Gastroplod

Now here’s one thing over which Canadians and Americans do see eye to eye: a mini toaster oven.  It’s the tops.  And now, in the UK, it’s here at long last.  As with the best things in life, it’s a study in brilliant simplicity: just look at those nuclear-bunker knobs. Gasp at the no-nonsense controls: 2 elements with 3 cooking combinations plus a clockwork 15-minute timer  – ping!  – I use it all the time, she cooed.

Brother didn’t want so it’s my mini-oven now: and sure, it can crisp up a croissant,  toast a teacake, gratinate a – well, gratin, but it has huge potential, limited only by the rather less than huge capacity.  So no, I will not be roasting the turkey within its cute confines, but it did cook a hunk of topside to rare perfection – dark & crusted without, juicy red within – a feat achieved never by that cavernous and fatuously fan-assisted Neff.
Popular with North American students for its portable economy, if not snappy retro styling, it’s surprising this darling device hasn’t caught on before in Britain but, with the cost of fuel spiralling to the heavens and the ever-dwindling dimensions of a modern household, it’s about time it did.

Here it is taking care of tapas; no doubt it’ll knock the socks off a microwave for reheats and ready meals.  And before you ask, my entire smug-parade of stuffed olive oil flatbreads was baked in this 280C furnace (an inconceivable temperature in the iNeffectual one) on its own little oven tray.  This latest: a prosciutto, rosemary and sage fouace ready to go.

So if you’re not constantly cooking for a crowd, take a tip from American collegiate culture and get hold of a table top toaster oven.  I paid an unbelievably paltry £12 at – whisper it – Poundstretcher.  With a fortune saved on the leccy and wide new avenues of experiment opening up, not to mention the odd old-fashioned baked potato, I just need to work out how to clean it…