Helping you decide which cooker is best for your home and family
A beautifully designed kitchen is for naught if it does not have an adequate cooking range. What good is your kitchen if you can't cook in it? Every home in the world has some form of cooker. Even the nomads in the dessert or the remote tribe in the rainforest of Brazil have their own method of cooking.
Not everyone is into the "joys of cooking". Restaurants and fast food are popular because the number of people who refuse to cook at home is rising. Cooking is an art and it takes a lot of planning and perspiration to cook a meal. Eating "out" is "in". However, you cannot possibly eat out every day as it is quite expensive to do so and frankly speaking, unhealthy. There is nothing better than a home-cooked meal. Frozen precooked meals that are heated up in microwaves or toaster ovens are not under the "home-cooked" meal genre.
In a nutshell there are two types of cookers according to energy source: electric or gas. Coal-powered cookers can be added but there are no new models of this type as there is no demand for this type of cooker. Solar powered cookers can be added instead.
Electric Cooker
Electric cooker may be the standard type of cooker in most homes. An electric cooking range has ideally 4 different sized electric coils connected to an electric conductor under the stove. There are different makes and sizes of an electric range. The standard size has a depth of 600 mm and a width of 1000 mm. There are more compact models that has the same depth but with a width if 550 mm. This type has a built-in oven too that can be used simultaneously with the range top cooker. Electric coil heats up fast and with today's models with dual-watt coils, the setting of the coil can be matched up with the size of the pan in use. When heating up a small pot, only the interior coils heat up.
A recent innovation in electric cooker is the smooth-top. This type has the electric heating elements under a smooth ceramic surface that covers the whole range top. The heating elements use magnetic coils that are under the ceramic surface to directly heat the pot and not the cooking surface.
Electric coil tops heat faster than smooth-tops. They are cheaper too than the smooth-tops. However, smooth-tops are sleeker and more aesthetically pleasing. Spillage is easier to wipe up to as there are no coils (or gas burners) that jut out. Induction cookers are great for quick heating and are more energy efficient than electric coils. However, sleek and beautiful they are, induction element cookers are expensive and they need special magnetic cookware as ordinary cookware will not do.
There are three types of ranges according to style. There is the free-standing model where you can position the range just about any place you choose to. Then there is the slid-pin or built-in type where you can slide in the range between cabinets where it would look "built-in". There are models that can be built in a wall. The oven is usually separated from the range top cookers as it's built in the counter. The method of heating and cooking is basically the same.
Gas cookers
Generally gas cookers allow you to take control of the heat source more effectively. The heat is quick and precise as it does not take time for the gas range's flame to "heat" up. Gas range is a chef's choice for quick sauté at high heat. There are cooktops that can be converted into griddle or grill, depending on the brand and model. Gas range cookers have ovens too. It is usual to have three burners running on gas with the fourth cooker an electric one. The rational is that you might run out of LPG (Liquefied petroleum gas) and that the electric coil is just for insurance. Gas ovens offer the best control regarding the cooker's heat. The oven's temperature is set in both Celsius and Fahrenheit and this could make pre-heating your oven for a bake quite easy.
The heating capacity of a gas burner is measured in BTU or British thermal units per unit. Most gas models have four burners that come in three sizes. The sizes are one to two medium burners at about 9,000 Btu. A small burner is about 5,000 Btu and the last one or two heats up to a high 15,000 Btu. Some models have a fifth burner in the centre section of the range top.
Like the electric cooker, gas burners also have models that have ceramic surface on top of the burners. For seasoned cooks, just looking at the appearance of the gas flame is enough for them to gauge the temperature of the flame. Smooth-top and electric coil elements can retain heat longer than gas burners. When you set off a gas burner, the heat is "off". When turning off an induction cooker or an electric coil cooker, the heat is retained for a bit.
As with the electric cookers, types come in free-standing, built-in type and the separate wall oven and counter top cooker.
Then there are the myriad of other cooking gadgets that are continually hitting the market. The pressure cooker is actually a cookware that cooks quickly because of the pressure contained within. Then there's the microwave, toaster oven, rice cooker, slow cooker, ice cream maker, popcorn maker and more. Most of these gadgets are electrical and that is one problem when there is no electricity. Solution? Go solar.
Solar cooker is fast becoming an option as a lot of concerned citizens of the world are opting to go "green". The downside? Cooking would take a while as solar cooker can only "cook" one meal at a time.
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