Cooking in a clean kitchen is by far more appealing. If everything is misplaced, you can’t find anything. If your oven is dirty, you won’t be interested in putting your food in there. Same applies to the stove, if there’s spills old food built-ups on it, you can feel discouraged to clean on it.
In order for this not to happen, you should make it a habit to clean your oven and stove on a regular basis. There’s no specific time to clean it, but whenever you see splatters, wipe it off. This takes a few minutes and if you clean stains regularly, you won’t have to spend 2 hours cleaning the unit on a weekend day. Ovens are not the easiest appliances to clean. More than often, once we are done cooking, we close back the door and forget all about the spills and crumbled food left behind. It is therefore very easy to avoid thinking about it and delay the cleaning for next time. Most people will shine up the window once in a while and scrub away accidental spills, but never really get to the thorough cleansing with rubber gloves and spray cleaner. Much like many things, keeping the oven clean will be easier when you make it a habit.
Cleaning an oven is not too enjoyable. We purchase a unit with the self-cleaning option, thinking that it will solve all our problems but in reality, the self-cleaning cycle never seems to work as well as it should. It takes a few hours to run it and it’s expensive considering that it uses a lot of energy. Once the high temperature has burnet up all the spills and splatters, you have to wipe down the ashes at the bottom, but often, you forget about it.
The best technique is always the old one: spray clean the oven at night with an oven spray cleaner (Easy Off or other brands). Then let it act overnight (you can always do it a few hours later if you want to do it the same day). After the product had time to resorb the spills and soften food built ups, you will have to scrub the inside with a hard sponge. Removing the racks inside will facilitate the process. The racks should be soaked in water and either baking soda or chemical products (P.S.P. or others). You can place them either in the bad tub or a big plastic recipient with the solution. They will only need to be wiped off after being soaked in the water and product.
These tips might be useful:
- If you have the self-cleaning feature on your oven, run it once every 1-2 months, depending on how often you use your appliance.
- If you can see greasy splatter marks on the sides, wipe it!
- When food spills over on the bottom of the unit, give it time cool down and clean it right away to avoid it to harden up.
- Place an aluminum plate at the bottom.
- Don't let the oven get so crusted and dirty you won’t even want to touch it!
