Los Angeles is phasing out gas-powered living.The Los Angeles City Council voted in May to ban gas stoves in all new buildings built within the city limits, and more than 50 California cities have done the same.The council made the decision, citing the ongoing climate crisis, as emissions from gas connections that power stoves, furnaces and water heaters lead to carbon dioxide pollution that can lead to more destructive wildfires, more severe droughts and more deadly Heatwaves – all of which are major concerns for those of us who live in California.
Gasless is obviously better for the environment, but gas stoves are still the most common in the country, and they are considered essential to certain dishes and techniques.Switching to induction or electric over time will be a big adjustment.Since we still have many years of gas stove cooking ahead of us, the LA Times’ test kitchen is currently outfitted with both gas and induction cooktops.Each method now makes for great cooking at home, and both can be used to test our recipes.
Gas stoves are standard for me and most professional chefs I know.First, we anticipate that most people who make our recipes at home use natural gas.Heat levels are classified as high, medium, and low because you can use all three to judge the flame of a gas burner with the naked eye, no matter what the dial on the stove says.
Chinese and Korean chefs in Los Angeles fear a future ban on gas stoves could change their kitchens forever.
Gas provides cooks with flexible maneuverability, and electricity is slower and bulkier when it comes to heat levels.It also allows you to use any pan you have, which induction can’t do because induction requires the magnetic material in the pan to react with the copper coils in the stove.When it comes to the amount of heat that gas can produce, it is again superior to electric and induction, which cannot reach the heat levels of a jet engine for grilling steaks or making charcoal-grilled stir-fries, etc.
Gas stoves are dominant in our culture, mainly because, the flames cast some kind of spell: when you grill a steak or flip a frying pan, it’s really tempting to see the power of the flame light up, every piece being burnt coke.Visuals are only part of the appeal.
For all the reasons above – quick heat control, the ability to provide smoky heat when you need it, and its versatility with all pots and pans – gas cooktops have been a mainstay for serious home cooks and restaurant cooks for decades.So it will be interesting to see how chefs in restaurants in brand new buildings, in particular, will adapt when the new laws come into effect.Does the lack of original flavors brought by gas cooking signal the return of fire cooking to mimic the same flavors?
For all the wonders of natural gas, I have to admit that it does generate a lot of excess heat and energy that electric and induction stoves do not.As someone who has lived in small apartment kitchens in both NYC and LA, I can attest that a single burner can provide ambient heating power.If it is winter, the heating will be fine.But if it’s hot outside – as it is so many times in LA – it can mean that every dinner party I host requires me to take a shower before guests come over.Now imagine the heat in the kitchen inside your favorite restaurant.
I’m neither a fan nor a critic of induction cooktops – I understand why people use them both – but I’ve found that while cooking with them is a different experience than cooking with gas, in general you can become Pretty pretty much the same result.
Electric cooktops conduct heat through heat, i.e. from the hot coil to the hot pan to the food.It’s like a gas flame, except that the heat is concentrated at the bottom of the electric pan rather than anywhere the flame touches the pan, the gas can sometimes be on the sides as well.
However, with induction, what you can do is both limited and extended.Induction cooking works by an electrical coil reacting with magnetic material in certain pots and pans to transfer heat.That means heat is transferred faster than gas or regular electricity – that pot of water needed to make pasta will boil faster.It also means that the pan you use will heat up faster.Instead of waiting a few minutes for pans on a gas cooktop to get hot, pans on an induction cooktop get hot in less than a minute.
Of course, induction also has its drawbacks.You can get the pan hot quicker, but it won’t hold or reach the heat levels that the gas requires for sautéing and grilling steaks.And since induction heating requires certain pots and pans, you may need to buy a new set of cookware to use it.However, the ability to maintain a more precise temperature at this high threshold is great for things like simmering, where you need slow and steady heat without having to fiddle around in a gas flame prone to hot spots.
All comparisons aside, though, I think most home cooks will eventually be able to easily adapt their recipes to use an induction or electric cooktop.Except for those times when I rarely cook steak, I don’t need that high heat to cook at home – honestly, I could spend the rest of my life in my house without setting off the fire and opening every window to dissipate that single Smoke from the pot.
After some thought, and the idea of a cooler kitchen in the future, I’d rather have less gas earlier than later.If it’s coming, why not embrace it?Instead of focusing on the one thing it lacks, we can take this opportunity to adapt to all its possibilities.
Ben Mims is a culinary columnist for the Los Angeles Times.He has written three cookbooks and has served as a food editor and recipe developer for several food media publications such as Lucky Peach, Food & Wine, Saveur, Food Network and Buzzfeed/Tasty.
Post time: Jul-04-2022