A few years ago I replaced my amazing gas range with a dual oven glass top electric. I am very happy with the even heat and lack of fumes but I admit that electric cooking is perforce a leisurely activity. Well, my partner decided she needed lighter weight pots and pans with pour spouts since she has trouble managing my Martha Stewart tri-ply. She brought home a few pieces and okay, I can live with anodized aluminum. I'm not getting any younger either. Then I noticed that her new pots and pans are induction compatible. Having nothing better to do I bought an 1800 watt induction portable "hot plate" for $70 and gave it a shot. If you are a gas fanatic but worried about breathing all that schmutz or like me committed to an electric stove you should try this. Induction is very quick, responsive and stable. My hot plate does almost everything as well as electric and FASTER than gas. Almost everything...there is a decided hot spot in the middle. The heat isn't nearly as even as radiant electric but then neither were my gas burners. Not a problem for boiling or simmering (if you stir fairly often) but omelets need to be watched. Try it!
Beloved wife loves induction cooking too. She wants a Big Chill Retro stove in Buttercup Yellow to go with our 1944 adobe casita's kitchen. Www.bigchill.com Six grand for a STOVE?
Induction is pretty nice. It does tend to stay hot for a bit longer than a gas stove, which is mildly annoying, but it's otherwise quite good. My perfect stove would be half induction, half gas. I'd probably use induction most of the time, but I'd also like the flexibility to be able to switch back and forth when needed. For instance, an induction stove wouldn't work if there was a power outage, but a gas stove probably would. FWIW, the induction stoves I've used didn't have an obvious hot spot in the middle. Maybe slightly, but the heat is more even than most ceramic or ceramic coil electric stoves. It might just be your specific hot plate.
When I cook it is usually induction. I like to pan fry fish, and other things that need more precise temperature, for best results.
Update: We no longer bother to pull the induction hot plate off the glass stovetop between uses. If we're going to heat or cook anything we do it on the hot plate so we just leave it there. It's so much quicker and very responsive. I find that if I don't use a setting higher than 5 on a 1 to 10 scale, the "heat" is even enough to use my aluminum frying pan. If you haven’t tried induction you should.
Yeah. And my dad was a career Army man. My grandfather served 26 years in the Navy. And so it went.... Personally, I enlisted some 7 or so years after then end of the draft. When I did, I met a lot of NCOs who'd joined the Air Force to avoid being drafted into the Army (or Marine Corps!), then stayed because, you know, Air Force.
I like charring tortillas on gas stoves. On a scale of 1-10, with 10 being equal to gas, how good are these induction stoves be for charring? I expect at least one of you to have an answer, otherwise I will be highly disappointed.
You can char on induction about as well as you can on a regular electric stove. Which is to say, not at all. That's another reason why I want a dual gas/induction stove.
Unfortunately, there are a LOT of ovens that can't do this. I've never had one that could. Even if I did have one that theoretically could, I wouldn't trust myself to char anything to a proper degree without creating a lot of smoke or just plain overdoing it and ruining the pepper or whatever I was charring.
My beloved had to char chiles to make an excellent chile soup a few years ago. Broiler worked fine though it set off the smoke alarm. Edit: Spell correct made it into "child" soup. Um. No...
I'm serious here - might a small hand-held propane torch work - e.g. Bernz-o-Matic, maybe outside, in the barbecue area?
Right... forgot about those Out of the corner of my eye, I saw a chef using one on TV at my son's place. Might have been on a crème brûlée - I'm not sure. Thanks.