LEVANTE LIFESTYLE

WINTER WARMERS ON AN AGA

The Aga can serve as the centre or the heart of a house, turning it into a home and providing a focal point like no other object.

There is nothing else that captures the wholesome flavour of the countryside like an Aga. With some home-grown or organic ingredients, a broth or a soup cooked on an Aga with crunchy nutty wholemeal bread is the ultimate remedy to coming in after a long walk. An Aga raises the spirits as well as the temperature; it offers country cooking and rural dining at its very best.

The name Aga is so widely used it is often used as a generic name for heavy ranges, although there are many others, such as Rayburn, ESSE, Dudly & Gazco-Redfyre, Stanley, that have played a role in the evolution of this type of cooking. We will use the name Aga as a generic name as it’s so quick and simple.

So what’s the benefit of cooking in this type of oven? In a nutshell, whatever tastes good in a normal oven tastes wonderful when cooked in an Aga, because it preserves the natural juices and doesn’t dry out the food.

These days Agas don’t just run on coal, oil and wood; they run on all sorts of different fuels, including electricity and various types of gas. The cast iron sides are heated evenly and the heat is released and distributed through the cast iron oven walls. The heat is constant, and is the best way to seal in the flavours of casseroles, pies and other dishes.

Aga cooking is all fine and well for the temperate climate of the UK. But what about Spain - are they suitable? Well we think they are, for four-five months of the year.

In the summer, any other fast heating cooker would be far more suitable than an Aga-type cooker, as the extra heat given off by an Aga in the kitchen in August would be unbearable. The trick of course is to have two cookers: the Aga for the cooler months, and a normal gas cooker for the rest of the time or when you need to whip something up quickly.

But for the connoisseur of fine cuisine, being able to gain superior food for half of the year makes the consideration of purchasing a real wood-burning stove or range completely worthwhile, especially as Agas can be used to help heat the house and provide hot water. For this very reason they work very well alongside a solar water heater specifically for this area.

How much does an Aga cost? Well, the originals probably cost a small fortune. Looking around quite casually on the Internet quickly revealed Agas for sale in excess of 17,000 euros, but mostly they seem to sell for around the 4,500-5,000 euro mark. Older restored models can also be found.