Seduction by induction

Happy Holidays! due to the hectic holiday schedule I've been terrible about getting this post out. I have the  week off and we've been shuttling between Jen's Family Christmas in the Poconos and my brother's in Manhattan. Not to mention a whopping Blizzard of 2010. We've only had 23 inches of snow caked on top of us. Jersey City looked like it was styrofoamed packed at least the first day. Then it turned grey like it usually does for city snow.

This year brought a bag full of culinary gadgets for me to play with. It was only a few years ago when induction burners were hundreds of dollars now they've dropped tremendously and you can pick one up under 100$. This year Jen's side of the family opted for Kris Kringle instead of individual gifts and our cousin's Brenda's Boyfriend Peter had me. After some sneaky holiday talk with Jen I opened up an single induction burner for Christmas.

Now if you're wondering what the heck am I going to do with a single induction burner the idea is that I can cook certain volatile dishes in the back patio instead of in the kitchen. For example, when I fry up a batch of french fries I can do it without the entire house smelling like a fast food restaurant for days. Also when I want to get a hot sear on a steak I can do it without setting off every fire alarm in the house. The greatest reason of all however is that I just really wanted to play with it and see what the big deal is.

How does it work? Induction cooking uses a electric coil underneath a scratch resistant glass top. The coil generates and electromagnetic field that reacts with the "ferrous" (magnetic stuff in metal) in your cooking vessel. This completes an electrical current that heats up the vessel and the ingredients that are in it. If you're unsure if your vessel will work. Use the magnet test. If it sticks, it'll do. Okay enough science class let's have some fun.

For anyone considering upgrading their kitchen stove top to induction there are some very real perks to induction. For one you have much more precise control over your heating power for the control freaks out there. Cleanup, the glass that you cook on it is scratch resistant a since its flat without crevices it a breeze to clean up, no more gunky stove tops. Sleek, its a very futuristic look in comparison to the traditional gas burners. Quick, the heating element heats up very quick and can boil a pot of water within just a few minutes. Safer, no more worries of jumping flames once the pan is off the burner the heat dissipates quickly and there isn't a threat of fire.

So let's see if this thing lives up to the hype. I decided to start off with a very typical Filipino American breakfast. Garlic Rice, Kielbasa, and Scrambled egg with grilled onions.

Software:
4 cups of cooked day old rice
3 stalks of sliced scallions
SnP
Polish Smoked Kielbasa
1 Small Onion
4 Eggs Scrambled
4 Cloves of minced garlic
Vegetable Oil

Hardware:
Skillet
Knife
Microplane *Optional
Induction Burner

If you don't have day old rice lying around I suggest you start with getting the rice started. I like to use a rice cooker because its very forgiving with the amount of water you put in and it allows you to keep your burners free to cook other items. My brother like making rice in a pot over a flame but I kinda like setting the rice up and walking away. 

Once the rice is going I suggest you get your "Mise En Place" together. Slice up your sausage, onions, and scallions. I dusted off my ceramic Kyocera chef's knife for this. I love to slice vegetables with my ceramic knives. Ceramic retains it sharpness longer than the traditional steel. Ceramic is much lighter than steel so you won't tire out as you will with prepping for a long time with steel. Inexpensive, ceramics tend to cost 30% less in comparison to your high end traditional steel chef's knife. Now the draw backs... ceramics, are more fragile it will not take a long drop and it will not cut through bone. It also will not hone with a traditional honing steel you will need a special ceramic honing bar to condition your blade. All in although it's great for vegetable cutting and Jen loves it due to it's light weight feel. It's the knife you want to choose when you have allot of prep work without any butchery.

I picked my cast iron to use on the burner. I start with about 2 tablespoons of vegetable oil and turned the burner on 3. Instead of mincing garlic, a shortcut I take is grating the garlic on a microplane. Just be sure to take the papery skin off of the garlic before grating and be careful of your fingers. Skin and blood in your meal is not good eats. Once the garlic begins to brown throw your rice in and using your spatula break up any of the really large chunks. Toss the rice for about 5 minutes and SnP. Cut the fire and add the sliced scallions. Now after this first round I started to notice that there is a very prominent hot spot dead center of the pan.  Lets see how well it does with the kielbasa.

Wash your pan or use a new pan and preheat with about a tablespoon of vegetable oil. Add the sliced kielbasa and over medium heat brown your sausage and set aside. For round two, the hot spot is much more prominent in the center of the pan. With the sugar in the sausage it burned quickly and it was difficult to scrape off. I also noticed that since I used an oblong pan the sides furthest most from the center were pretty cool and did little or no cooking. I had to brown in the center then set it off to the side like a short order cook on a griddle.

 

So we're not doing so great so far. Now for the onions and eggs. Saute the onions in a teaspoon of vegetable oil and add the egg, SnP and set aside. Same story for round 3 very hot in the center and very cool on the sides. This kept me hovering over the cooking process and constantly tending to the ingredients being cooked. It was also difficult to know how hot the numbers meant in comparison to flames. With gas you can visually see how high you are blasting your pan but with a digital panel it's difficult without some practice to know how hot is hot.

So here's the verdict, induction is a convenient way to cook. It gets hot quick, its easy to clean, and its sleek and sexy but it can produce hot spots and its difficult to understand how hot your pan is. I wouldn't swap out my gas grill but I'm happy to have a secondary back up for outside cooking.

Here are some pros' and cons I've noted.

Pros: Sleek look, Easy to clean, precise heat control, quick cool down, Cool digital display, Little carry over heat, no gas line needed, no live fire risk, quick heat up and cool down.

Cons: Hot spots, does not work with copper pans, Digital display hard to gauge pan temperature, oblong pans don't do well, and if you're used to tossing your ingredients in the pan the loss of contact instantly stops the heat.