Induction cooking

So, for a birthday present for myself (OK,  a month early. cheese  ) I bought an induction cook top.

Anyone have experience with that?

I do not. I've been reading up on it, and I know the basics about what cookware is compatible, but not about the best way to use the cook top.


When in Spain it is all we use.  On the "power up-ish" button you can boil water in like 30 seconds. Depends also on how fancy your controls are. I'm a believer. But its a commitment!


We have had an induction cooktop for a few years. It's the same brand as yours, but an earlier model. We love it for high heat cooking and boiling water for pasta.  (Boiling water quickly might be its greatest feature.)  We have found that anything you cook at medium heat and above turns out great -- sometimes better -- than using our gas stove. Onions carmelize very quickly with it. We also use it a lot during the summer because it doesn't heat up the kitchen as much as our stove does while cooking.  However, we have trouble cooking anything on lower heat. The unit cycles the heat on and off at the lower heat levels, with pretty intense heat, and this affects how the food cooks. Rice has never been successful.  On low it will boil rapidly for a bit, then sit not boiling at all for a bit, then back to boiling again as the unit cycles the heat on and off. Newer units might have solved this problem, and I believe the full-sized stove units have much more finesse with lower heat.  All in all, I would recommend it.  Let me know how your low heat cooking is on this -- maybe it's time to update our unit to the latest model.


RichardR said:

We have had an induction cooktop for a few years. It's the same brand as yours, but an earlier model. We love it for high heat cooking and boiling water for pasta.  (Boiling water quickly might be its greatest feature.)  We have found that anything you cook at medium heat and above turns out great -- sometimes better -- than using our gas stove. Onions carmelize very quickly with it. We also use it a lot during the summer because it doesn't heat up the kitchen as much as our stove does while cooking.  However, we have trouble cooking anything on lower heat. The unit cycles the heat on and off at the lower heat levels, with pretty intense heat, and this affects how the food cooks. Rice has never been successful.  On low it will boil rapidly for a bit, then sit not boiling at all for a bit, then back to boiling again as the unit cycles the heat on and off. Newer units might have solved this problem, and I believe the full-sized stove units have much more finesse with lower heat.  All in all, I would recommend it.  Let me know how your low heat cooking is on this -- maybe it's time to update our unit to the latest model.

Thanks. That's all very useful. Looking forward to fast boiling - waiting for pasta water to boil is one of my major annoyances.


When we lived in SOMA we cooked with gas, and loved it. What did we know? We downsized to our current condo, & went induction when our electric cooktop died. Got a GE Profile unit (which exactly matched the dimensions of the previous stovetop), & haven't looked back. We love all the usual plusses, & all the recent news of the positive environmental implications of induction cooking have only made us happier with our choice of cooktop...

-s.



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