TCB, talk to me of induction cook tops (and maybe other cooking appliances)

i love mine. i've never heard anything bad about induction so i'm interested to hear why your sis-in-law hates hers?

I mean if you want to do special techniques where you wanted to slant the pan off of the element then that doesn't work because the whole base of the pan needs to be in contact with the element for it to work. It took me like 2-3 cooking sessions to get used to the quirks but I'd never go back to any other kind of electric plate.

it's annoying that my aluminium bialetti coffee makers don't work and also that the stainless steel bialetti that i got to replace my octagonal one doesn't work either (the base is too small, the coverage isn't big enough to trigger the mechanism) but once you quickly get used to its quirks there's nothing besides gas that can match it for controllability.

hi. induction owner for about 9 months now. i was a gas stove lifer and fucked if i was going to go electric. we bought a house with no access to gas.

first, it 100% works with cast iron. les creuset works. regular cast iron skillets work. i cook with cast iron more than ever here. i had to get rid of a couple of cheap nonmagnetic steel pots and an anodized aluminum straight-sided saute pan that i did like a lot. everything else i own worked fine (like all my cheap-ass restaurant supply saucepans and stockpots).

the best thing about it is how insanely fucking fast you can boil liquids. want to make pasta? blanch vegetables? make tea? heat up soup? it's amazing for all this stuff.

i wish mine had a better low simmer setting. #3 on the dial will boil too fast, #2 drops below a simmer too often. honestly lesser gas stoves have the same issue.

medium and medium-high heat, your searing and sauteeing settings, are pretty good imo. i don't think it's quite as responsive as gas but it's damn close. the cleaning benefits due to the fact that the surface never gets hot are real and wonderful.

nb this is a fairly expensive samsung range. not top of the line but prob above average for induction ranges in the states. i think if i could ever get a really killer high-end gas range i'd go back. but i might take decent induction over decent gas.

do you have any specific concerns?

xp

I haven't encountered any quirks of induction cooking that would make me want to give it up. I'm definitely quite a basic cook though. I don't do fancy things.

agreed i don't think there's anything it totally sucks at.

you can't roast peppers and heat tortillas over an open flame if that's an issue at all.

All good intel. I have a little Korean tabletop gas ring as a backup.

I’m not sure my sister in law is a reliable source, she’s not a great cook and likes to complain about everything.

lol

we have an induction stovetop & while it doesn't quite have the flexibility of gas, it's still excellent for cooking & much easier for cleaning (a big deal for us lazy folks).

i’m happy w mine and yeah it heats up insanely fast

and like jed said, there’s no easy way to keep one side hot of a pan and the other side cool. but you just get used to the quirks and what can you do anyway if there’s no gas?

At this stage remaining in a house with gas or moving to one with gas are options, it’s just that a lot of new builds seem to be cheaping out on running gas lines.

Wok’s seam to be a particular challenge, it’s all about movement of the pan and stuff in it and would cool down pretty quickly if not in intimate contact.. Our current gas wok ring is very good, and a pretty common standard feature in Melbourne thanks to a big Asian community.

i *can* use a wok (flat bottom, carbon steel) on my cooktop but i haven’t come close to mastering it. i try to keep the wok itself pretty still and use a big wok spatula to keep the contents moving.

We had induction all last year in every single rental. It was fine. Way better than electric. Gas is preferable. I kind of just really hated cleaning it and was tense about accidentally sitting something on the flat surface while it was still hot.

I just bought a magic/nutribullet. There was much deliberation over this but I am overly excited. We try to keep the appliances in the house at a super minimum/must use it several times a week to be worthwhile.

https://i.ytimg.com/vi/0V8Hd5lfheY/hqdefault.jpg

I finally bought an ikea plug in induction single ring cooktop to test out induction cookery. The co-build housing I’m involved in is considering being all electric. I’m actually impressed so far. Gets hot quick and it’s easy to vary temperature.

Would definite recommend for the 50 bucks it cost me.

Need to work out what I’m going to do about the wok thing.

you can get a wok stand specifically for induction (search 'infinite wok').

any flat-bottomed carbon steel wok should be fine on induction

so i just moved into a new flat which is grebt in many ways but the cooker is smaller than my older one and also it's an induction hob

which i don't mind tbh (i've always used gas but i also have asthma) except i can no longer use half my trustiest pans apparently

You can get a flat metal piece to put between your nonmagnetic pans and the cooktop. The flat metal gets hot which in turns heats the pan. Inefficient but works.

I'm set on getting rid of the electric 4 burner stove/oven in our kitchen and replacing it with 2 induction burners and a countertop convection oven. Will put everything on an IKEA kitchen island thing. We haven't used the stove in over a year - we've got a bamboo cover on it that a single induction burner sits on. The Anova oven I got a year ago and use constantly is at the other end of the kitchen currently.

ok so the scrambled egg i am making via induction is actually i think better than it ever was before (i am using the helldude-approved splash-of-water-toward-the-end recipe, to make it superfluffy) (water! not! milk!)

but i have apparently lost the ability to fry bacon w/o extensive charring :(

fvck i just realised i can no longer make soup in my magic black aztec pot >:(

i mean unless i source one of jaq's flat metal things

This kind of thing: induction adapter

thank you!