Do you need to have a stove to cook?

My fabulous apartment is brand new, all the appliance, kitchen wares were straight out of the package wrap, happy I was, only to realise the stove has no gas supply. I guess no one really tried to test the stove after the renovation was done. I was left with a beautiful 4-burner stove but cannot do anything with it.

The response from the management is to move me to another room, however, that room was facing west and a ugly construction site. I pleaded that I want to stay in my own flat but if they can let me use the other flat for cooking... Deal. I am in possession of 2 keys to our service apartment. The first night, I was so excited to try the new stove in the flat a floor above me, moving around in the hall way with my frying pans, oil, cardiments didn't feel too odd at all. After a couple tries when the excitement wore out, I started to wonder the if I can do something with the only powered cooking device in the flat.

Armed with 3 difference size baking pans (with lids), I started to experiment. Cooking rice is easy, the trick is to soak the rice overnight beforehand, using 450C super heat to cook for 10 minutes then let to simmer for another 10 minutes, perfect rice. Frying thin sliced pork with bamboo shoots is not difficult, either. With high heat to braise the finely chopped garlic for 5 minutes, then take the baking pan out, add in the marinated pork, stir well, stick the pan in for another 8 minutes with medien heat, take the pan out, adding the bamboo shoot slices for another 5 mins, Viola! I have a dish.

I even cooked the traditional Cantoese long-time stew soup in the oven, no problem at all. I am challenging the pasta cooking tonight, so far so good. The pasta was cooked al Dante in high heat for 10 minutes, quickly rinsing under cold water to let to chill, dry and store in fridge for tomorrow. The meat sauce was cook in similar fashion... I guess I can start to write a cook book with oven.