For any and all who have not been breathlessly following my every adventure (you know who you are) let me bring you up to date… Oh, never mind…. It’s not necessary for the current discussion.
Suffice it to say I will not have a kitchen come September 1.
I will have a large, perfectly square, totally empty room that will be a kitchen, someday.
My question to all of you wonderful food bloggers / cooks / chefs / kitchen mavens out there:
Should I go gas or electric?
In the U.S. I had a JennAir, electric. My choice and I loved it.
In Ireland I had a teeny, tiny gas cooker. Not my choice but perfectly fine.
In Andorra I had a ceramic cook top and electric oven. The cook top had 2 halogen burners. Not my choice but it was great.
Here I have a ceramic cook top with 2 halogen burners. My choice and it’s only okay. Kind of slow to get going.
What I like about electric: I can have the heat really low for slow, barely simmering pots. I can turn the burner off and let the residual heat finish the job
What I like about gas: It’s quick to get hot and get a pot boiling faster. It responds quicker.
What do you think? What should I get? HELP ME!!!!!
I can’t face another decision…
BTW: Induction (which I would love to try) is out because none (hardly any) of my current cookware would work.
So. please leave your opinions / suggestions / votes in the comments. Please????
In the meantime…. Here’s a salad to use up whatever leftover bits are in the fridge… I had some cannellini.
Lettuce with Walnuts and White Beans
lettuce, enough for two small salads
7oz (210gr) white beans
1/3 cup creamy herb dressing
1/4 cup (.5oz, 30gr) shredded cheese – any flavor
1/4 cup (1oz, 30gr) walnuts halves
Prepare lettuce and put into a medium bowl. Add a bit of dressing and toss to coat (use tongs, it’s easier). Taste and add more dressing if desired. Add, beans, cheese and walnuts, give it another toss or two and serve.
Creamy Herb Dressing
1/2 cup Greek or plain yogurt
1 tbs Dijon mustard
1 tbs lemon juice
1 tbs fresh snipped chives
1 tbs fresh snipped tarragon
3 tbs olive oil – the good stuff
Snip tarragon and chives with scissors. In small bowl whisk yogurt, mustard and lemon juice. Add oil, a bit at a time and whisk well. Add herbs. This will keep a week.
In addition to the above, for the week of June 27, we have Smoked Salmon, Tomato Scented Orzo, Rosemary Lamb Chops, Southwestern Salad with Grilled Sausages, Pasta with Avocado Sauce and more…
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Bon Weekend!
Now…. Opinions, please. I know you have them. Share!
GAS GAS GAS! I just came back from Sweden where I cook on electric and all I am saying is give gas a chance! SOOOOOOO much better!
I dream of a gas cooker with electric oven..
The only electric I’ve cooked with is the electric broiler in my oven (which is gas). Both my oven and cooktop are gas and I’m pretty partial to it…cheaper too 🙂 Then again, I haven’t really tried electric…
I cook with gas and bake with an electric oven, I’d never change it ;-), I agree with samantha !
That’s always quite a personal thing. When we moved to our current house, I changed from gas to induction also for cleaning reasons. I love it, it’s so easy. But before that I always used gas and it works great so I’d say gas, it’s what’s used by all chefs for a reason. You can cook more precise. And nowadays you have these great stoves without all those rimms and curves to clean (I don’t like cleaning as you have probably figured out by now) and with 5 burners including one real large ‘wok’-burners. That would probably in my next new kitchen if it ever gets that far…
My choice is an electric oven and gas burners – we’ve had two gas ovens w/gas burners and those damn things burned EVERYTHING I put in the oven. All my quiches, cookies, etc all had burnt bottoms, no matter what the temp was. Where as with an electric oven, they came out beautifully. So with an electric oven & gas cooktop, you get the best of both worlds!
Gas. Fewer energy conversions. Less waste. With gas you convert directly to heat. Electricity means somewhere else another conversion was done. That involved loss. Then the energy was transferred to you. Transmission involves loss. Then the electricity is converted to heat. That involves loss.
That salad sounds really good. I have been enjoying adding beans to my salads recently.
I have never had the chance to cook on a gas stove. Hopefully I will get the chance to test a gas stove out to see how it compares with an electric.
I love cooking with gas… it’s all about the control for me. If you want a little more (or less) heat, you can watch the flame directly as you turn the knob — with electric, it’s more of a guessing game. Also, when your food is done cooking, you can just turn off the flame and leave the pot where it is. The first time I moved somewhere with an electric stove, I burned EVERYTHING because I didn’t realize that the burner would stay hot for so long after I turned it off! And once I figured it out, finding a place to put all those pots while they cooled off became a serious challenge.
I’ll have to try this creamy herb dressing, it looks like a nice change of pace from the vinaigrettes I usually make.
Go with GAS…G.A.S…gas cooktop and a convection oven which is electric. Have I been any help…probably not.
Lovely recipe. I prefer gas for burners and electric for the oven.
GAS, ABSOLUTELY!
No question about it. You can put a little adapter to hold the pot a bit higher if you miss the very slow simmer (I got one at a second-hand store.) I think gas is better in every way, although I don’t bake so I can’t comment on that.
If you have the option, get a gas cooktop and an electric oven. I don’t bake much, so the gas oven is OK, but if I baked a lot I’d get the electric for evenness of temperature. No contest on the cooktop, though — gas is more responsive, and you can always use a diffuser if your cooktop doesn’t come with a simmer burner.
Hi Katie! Have had the blog blahs lately but have been reading your adventures. I must say I would go with gas if I had a choice. I have electric now, but I think you have more instant control of your heat with gas. Many times I have had a dish on the electric, turned it off and forgot to move it immediately…let me put it nicely, crisp! (Wow, a new kitchen!)
Katie I totally love this simple salad!
Stove top I like gas: when it’s on, it’s on; when it’s off, it’s off.
Oven: give me electric. Convection is nice when it’s combined with regular.
Simple answer. Simple mind here.
Gas. Definitely!
Depending on how long you plan to cook with this kitchen, getting induction + buying new pots and pans might save you money in the long run, as the operating cost of induction is less than gas.
Barring induction, GAS for sure.
Katie, I only ever had electric and the last cooker had a ceramic hob that I hated with a passion. I bought my new cooker a gas hob and electric fan oven last year and I am sooooooo pleased with it!!! I love my cooker!!!! I wanted to make sure it had a wok burner too for super fast hot heat which is great for stirfrys. Although I was nervous at first having gas, I am so glad I switched.
I agree – gas for cooking and electric for baking. We’ve been in France for 15 years now and have always had a free-standing cooker with electric oven and 1 hotplate and 3 gas burners. Another advantage is the weekend the gas bottle ran out and we found we hadn’t refilled the spare we still had hot food and whenever we have a power cut we can still cook – like the winter the snowstorms took the power cables down and they stayed down for 3 weeks ! How we will cope when we have a power cut on the weekend the gas bottle runs out ?…..
WOW!!!!
Thanks everybody, for all the great help!
I have to admit I didn’t think electric would get NO votes….
So, Gas cook top/ electric oven it is. Now, I can’t wait to go shopping.
Oh… the only thing I’m not too crazy about is to have the tank of gas under the counter… but maybe mon mari can do something creative….
After hearing your various definitions of “salad”, I LOVE that you call this “Lettuce with Walnuts and White Beans”. (I’m in the camp with your husband. A salad is NOT a salad if it doesn’t have fresh greens. Errrmmm… unless it’s potato salad… or grated beet and carrot salad….)
As for the electric vs. gas stove dilemma, if we were to actually make the plunge and replace our ancient electric stove, I’d look for a gas range and an electric oven too. And I’d also request that a brick wood burning oven be built in the back garden (easily accessible even if there is snow on the ground)
Because it would be so great to make white bean/garlic/bacon/chickenstock salad (heheeheehee) in a casserole dish and cook it over the a wood fire. And think of the pizza and bread…
I had a long post about stoves but it is gone so I will leave you with this I love gas, hate electric.
Elizabeth, I could hear the brakes all the way over here as you slammed them on to, uh, correct yourself. I’m seriously thinking about a bread oven…. Next to the barn…
Shayne, thanks, – to the point!
Absolutely, positively go with gas. (Was that emphatic enough for ya?) With gas you can control the heat from a simmer to a boil. It also cooks more evenly than electric since the pans rest more evenly on it. I’ve had both, and I’d never go back to electric. Good luck with the decision.
Susan, it’s been a long time since I’ve cooked with gas on a regular basis… and never on a good gas stove. Glad to hear how everyone loves it!