Two weeks before I made the switch from gas to induction, I almost poisoned my family. I was up late writing and wanted a midnight quesadilla snack, so I set a frying pan to warm on the stove then went back to the couch to knock out a few more lines. A few lines turned into a few paragraphs and I forgot about my pan…until the smell of natural gas wafted from the kitchen through the dining room and into the living room, where I was working.
Yes, I’d broken one of the cardinal rules ofkitchen safety—never leave an active stove unattended—but instead ofstarting a fire, I failed to notice that the burner hadn’t ignited, so dangerous fumes were seeping into my home. Luckily, I’m fairly sensitive to smells and caught it early enough to open the windows before gas started making its way upstairs to where my husband and children were sleeping. But it was still unsettling.
While I’m embarrassed to admit itwasn’t the first timesomething like that had happened, I’m happy to report it was the last. Because somewhere out in the supply chain,a gorgeous Italian induction rangewas making its way to me.
Induction vs. gas
起初,我的丈夫是对的想法swapping our gas stove for induction because he was so unfamiliar with the technology. He’s afour-season grillerand a former line cook, so he understood fire. His experience with induction was limited to a live cooking demonstration a decade ago. No one told him he’d be working on an induction hob and he spent a frustrating amount of time waiting for the glass surface to get hot. My introduction to induction was similar and, unfortunately, televised.
What neither of us knew back then was that induction uses electromagnetism to transfer energy directly from the induction element to the cookware—in a sense teleporting through or completely bypassing the cooktop surface altogether. With induction, the pan becomes the first and only heat source, and without one on the stove, there’s nowhere for the energy to go and nothing will happen. Even without compatible cookware (more on that later), the cooktop itself never gets hot, though it does absorb minimal heat from the pan. This makes induction an incredibly energy-efficient way to cook.
Conversely, both gas and electric cooktops rely on thermal energy transfer—a process in which heat moves through one thing and into another, with the open flame or electric coil serving as the initial heat source. (And on some electric stovetops, the heating elements are embedded under a smooth top, hence our early confusion about induction.) Because so much heat dissipates into the air and onto the stovetop during thermal energy transfer, gas and electric cooktops take longer to heat a pan andwaste more energyin the process.
The energy efficiency argument was enough to pique my husband’s interest in induction, and since we were long overdue for a new range, I started sending him articles aboutthe dangers ofcooking with gas. I also regularly reminded him that any time he wanted to cook over fire, he could step outside and use hischarcoal grill, or hisgas grill, or hiskamado grill. In the end, it was a picture of a sexy stainless-steel Bertazzoni induction range that tipped the scale in my favor.
Precise temperature control
If you’ve only ever cooked over gas, there’s a bit of a learning curve with induction. At first, it’s unsettling to turn the knob and not have any visual indication of what’s happening (evencheap electric burnersturn bright red when they’re hot). But we were both thrilled the first time we watched a pot of water reach a rolling boil in less than five minutes, and it just got better from there. Everything we prepared was evenly cooked and nothing ever burned. My husband became a true convert when he made breakfast for our kids and every singlepancakewas perfect. Yes, even the first one.
