I taught myself to cook in all those kitchens, well enough to end up with a career in food writing. For the last 17 months, I have exclusively cooked on my electric glass stovetop — not even induction, like in our Food Lab — testing and developing recipes.
My point: You don’t need a gas stove to be a good cook.
For years I’ve heard some people in my industry and the restaurant world proclaim the superiority of gas and inferiority of electric. I’ll be honest, I bristled! According to Consumer Reports, only half of American homes even have gas as an option. And according to a 2015 survey from the U.S. Energy Information Administration, cited by the Atlantic, two-thirds of Americans are actually cooking with electric stoves. Were these millions of Americans using electric, frequently with no choice in the matter, somehow already lesser cooks before the game was even afoot?
I believe that we should be doing everything we can to make cooking feel accessible, not rubbing people the wrong way by telling them their appliances are the wrong type. We’re used to seeing big flames (and big personalities) in restaurant kitchens that supposedly make for good TV, but it’s definitely time to move past that bravissimo, especially when it comes to home cooks. (Yes, open flames make me nervous, too.)
As proof that cooktop type is not as consequential as it’s often made out to be, recipes on the whole don’t specify one or the other. When they do, it’s typically for a specific task directly on a gas burner that you can usually work around, such as charring a bell pepper (doable under the broiler) or toasting a tortilla (just fine in a cast-iron skillet). I realize I’ll never achieve the sublime stir-fries cooked in a wok with flames licking up the sides of the pan, but I’m okay with it — I choose to do the best I can in a skillet or, instead, support my favorite local restaurants.
In many respects, accounting for gas versus electricity is no different from the many other variables we all contend with, consciously or not, when we cook, whether it’s the type of pan we’re using, the temperature or size of the food, or any substitutions we’ve made. You need to use your senses, paying attention to the cues in a recipe that describe what the food should smell, look or sound like. Don’t rely solely on the time given. Know how your cooktop operates, and trust your intuition. I frequently find myself reducing or increasing the heat specified in a recipe. And that’s just fine.
To better get a handle on what you might need to be aware of, it helps to understand some of the differences between the two types of stoves. (Much of the dialogue revolves around burner-cooking, so I’m focusing on stovetop rather than oven function.) Gas stoves rely on a combustible mix of oxygen and gas that flows more or less depending on how you turn the control knob. They’re very responsive, easily moving between temperatures, according to “The Science of Good Food” by David Joachim, Andrew Schloss and A. Philip Handel. On the other hand, traditional electric cooktops are slower to respond. They take longer to cool down and sometimes to heat up as well.
How does this affect you practically? If you’re using electric, make sure you give your pans enough time to preheat. If a recipe calls for searing or bringing something up to a boil or strong simmer before reducing the heat, you may want to turn it down a little sooner to account for the residual heat, especially if you’re trying to avoid burning or a boil-over. Another option: Switch burners, so you can immediately put the food on a lower heat without waiting for the original burner to cool.
If you’re already the owner of an electric-powered induction cooktop, which is increasingly chipping away at gas’s reputation as the most cook-friendly style, you may need to think about even less. Like gas, induction is extremely responsive — it employs “magnetic coils below the ceramic glass surface to send pulses directly to cookware,” Consumer Reports explains. And since it relies on electromagnetic energy in conjunction with compatible cookware (not all pans are induction-friendly, though many are), the cooktop itself remains relatively cool.
Like older electric models, induction cooktops don’t emit the pollutants that can be of concern with gas, which have been linked to such health problems as childhood asthma. As potentially more localities move toward legislating the phasing out of gas in favor of electricity with an eye toward sustainability, it’s probable that induction will show up in even more restaurant and home kitchens.
Whether you’re scrutinizing a stove you have or are considering buying a new one, keep in mind that gas is not inherently better or electric inherently worse, or vice versa. “If you could determine how well a range could cook from its fuel source, my job would be pretty boring,” Consumer Reports quotes Tara Casaregola, who oversees its range, wall oven and cooktop lab. “We see the greatest discrepancies between individual models, and you can find excellent choices in gas or electric.”
Similarly, an attentive cook can make a good meal on a bad stove, and a careless cook can make a bad meal on even the most high-end stove, no matter the fuel. The equipment is not as important as the person using it.
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August 31, 2021
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In defense of the electric stovetop, the surface most American home cooks use - The Washington Post
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