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Comment by DoingIsLearning | Hacker News Reader

As someone who enjoys cooking and having moved to a house with induction hobs, it did take time to build some intuition when using it. But now looking back gas absolutely feels medieval at this point.

Unless you are some high end chef you will not miss out on much by changing to an induction hob and you get a massive indoor air quality boost.

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Hah! We Chinese (generally) swear by open flame cooking! Induction/heating element doesn’t add the same flavour. In rural areas that still use firewood, we can tell the different flavours given by wood from different trees. You don’t need to be a high end chef.

I mean sure we can tell the difference between food cooked on an induction hob and woodfire, same as say a roast slow cooked in woodfire ovens or a smoked barbecue. But the discussion here is between induction and gas, not firewood. Saying that gas hobs add flavour seems a bit of a stretch.

Most gas stoves in the US don’t get anywhere near as hot as you need for wok hei. I just have a propane powered burner that I use outdoors when I wan’t restaurant style stir fry. It’s oodles more powerful than the gas stove and is safely outdoors.

For stuff that needs wood, outdoor grills and smokers work fine.

Same with Biryani cooked on firewood.

The difference in taste and feel between Biryani cooked on firewood and LPG cooking is night and day.

You feel like a king when you eat the one cooked on firewood.

That's one of the things I am curious about in the future. From a different comment:

> Wok cooking without gas is unimaginable to many people, what's a possible solution here? Roasting/blackening vegetables over gas in Indian and other cuisines. Sure, you can use an electric oven, but is this really more efficient?

Induction stoves aren't merely a replacement for gas ranges, they bring whole new capabilities to the table. In addition to the precision and speed that you get, you can also cook at drastically lower temperatures than gas ranges are even capable of. In a century, once habits have had time to develop and society has had time to adjust, we'll say "cooking without induction is unimaginable to many people".

Induction ovens are more efficient than an resistive heating element and can transfer a lot of heat into the pan. Just as much as a flame or even more. The difficulty with woks is that flat induction cooktops are only compatible with flat-bottomed cookware. You need a flat-bottomed wok, or a special concave cooktop made just for woks.

The problem with even the flat-bottom wok or concave cooktop is that you’re still missing out on some wok cooking techniques. E.g. flambé, wok tilting (for concentrating on a thick/stubborn part of a fish), wok throwing (do you want to risk banging your flat-bottom wok on the induction surface?).

Open flames are great for cooking… when they are outside on a BBQ. Indoor gas stoves rarely make a difference compared to electric, the only difference is temp control.

My dream setup is an induction stove with a single gas hob for wok cooking, the occasional veggie blackening, or my antique (warped) castiron pan from my grandparents. I'll probably use induction 90% of the time.

I just use the propane turkey fryer burner (stopped using it to fry turkeys a long time ago) outside to wok with. Way hotter than any inside residential stove will get and all the smoke and residue is outside too. Wok cooking inside of most homes is a recipe for disaster - far easier to just do it outside.

This is what I want. Have you found an appliance that includes both?

Found these two [1][2] a while ago, but there certainly not cheap...Neff - to my understanding - offers a more or less modular stove, and they over induction and gas, but can't find the hybrid unit I saw a while ago.

[1] https://www.teka.com/en-lt/serie/the-hybrid-hobs/ [2] https://www.winnings.com.au/c/kitchen/cooktops/gas-and-induc...

Depends on what you want for asthetics but we wanted the same and ended going for tabletop units. Incredible cheap compared to the consumer builtins.

Linking some as an example but not exactly what we have.

https://www.webstaurantstore.com/avantco-cag-r-2-12-12-2-bur...

https://www.webstaurantstore.com/avantco-ic3500-countertop-i...

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