What Food Will Come?

Okay folks, here's another installment of HGChezPei (just the home, I've got no garden). We knew when we bought our place that we'd have to get pretty creative if we wanted to basically take a 1927 space and fit all the standard appliances of today. So we decided that a tiny dishwasher and a very modest refrigerator were fine for our needs, but that there was no way we were going to settle for anything smaller than a standard 30" range.

Furthermore, since our building only allows electric appliances, I had my heart set on an induction cook top. Enter the Samsung induction range, boasting 4 burners, an extra large oven (thanks to a very shallow cooktop), and a warming tray below the oven.

Why induction, you ask? for those of you who don't know, induction cooking uses electricity, but not to warm up heating coils. Instead, the electricity powers a magnet under each burner. The magnetic current travels into the bottom of a metal pot, the current heats up the pot, and the pot in turn heats up whatever food is in it. Crazy, right? The downside to induction cooking is that it is not yet mainstream on the U.S. residential market, so it's expensive. But its benefits are many:

• heating capacity: an induction cooktop blows electric ranges out of the water and rivals most residential gas cooktops.
• temperature control: induction ranges are supposed to be very consistent at low temperatures, meaning you can maintain a low simmer. Electric coils don't have a very low setting, and at low heat gas flames sometimes get blown out.
• safety: induction cooktops don't create flames or fumes. Gas flames eat up a lot of oxygen. They can also leak imperceptible amounts of gas. It's no big deal in a big open kitchen, but I have a tiny kitchen with no direct window access. Also, since induction cooktops create no flames, there's very little chance of setting anything on fire.
• cleanliness: because they never get hot, induction cooktops never create a burnt-on mess. I've even heard you can lay down a sheet of newspaper and cook on top of the newspaper if you know you're going to splatter. Then when you're done, you just crumple up the paper!
• timer function: I haven't researched this carefully, but I believe you can set a burner to turn off. That's great for me, because I cook rice on the stove and sometimes forget to check on it after 20 minutes.
• cool factor: no one else has one yet! I am going to be one very special gal. Induction ovens are popular in Japan and in commercial kitchens in the U.S., so I think I'm making a good choice.
  

*photos courtesy of samsung.com