One thing that would make me an eligible bachelor is to know how to cook. I have been to my GF’s place many times and her mother keeps telling me that she doesn’t even venture into the kitchen and that my mom will have to teach her everything. Hmm. To make matters worse, she is a pure vegetarian and tells me that she will never ever cook non-veg. Boo hoo. Sob! I love non-veg. Sob! Then I decided a way out - be independent! If you love to eat, you better learn to cook. So that explains my presence in kitchen these days (and my flood of household reviews on MS), which was initially troublesome for my mom, but now she is happy - she gets her much-wanted break. So having learnt some skills from her and my office colleagues that I mentioned in the other review (Odopic bar), I have slightly graduated from an amateur level. When I was at my sis’s place, I decided to impress her with my new skills and make Chicken Hyderabadi. But I was impressed more by her cooking range. It is a wowie as compared to my simple Sunflame gas stove. In fact I just can’t compare it, while mine is a 2 burner gas stove, hers is a cooking range with oven, the Whirlpool Magicook 22.
«« APPEALING LOOKS »»
Whirlpool doesn’t just make products that are technologically advanced but also probably have full time industrial designers working with them. It is absolutely stunning to look at. The white glistening rectangular body with gentle curved edges, the transparent cover over the burners, the dark oven glass window, everything about it is admirable. I had seen a cooking range before at my friends place, but it was old and looked more metallic - more like a gas stove with 4 burners. But this is a beauty. I think I am getting carried away, but then see it to believe it.
«« THE BURNERS »»
Lets take a top-down approach. There are 4 burners and they are all of different sizes. Big vessels on big burner and small one on small burners - Newton’s logic (remember the cat and box story). But here it makes more sense, as big burners have more flame power. Smaller one is good for simmering. Again the burners have a nice design (holes) and the flame is nice and round - symmetrical right from the start. The top portion housing these burners is stainless steel. The burners have a brass cap. So nice silver-gold look! The 4 black colored vessel supporters over each burner makes a nice contrast and has a design that forms a square with curved edges (like 4th square in Four square cigarette logo). There is a panel on the front side where the white coloured buttons are arranged linearly. It has 6 control knobs - 4 burners, one for oven, one for heating chamber below the oven. One striking feature is that when you turn the knob, the corresponding burner lights - inbuilt automatic ignition! Wow, no matchsticks, no lighter required! Impressive
«« THE OVEN »»
This occupies most of the central portion. There is a shelf inside which can be adjusted for different heights, adding a certain flexibility. The oven has some fan arrangement within to achieve convection heating, which is must if the food needs to be cooked uniformly. There is a grill within. It’s a pity that my sister doesn’t quite use this very much. One important thing is the walls have a certain coating, supposedly for vaporizing food stains on oven walls. ’’Oh! It does help in cleaning the oven easily’’, is what she described it to be, nonchalantly. The double glazed door prevents heat from leaking out and with the oven lamp ON, it provides means to see within - So what’s cooking up? The oven also comes with 5 heat settings like the burners. Besides, it has a timer that beeps a reminder after the set time. This is when you can manually turn it off.
«« THE HEATING CHAMBER »» There is one more chamber below the oven, which heats up when the oven is ON. Here the food can be kept for warming. A good way to warm food without reheating. This can also work as defrost for thawing of frozen food.
«« THE CASTORS »» The cooking range can be steered anywhere as it has castors under.
«« THE FLOOR »»
Not a part of the cooking range. Kidding! I have reached bottom. So talk of maintenance, my sister found it easy to use and clean, especially due to the vapourizing effect due to the enameled walls of oven. The steel top makes cleaning the burners easy too. Till today, she had no breakdowns. But then again cooking ranges have average life of 10-15 years. And this one is fairly new.
Overall, I would say that it is the best cooking range and if you are on lookout for one, go get it. At Rs. 20, 000, it is worthy kitchen asset. In fact even I am planning to buy one when I get possession of my new house. As for the Chicken I made on it. Great taste! Yummy! My sister also made chicken lollipops using the oven of course.