Remember that old song, “I fought the law and the law won”? Well, in my case it wasn’t the law — it was the oven.

On Tuesday night I had my first dinner guests, Marcia and Cliff. They are friends from BAIN, and Marcia is the realtor who found me my great badass apartment.

Getting ready for the evening proved to be yet another of those sagas I seem to get myself into! Where shall I start?

Well, if you know me well, you know cooking is not my favourite pursuit, and I have a small repertoire of things I make for company. This time I decided on my “Portuguese themed” dinner: bifes de cebolada and pudim flan – a yummy meat dish with onions and tomatoes and the Portuguese version of creme caramel.

Foolproof.

Usually.

Dishes

In my famous boxes that took three months to get here, I brought my china dinner set, my silver cutlery and my wooden salad bowl. What I didn’t bring was serving dishes, because I didn’t have enough room in the boxes. I only realized this on Sunday, so I spent Monday morning running around buying serving dishes. Fine, that’s me ready. No.

I need an oven proof dish to make the pudim flan. Out again in the afternoon to get that.

Back home, planning to make it Monday evening, I remember I make it in a bain marie — and I have nothing to put the water in big enough to accommodate the dish. Out again to get that. I find a baking tray in the supermarket that seems deep enough to do the trick. Ready for action.

Oven

The stove in my apartment is gas. Now I realize that serious cooks always prefer gas, but see paragraph 3 above — I am not a serious cook. Not only that, but I’ve always had electric cookers in Canada and, truth be told, I’m a little nervous of gas. I’ve made friends with the top burners, of course, as I need to use them all the time, but I had never used the oven.

Ovens are strange here. Instead of me trying to explain the difficulty, check out this funny video on YouTube — it pretty much says it all! http://pickupthefork.com/2012/10/07/how-to-turn-on-an-oven-in-argentina/

Here’s a photo of the wee hole in the floor of my oven where the flame is supposed to come out. Hah!

Well, I got tired of burning my fingers, so I went out and bought one of those gizmos to light stoves so I could hold it down long enough for the pilot flame to catch. I waited. I waited. I waited. Nothing happened. On Monday when my cleaning lady came, I asked her to show me. She did what I had been doing. We waited. We waited. We waited. Nothing. She said she thought it was broken. OMG, a faulty gas oven — now I’m really freaking out!

I sent a WhatsApp message to my landlady. Turned out she was at a family wedding in New York, but she called me back and walked me through the process — same process, same result. Now she’s freaking out in New York, and tells me to turn off the gas in the apartment. I was pretty sure that wasn’t the problem because the burners worked, but I did as she said. She told me to ask the portero, Alejandro, to help.

I went downstairs and he wasn’t there, so I left him a note. Meantime I’m wondering how I’m going to cook anything because now I’m scared to turn the gas back on!

Anyway, he came up around 4 pm Monday and gave it a shot. For the life of me I can’t see that he did anything different from what Gabi and I had done, but it worked! Don’t you feel ridiculous when that happens?

Anyway, I planned to make the pudim Monday evening just to make sure it worked and was ready on time. So ….

The pudim flan

After dinner on Monday, I gathered all the ingredients and made the custard. The dish fitted into the baking tray no problem, although a little wobbly as it wasn’t very deep.

I lit the oven — took a few minutes, but it did start. You have to get down on your knees and look under the tray to see the actual flames, and they were definitely there. Problem is, you know how you gradually turn the knob and watch the flame as you adjust it? Well, I’m not a contortionist, so I couldn’t manage that. This meant I couldn’t adjust the heat.

As I stood making the burnt sugar on the stove top, it occurred to me there was an awful lot of heat coming from the oven. An awful lot. Oh well, press on regardless.

I put some water in the bottom of the baking tray and lowered the dish gently into it. It was long and skinny, so a little awkward. Awkward, right, that’s the word. As I put it into the oven, it tipped backwards and the water cascaded down into the oven, hissing and sputtering all the way. I said a very bad word.

Fortunately it didn’t put the flames out, but some of the custard overflowed into the oven tray, which by this time was so hot that the custard overflow cooked instantaneously and stuck to the bottom. I pulled it out and put it down on a mat on the floor to be dealt with later, and went back to the oven, which fortunately also had a rack beneath that one. Got it in — excellent.

Went back to whatever I was doing. This dessert usually takes an hour or so to bake. About twenty minutes in, a burning smell issued from the kitchen, and when I looked there was a burnt skin on the top and the water in the baking tray had dried up. I managed to put some more water in without scalding my hands or incinerating my eyebrows. I knew it couldn’t have cooked inside already so I just gave an Argentine shrug and left it to get on with cooking. (I really am becoming Argentine!) Eventually at about the 45 minute mark I couldn’t stand the burning smell and I really had to take it out. I knew it had cooked way too fast, but I let it cool anyway. You never know.

Tuesday Night

Fast forward to Tuesday. Marcia and Cliff were coming around 7.30 pm. The beef was ready, potatoes and veggies ready to cook when they arrived.

Now, about that flan.

I took it out of the fridge. OK it had a burnt skin on top, but you have to invert it anyway, so I figured I could just lift it off with a knife. I did. Underneath was not a pretty sight. Instead of my usual creamy, silky textured custard, it was a lumpy mess that disintegrated when I tried to turn it out. Totally unusable.

Fortunately, there’s a great ice cream shop just around the corner, and I had left enough time to get there just in case. Forward thinking.

Once they came, everything was fine. We had a lovely visit with lots of conversation and laughter — and champagne. Little did they know of all this drama that had been going on before! (Pity I forgot to take a photo while they were here — they are a good looking couple and I managed not to poison them.)

In any case, I’m better prepared for my next dinner party, with serving plates etc. I don’t think I’ll ever make pudim flan again unless I’m visiting Canada or Scotland, so I’ll have to come up with a new dessert — preferably one that doesn’t need to be baked in the oven. Who wants to be next in line??

I did my best. I fought the good fight. But the oven definitely came out the winner!

This time.

This isn’t over.

Now it’s personal.