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Parkinson Cowan L50MWN
by SoadFan
~A reliable oven from Parkinson Cowan~
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Whilst this upright style of gas cooker with it's built in oven and eye level grill may be a thing of the past in many kitchens these days, there are still those who like this kind of oven as it offers a simple solution to your cooking needs with a ... minimum of fuss, frills and finery. When I purchased my Parkinson Cowan L50MWN model oven it was something that lasted for a good number of years of regular use, with no serious issues of note what so ever in terms of performance or safety problems that I recall during the life of the product. Making it a good buy at the time.
The style of the Parkinson Cowan L50MWN was neat and well formed with the whole thing having a smart clean look that made the unit relatively pleasing to the eye. Of course times have changed somewhat and these types of ovens are not as popular as they once were, however similar products can still be purchased from new for those who prefer this style of oven and spares for this particular model are still on sale should they be required. I have also seen these types of ovens being sold as reconditioned models in more recent times. When I was cooking with this product I found it very easy to use, as it heated up quickly enough when wanting to use the oven or gas burners to cook a meal and was also fairly easy to clean as required.
~The grill, oven and storage~
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The upright nature of the oven made it easy to use the grill pan as it was at a helpful eye level, which allowed me to see how my food items were doing when they were placed under the grill burners. The grill tray that sat under the hood of the unit was well made, with a solid feel that was neither too light and flimsy nor to heavy and bulky. The plastic covered metal handle that was attached to the grill tray was a little prone to working itself loose every now and then, although this was easily dealt with as it just needed to be screwed back in place with a small screwdriver from time to time. The metal grill that came as part of the grill pan was a smart looking silver tone and it could be placed to set your food closer or further away from the grill burners as required, just by turning the grill around from one side to the other.
Of course over time with regular use of the grill area, the lovely white enamel finish did become a little marked and required some cleaning to get it back to it's nice polar white pristine appearance, although I would say it didn't need any more work to bring it back to an almost new finish when compared to other similar products. The hob area of the unit was again neat and compact and in keeping with the rest of the design and there were 4 useful gas burners on which you could place pans of various sizes. I found that the gas burners worked well enough and heated the food quickly with minimum fuss, although the burners did need to be removed and soaked in hot soapy water from time to time in order to clean them and bring them back to their almost new appearance.
The oven on this model wasn't the largest or widest oven I have used to cook with and this of course did mean that I had to think about what I wanted to cook if making a meal for guests or larger groups of people as space was a little limited. As this was a gas oven I found that it would cook things at the top much faster than items of food placed lower down so that did mean I had to keep an eye on things to make sure everything was cooked all at the same time. Having more recently had electric fan ovens in use I can say that these do cook your food more evenly than the older style gas ovens that are in these types of cookers, although these newer electric counterparts can sometimes cook your food a little too quickly which is not always ideal.
The door to the oven on this model worked well and whilst it did get quite hot when the oven had been on for a good length of time, I can say that it was a never a problem that caused any harm to anyone using the product. The top of the door had a full width plastic style handle that was what you used to open and close the oven door, which worked well and was easy to clean when required. The lower part of this oven has a small storage section with a spring loaded door to it and this could be used to store cooking pans etc if wanted. Whilst that part of the oven functioned well enough I feel it wasn't ideal for anyone with mobility issues as it was very close to the floor level.
~Summary, price and rating~
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The features on this model are limited and the most up to date part on the oven was the click and start ignition that enabled you to do away with using a kitchen lighter or matches in order to light the gas. This part of the oven was the only thing that failed over time which was a real shame as it meant that matches or a kitchen lighter had to be used even when wanting to light the oven. Other than that this model was efficient and easy to use, producing an array of tasty food with no worries for the chef. At the time of purchase I recall that the product was priced at around £275 which was reasonable for this type of item. As the oven and grill worked well for a good number of years I feel it was money well spent which is why I feel the product is worthy of a 4 star rating.
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Indesit FIE56K.BBKGB/1
by nasarali
I was looking at buying an oven but not wanting to spend more than £200. I'd settled for a sub £100 oven before and it had various problems from heating everything outside it whilst not evenly cooking anything inside it to not turning on at certain times. I prefer electric because you can easily fit them yourself where as with a gas oven ... you would have to call out a gas safe engineer to fit it for you and that alone would cost just over £100. Its best to do some research before spending this amount of cash on something and during my research this oven came out top in terms of price, features and performance. I then started looking for the best place to buy this from and Boots seemed to be the cheapest. I managed to get it for just under £250, which was £50 over my budget but i though it was worth spending that little bit more for something that was a little bit more energy efficient (B), and one that came with a timer unit.
Before this i didn't even know boots sold electrical items, but they were pretty good, they managed to get it to me two days after I had ordered it. The packaging was OK, it had all the features as well as a picture of the oven on it, the user manual was quite good in that it shows you first how to install the oven, whilst giving you tips on ventilation for best results, it also gives you a run down of all the features as well as some suggestions for what to cook in it. Once I had the plug on it was just a matter of putting this into its housing. After this i just lined up the four screws and screwed it securely in its place.
It looked very modern and stylish, it also went with the rest of my stainless steel kitchen. The oven came with a dripping tray and a grill mesh that can be fit into any of the five position racks, depending on the food you are cooking I normally just leave them on the middle rack. The control panel is also quite fancy, it has a knob on each side with a timer / clock in the middle, one for selecting a function for the oven, and the other is the thermostat for selecting the temperature you want to cook at. The timer / clock works like you think it would, you select the amount of time you want to cook something using the plus and minus buttons below it and then press the set button. It then lets you know when the time is up with a buzz that is a little on the loud side. One complaint is that the volume of the buzz cannot be reduced, although that is a very minor complaint.
The functions that this comes with the oven are as follows: -
1) Traditional cooking mode, which uses both the top and bottom heating elements to cook the food.
2) Multi-Cooking mode, which is that same as traditional cooking mode but with the addition of the fan.
3) Top Oven mode, which uses only the top heating element.
4) Grill mode, which also uses only the top heating element but at a very high temperature.
5) Gratin mode, which is that same as top oven mode but with the fan on as well.
Now if your going to do any large roasts, e.g. duck, turkey, beef or pork, I would use the traditional cooking mode, as you do not want to evenly heat it. It gives a better all round finish and keeps the flavour, which i have only picked up due to trial and error. I would still roast chicken using the multi-cooking mode because it seems to come out better when its evenly cooked. Likewise, pizzas, lasagne and pies come out a lot better using the multi-cooking mode. The top oven mode seems to be useless for anything apart from finishing off anything that hasn't cooked properly, and grating mode is also only good for when cooking fish, as you do not want to overcook fish. Grill mode is probably useful for cooking burgers but this doesn't get used much in our household.
Cleaning the oven externally does not take much of an effort, cleaning it internally is a bit of a chore but it depends a lot on the product you clean it with, using the cheap value type stuff can take ages, whilst using the good branded stuff takes minutes. I use the value stuff mostly so it does need a bit of elbow grease. It also gets quite hot and that heats is passed onto the housing it is in, although this is not as bad as my previous oven.
Overall, i am quite satisfied with this oven, its easy to use, it does everything that I want from an oven and at quite a reasonable price too. It is also quite energy efficient, which again is saving me something along the way.
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Beko OIF21100W
by RLB2
This BEKO oven is a built in version and we also have the matching hob. Our landlord picked it and installed it, so I assume it's one the cheaper ones on the market, and I can see here that it can be bought for around £175, which seems ok.
The oven has various settings and a grill incorporated in to the top of the oven it (a ... grill-pan is also included that slides into the grooves either side of the oven to hold it in place). As you can see on the picture there are 2 dials on the oven. The one on the left is used to choose the setting you want, but basically you can turn the light on, turn the fan on, turn the oven with light and fan on, turn the frill on, turn the grill and fan on. so nothing too complicated. The middle dial is a timer, you can flick it the the left and just have it on unlimited or pick the time by rotating the dial clockwise - up to 100 minutes, and it pings when it's done. When it gets to zero though it turns the oven off. The third dial, the one on the right, is a temperature dial the runs from 0-250oC.
Inside the oven you get two adjustable shelves and the grill pan (mentioned above), which I find sufficient for the two of us. The oven door opens towards you and has reinforced glass.
As for usuage I do a lot of baking and cooking and I find for baking the oven is good. As with any oven you have to get used to the temperature and I find that this oven is hot so I set the temperature at 10oC less than any recipe asks and this seems to work fine. One thing that did happen quickly was the light bulb broke, but we've replaced it and it seems to holding up ok now.
The only issue I have with this oven is that you can't grill and bake at the same time, it has to be one or the other. This can be a bit of a pain, but by no means is a deal breaker for us.
Cleaning the oven is easy enough and the shelves are removable so you can really get into the rest of the oven and give it a good clean.
All in all a good cheap little oven....but if you need to use the grill and oven at the same time you might want to look for an alternative.
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