the gas bottles any more into the house from the car and have gone all electric too.

[Miki]

TU said "....The best advice I can give to you is bite the bullet and buy a De Dietrich cooker. It will cost a pretty penny, although nothing to compare as to how dear they used to be. And if you do, I reckon that you will have happy cooking. I most certainly used to."

Don't, cook can't cook !! but I have to agree with TU & Val, we had a couple of quite expensive French cookers here over the years, both gave wife nightmares. Then a few years ago we bought a good quality De Dietrich double electric oven with 5 gas ring hob. Tina has been delighted with it plus in the other part of the house we have a Scholtés cooker with electric oven 3 gas and one electric ring and she also says that is terrific.

You are right, you have to pay good money for a cooker that will get a lot of use and ours do !

[zeb]

Well, I've got Italian bottled gas inox range type cooker bought in Geant, France nearly two years ago on promo (why has this french keyboard got a pound sign but no euro?) and I'm delighted with it. Only had one flat cake so far and my yorkshires are devine!!

Surely I can't be the only person who has a good'n?

[Iceni]

As others have said, buy an electric oven.

John

not

[Teamedup]

zeb that is the thing...... you have got the good 'un. The others usually are not.

But I won't say that these 'others' don't cook either, it would be unfair to say that they don't. They are used for gratins and rotis. And they usually cook those OK if one keeps one's eye on them. A rosbif looking very well cooked on the outside and red in the middle is considered about perfect.

[Iceni]

Having had a conversation with someone who has a large professional kitchen in Spain (they have the same problem) and someone who has a professional kitchen in France they both agreed that they had lots of those little electric ovens - if poss, fan assisted but cost plays a part. I have a large fan assisted oven with the most fantastic electric grill (with 4 settings) that I have ever used. It is Blue Sky (Carfour own make) and made in Italy. I also have an elderly combination oven - microwave, grill and fan assisted and today cooked a large boned loin of pork in it. If it goes in the combi it gets cooked in there - if not it goes into the big oven.

Surprisingly the large ovens are used mainly for reheating or keeping food hot - if you think about it the food needs to be ready when the customer wants it and you cannot cook things that require different temps in one oven.  I will replace my combination oven when necessary - you can also roast and microwave at the same time which means you can cook food in half the time. If I had a gas cooker and was just in need of something to cook cakes and reasonable sized roasts in I would buy a tabletop electric oven - very energy efficient.

 

[Deby]

The French are just not good at engineering!

Hate to say it, but just look at their cars - Renault, Peugeot, Citreon.  I am sure "they" all sit behind a desk and draw everything, run a few tests and voila we have a product suitable for a few. 

How many road junctions and traffic flows are user friendly?  I can imagine the guy who designed them sitting behind his desk marvelling at how fantastic his work looks, but that as far as it goes.

Bless the French they have their ways, their strengths and weaknesses!

Deby

[Ian Hoare<br>All the best<br>Ian<br>La Souvigne Corrèze<br>http:www.souvigne.com]

Val said

the most expensive we can afford as the savings are greater in electricity consumption and a lovely glass topped Scholtés hob which will be gas.

be VERY wary of Scholtès. We have had them for 36 years, and our first one was wonderful, it lasted for 20 years. Then sadly they were taken over, and are nothing LIKE as good. The second (black glass top) gave nothing but trouble and lasted about 10 years only, and was completely boogered by the time we changed it - the spark plugs were dropping out because the enameled steel had rusted so badly and the underside had rusted throught completely. We had to change spark plugs every two years, because the way the wires were attached to them meant that the wires came adrift.

The latest one, TG 750 we've only had 5 years. If anyone wants photos of how badly it's lasted I can take them and put them up on Cjoint. The "border" round the outside has lost half its paint, and most of the enamel has come off two of the three burners. The electric ring (we've got the three gas one electric version) is supposed to be thermostatic and isn't. I'll never buy one again.

Sorry, Val, but if you do serious cooking, don't expect it to look good for more than a couple of years.

To come back to Gas ovens, I've never heard of any French ones working really well. I'm very happy with my electric Siemens oven, however. The "pyrolise" is a joy. No more hassle cleaning the oven.

[Battypuss]

Sadly limited to the amount available from the CAF for cooker purchases (and reimbursed before you all start jumping on me), I bought a dual fuel oven. It appeared to be best at the time; largest oven (electric), 4 gas hobs, grill of sorts. Mains gas.

 

The door is utterly unfixable, it has been bolted/screwed/glued/welded/cursed more times than you could shake a stick at and I have concceeded, with regret, defeat. Either the front bit falls off, or the back bit and on special occassions, both bits. I add I am not entirely useless in the DIY department. However I have never, ever, in my life seen such a piece of merde masquerading as an oven. This is after 30 years of Africa, Greece and Turkey incidentally....and many years with nothing but a camping gaz!

Trouble is, that was only two years ago and I have to wait 5 before I can ask again. So no cooker; 3 out of four burners don't work either! I won't start about the microwave joke either.

[Russethouse]

>>The French are just not good at engineering!

Hate to say it, but just look at their cars - Renault, Peugeot, Citroen.<<<

Don't say that Deby, our transport of choice is Citroen, in 26 years we have only once had an British car, a Montego, never again.

I love my Picasso but would be very happy if they bought back the BX

Ian, My mother has a Cannon cooker, reasonably good, but not the quality of the one it replaced, same story, company taken over etc......

[Ian Hoare<br>All the best<br>Ian<br>La Souvigne Corrèze<br>http:www.souvigne.com]

RH,

Yes you're right that takeovers in the Kitchen Equipment dept seems to be the kiss of death. Very odd, really.

For those of you who fear I may be exaggerating, I've put up four photos of my (VERY expensive hob) showing the damage after about 5 years. And we aren't rough with our kit, though of course it gets heavily used.

These are the links (and in case you don't know the service, it's brilliant, you can keep pictures and documents online for three weeks, and just cut and paste the links. Brill.

http://cjoint.com/data/fvlAVoqgAN.htm

http://cjoint.com/?fvlBN3X72X

http://cjoint.com/?fvlCtSK3cb

http://cjoint.com/?fvlCZoi5mA

[Anton Redman]

 

" The French are just not good at engineering!

Hate to say it, but just look at their cars - Renault, Peugeot, Citreon. "

Renault 16 versus Austin Maxi,  Peugeot 404 versus Austin Cambridge, Citreon DS versus Rover 2000. 

 

[Ian Hoare<br>All the best<br>Ian<br>La Souvigne Corrèze<br>http:www.souvigne.com]

Hi,
Not really on topic but Deby said

How many road junctions and traffic flows are user friendly? I can imagine the guy who designed them sitting behind his desk marvelling at how fantastic his work looks, but that as far as it goes.

Wait a tiny moment..... They do exactly what they're designed to do... slow down traffic. Don't make the elementary error of bringing Brit thinking to France. I've been living here 16 years, and in that time, I've seen dozens and dozens of road changes. In almost every case, they have been redesigned in such a way as to FORCE people to take the junction etc slower. Roundabouts too high to see across, chicanes put in, roundabout exits made into a chicane and so on. It's completely consistent.

When criticising French engineering, where are Brit car makers? Who has got working high speed trains? Do you REALLY want to compare the general standard of French roads with those in the UK? Deary me, we are beginning to sound like Alf Garnett.

I'm not sure what Anton meant when comparing Renault 16 against the Maxi, but I had one - I had several gearboxes, but only one Maxi, I now drive a car that works. (My fourth Honda in 20 years without a single breakdown!)

[Russethouse]

>>Yes you're right that takeovers in the Kitchen Equipment dept seems to be the kiss of death. Very odd, really<<

Its called 'badge engineering' same oven different badge and worse, different price! Baumatic are a good example of this, their goods 'masquerade' under a great many other names.

The guy who came to fix my Bosch washing machine said the model I have (about £260) is substantially the same as a Seimens model at about £1000, the Seimens includes a 10 year guarentee, but seeing as it took them 2 weeks to come out , and apparently a Seimens customer does not get preference I think I will stick with Bosch.

Re traffic management - you mean Swindon isn't the roundabout capital of the world ?

[Anton Redman]

" I'm not sure what Anton meant when comparing Renault 16 against the Maxi, but I had one - I had several gearboxes, but only one Maxi, I now drive a car that works. (My fourth Honda in 20 years without a single breakdown!) "

With the possible exception on Citreon DS versus Rover 2000 ( and the Citreon was a 7 or 8 year older car) I would far rather drive/buy  the French car than the UK in a country with neutral import duty such as Switzerland.

[Ian Hoare<br>All the best<br>Ian<br>La Souvigne Corrèze<br>http:www.souvigne.com]

Hi Anton,

Thanks for clarifying... I found it difficult to believe that it was the other way round but .... (I agree with you).

---

Gay said:-

Re traffic management - you mean Swindon isn't the roundabout capital of the world ?  

Well, there's limited competition from other countries! I'd argue that Hemel Hempsted must be in the running though. (VBG).

Interesting what you say re Bosch and Siemens. I looked hard at ovens when our old one was looking like it needed replacing (A Gaggenau double - most expensive mistake we made when equipping our house), and didn't find a Bosch that matched the Siemen's features. I looked, as I'd also heard that they were all made in the same factory.

But I have to agree with those who castigate French gas ovens, I've never met anyone who found that the thermostats worked - not even nearly. As I've got an oven thermometer, I once did a chart of indicated settings vs actual readings. A horror story if ever there was one.

 

 

[Russethouse]

I think Siemens, AEG and Bosch share engineers at least, if I was a more serious cook I think I would look for an oven where you could turn the fan off, but as it is, its fine. In fact I know it wouldn't do for those of you with B&Bs or hotels, but I increasingly use my slow cooker or George Foreman grill.

Of course the cooker that I found fascinating was a friends double size aga, bright yellow and with a part ceramic hob, and the owner was a very serious cook, but on a domestic scale (big wonderful dinner parties, so I hear but not commercial)

[Iceni]

"The French are just not good at engineering!

Hate to say it, but just look at their cars - Renault, Peugeot, Citreon.  I am sure "they" all sit behind a desk and draw everything, run a few tests and voila we have a product suitable for a few."

Whether product engineering is good, bad or indifferent is irrelevant - all that matters is whether a business makes a profit or you can continue robbing the taxpayer to cover giant losses of course. Witness the demise of the latest incarnation of Morris/Austin - changing the bonnet badge to MG only fools a few for a short time.

John

not

[Battypuss]

Well, we were saving the chicken for today, in the hope of a real Sunday lunch. BOTH sides of the goddamn over door fell off this time and the gas bit gave up as well. Don't talk to us about ovens at the moment; we have raw yorshire pudding and sortof microwaved chicken and gravy. I am NOT happy...

[Teamedup]

Battypuss when things get desparate or are camping the yorkshire pud mix has often gone into the frying pan and cooked as a pancake would. With decent gravy it ain't bad.

Although I am a bit of a tradionalist myself I only ever cook yorkshire puds with beef, whether it be braising, carrots and onions or a decent roast beef.