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Old 02-22-2019, 09:06 AM
Mille162 Mille162 is offline
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Join Date: Sep 2018
Location: Philadelphia, USA
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Quote:
Originally Posted by seahug View Post
Yup yup.

Tossing is a very fast way to flip food in a pan and get even cooking - for ex: sauteing anything (vegetables, shrimp), fried rice - much faster than using a spatula. Swirling and tossing is also a fast way to make pasta + pasta water thicken a sauce and if you want exactly al dente you don't want it sitting in the pan longer than needed.

This is much harder to do on induction. You can lift the pan much higher to avoid banging the pan but the heat stops right away and then you have to very gently put it back down. The other thing is on a semipro gas range, the grates are designed so you can slide pots and pans around the whole cook top. You don't have to lift the pots and you can use the space in between the burners.


To saute literally means “to jump” and it’s called that because the food jumps around on its own in the pan over med- high heat as it’s moisture escapes and reacts with the small amount of fat in the pan.

you’re food isn’t jumping around on its own?
A: You’re searing it (med-high heat, food doesnt move)
B: you’re steaming it (not enough heat in pan for the fat/moisture to react or too much moisture in the pan, usually cause you out in too much food at once).

Try and correct the steaming issue and turn the heat up and now you’re stir-frying (high-heat and food is moved manually by the chef as moisture escapes too fast)

Want to just add more oil to the pan to keep temp of pan up and offset the extra moisture; now you’re pan-frying (enough oil to cover the bottom of the pan but not enough to submerge the food).

Sauteing is an issue with induction because as the food jumps around, little bits of the fat and what not splatter out and run down the side of the pan...this would be a sizzle and amazing aroma on a gas range as that’s burned off, but on any flattop surface it runs down the pan edge till it reaches the bottom
of the pan, where it burns. After a few minutes you start to build up a nasty residue on the bottom edges of your pan. Now cleaning up is a PITA because all that gunk has to be scrubbed off so your pan will lay perfectly flat.

If you’re not getting some of that oil splattering out, you’re not sauteing. Most likely your heat is too low and the moisture is laying in the pan and steaming your food (and you’re not able to brown it), or you don’t have enough fat on the fan to react with the escaping moisture of your food to make it jump around, which means you’re searing it and not cooking it all the way through.

As that article stated, there are many advantages in a commercial kitchen...but keep in mind too that in a commercial kitchen the chef has a stack of pans to keep grabbing a clean one as his gets dirty...and why does he have so many clean pans? Cause theres a guy there sweating in the dishroom whoise only job is to scrub every pan clean and return it back to the line.

Induction: great for clean cooks
Gas: better for messy cooks
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