Tall, Dark and Handsome - New World Cotswold Deluxe (New World Cotswold Deluxe)

Member Name: Gwenick

Product:	New World Cotswold Deluxe
Date:	04/05/01 (125 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: different sized hobs , oven handle does not get hot

Disadvantages: small grill pan, no back on storage compartment

There it was. A dark green gas cooker, with gold coloured handle, in our price range. Having just moved into our own house for the first time my husband and I had set out to buy our kitchen appliances. I had a thing about green at the time (still do) and we had already chosen a dark green microwave.

The oven was the New World Cotswold Deluxe, a free standing high level cooker, and was priced at £259.95 from Curry's. As soon as I saw it I knew I simply HAD to have this stove. The grill pan was at just the right height for both me and my husband (he's 6ft, I'm 5ft) and it didn't take long to persuade him that 'this was the one'.

Once we the cooker had been installed at home it was time to put it to use. The instruction book, although rather bulky because of installation and servicing instructions, was very easy to follow and I had it switched on within seconds. The ignition is the fairly standard 'push and turn selected knob to full power and press ignition switch' type and I was pleased to discover that it lit quite quickly (but then I had been using a VERY old gas cooker at my mothers house).

One rather strange thing I discovered with some of the knobs is that full power isn't always having the knob turned all the way. Some of them had the 'low' setting where you would normally expect to have full power. This was a little confusing to start with and several pans of water boiled over because I thought I had turned the heat down, when instead I had turned it up. However, it only took a few days to get used to this and it doesn't bother me anymore.

There is a fairly large storage compartment at the bottom of the cooker, very handy for all those baking trays and tins, however this also is a little strange as it doesn't have a back! When you open it up you can see right through to the wall behind the cooker, not a problem really but one might expect to find the storage compartment
had a back to it.

The oven section of the cooker is reasonably large, easily suffice for an average size family. The door opens sideways and is open using the long gold coloured handle along the top of the door. One very good point to mention here is that the handle does NOT get hot, only the door itself. This makes opening the oven to check food much safer. There is no window on the oven door and no light inside, not a problem for me, but some people may prefer these facilities.

The hob section of the cooker has four different sized hobs. This means that if you use the right sized pan for the specific hob you will be saving energy and the food will cook evenly as the heat with be more evenly spread. There are two pan supports, covering two hobs each, which are extremely easy to remove for cleaning. They simply lift off.

The grill pan is rather small and the high/low settings on the knob don't seem to make much difference at all. However, it does cook the food very evenly, even at the edges. This is quite good as some overhead grills I have used in the past did not cook the food at the ends of the grill as fast as the food in the middle. However, for my needs it is perfectly adequate.

This tall, dark and handsome cooker has been an excellent buy and I can heartily recommend it to others.

Summary: