<p>Disclaimer- I do know how to cook but have always used a gas cooktop.
D has an electric stove. She has never shown any interest in cooking. Until she recently began to try to cook I had no idea she had not absorbed any knowledge by watching me cook. I don’t feel like a total failure as a mother since both my other 2 kids are pretty good in the kitchen. My older D never was interested. She always preferred the cleaning up to helping with preparation.
She also is paranoid about anything being undercooked add that an electric cooktop and according to her the results are a disaster. I am having trouble advising her since I don’t know how to cook on electric.
Some simple questions- How do you hard boil eggs? She is cooking them to the point where the yolks are green and the white rubbery. She tried cooking them for less time but she undercooked at that attempt. Her over easy egg was overdone at parts but underdone at other parts. She tried pancakes today and said they turned out crunchy on the outside to the point of being able to be punctured.
Any suggestions, best way to judge how hot the heat is. With gas it is so easy to turn it down and be able to see how much heat you are actually using.</p>
<p>I suppose the electric experts could be more help. But I am a dedicated gas cook, who has to use electric sometimes (eg, our extended family lake home). So I feel her pain, lol. I have had to learn to cope. So I think I have something to contribute.</p>
<p>My experience. The key difference is that electric burners not only do not react immediately, which we gas cooks have come to expect, they do not react in any kind of “judgeable” time…imo. And, as you said, you often can’t see what’s going on.</p>
<p>What I do: Use High only to get things started (and not always then) or for serious boiling. Use medium for all else, to start. When I feel that the item is cooking too fast, or close to ready… I take the pan completely off of the burner. Turning the heat down will not have a fast enough effect. </p>
<p>If I want to continue cooking at a lower heat, I wait a couple to a few minutes for the burner to actually adjust down (again, can’t see the effect but this type of guesswork has worked for me).</p>
<p>As to boiling eggs, there are recipes which have you bring the egg to the boil then take it completely off the heat and sit for varying minutes to get the degree of soft/medium/hard boil that you want. She should maybe look at those.</p>
<p>For the two items she had trouble with (not the hard boiled eggs, but the pancakes and the over-easy), I would suggest using a medium/medium-low setting and just having patience. They should eventually cook evenly and thoroughly without overcooking.</p>
<p>When she next visits you, maybe she will want to watch you cook a few things… just to see how the food itself behaves in the pan (what a pancake looks like from start to finish and when it is ready to be turned; what a sauce or stew looks like when simmering; what a rolling boil looks like etc.). Then she can at least know what to expect IN the pan and fiddle with the electric burner setting to get the desired results.</p>
<p>I have had slow electrics and fast gas and definitely prefer gas. Electric burners are VERY slow to heat–especially less expensive models–and slow to cool.</p>
<p>In the rental house we lived in for 9 months recently, I re-learned how to cook on electric. If timing was critical, I kept one burner on high and one on medium, so that I could transfer the pan. I always let the burner heat to glowing before I started cooking.</p>
<p>The over-easy-egg problem described above sounds to me like a bad pan, not a problem with electric burners. The uneven nature of electric burners makes a heavy bottom pan an essential. If your daughter is trying to cook using a thin-bottomed pan, she will get hot and cold spots.</p>
<p>This web site gives nice details of how to boil eggs: [Boil</a> Eggs, Boiled Eggs, Perfect Hard Boiled Eggs, How to Boil Eggs, Hard Boiled Eggs, Boil Egg, Boiling Eggs, Easter Egg Safety, How to Soft Boil Eggs, Egg Recipes, How To Cook Eggs](<a href=“http://whatscookingamerica.net/Eggs/BoiledEggs.htm]Boil”>How to Boil Perfect Eggs, Whats Cooking America)</p>
<p>I’m afraid the best way to judge the heat of an electric burner is by experience with that particular burner. I would suggest that your daughter needs practice more than instruction. She will learn quickly where to set the burner to simmer tomato sauce–but she may burn a batch or two on the way! Remind her that the best way to slow cooking is to put the pan on a cold burner. Turning it down takes way too long.</p>
<p>I would prefer to cook on gas, but I don’t find cooking on an electric range to be particularly difficult. There’s really only one concession that I’ve had to make and that’s buying a heavy cast iron Le Creuset wok, which I allow to preheat for ten minutes on a high burner until it is blisteringly hot before starting to stir fry.</p>
<p>I can’t give any recommendations for pancakes because the appropriate burner settings depend on the particular range and the particular skillet.</p>
<p>I do over-easy eggs all the time and, other than the fact that I break the yolk with infuriating regularity, it’s no problem at all on an electric stove. Eggs should be cooked at low temperatures anyway.</p>
<p>I have an electric stove. When I hard-boil eggs, I put them in water and heat it until the water just begins to boil. Then I take the pan off the burner and let the eggs sit in the water for 10 minutes or so before fishing them out. </p>
<p>I can’t help you with the pancakes. I don’t make those.</p>
<p>One question about your daughter’s stove: Is it the older kind with raised burners or the newer flat kind? If it’s the flat kind, you need pans that are designed for that kind of cooktop.</p>
<p>Boil eggs like Marian suggested, you can also use one of these egg timer things: [Egg</a> Timer | Crate&Barrel](<a href=“http://www.crateandbarrel.com/kitchen-and-food/thermometers-timers/egg-timer/f910]Egg”>http://www.crateandbarrel.com/kitchen-and-food/thermometers-timers/egg-timer/f910)</p>
<p>Pancakes, I like to use a cast iron skillet. Heat at med. high until a water drop sizzles. If it sits there the pan isn’t hot enough, if it disappears right away it’s too hot. Put a pancake’s worth of batter in the pan. When you get air bubble showing on the top and it’s mostly not raw turn the pancake over. If it’s too dark on the bottom turn the heat down. Once you are confident about the correct setting make multiple pancakes.</p>
<p>For over easy eggs, one thing I like to do, is to put a lid over the frying egg. It helps the top cook - though if you do it too soon your egg will be more poached then fried. Again experiment with hotness. Probably about the same setting as pancakes is what you want to aim for. </p>
<p>Don’t worry about not teaching her to cook - the funniest thing I saw was my husband and his brother reading the *Joy of Cooking *instructions for scrambled eggs. They both became fine cooks by the end of that summer.</p>
<p>I make eggs like Marian. As for pancakes- patience- use medium heat. I always rush the first ones and they always are undercooked. We call those dog pancakes as the dog gets them. I’ve always had electric and I would be lost with gas!</p>
<p>I’ll be the “dissenter” here. I cook pancakes on a medium high heat. The secret to them is to make sure the batter isn’t too thick. Also, either use a well seasoned and oiled pan OR a non-stick surface. When the pan is hot (take a drop of water and just sprinkle dab off of your finger…if it “dances” on the pan, it’s hot enough)…pour the pancake batter on the hot pan. Almost immediately, the pancakes will begin to “bubble” on the top. When they are covered with bubbles and the edges are a bit dry looking (it doesn’t take very long), flip them over and just count to 15 or 20. Take off and they will be done.</p>
<p>For hard boiled eggs, I boil the water, and then drop the eggs in, cook for 14 minutes and remove immediately and run with cold water. They should be fine.</p>
<p>I’ve never had a gas stove…but I’d love to. My flattop electric radiant heat stove heats up quickly. But I"m sure it’s not nearly as responsive as gas.</p>
<p>I would suggest getting a cookbook for your daughter…there are many that are written for beginners. They tell what level to set your stove at, and how long to do thinga like eggs. To be honest, most of cooking is trial and error, and practice. There will be some mistakes along the way, every beginning cook learns if they want to (and are willing to take some risks).</p>
<p>I was thinking, also, that everyone needs his/her “bible” cookbook. Mine was and is Joy of Cooking. I’m not talking about one with “interesting” creative recipes, but one that gives you the absolute basics. Many do both. With such a cookbook at her side, she can get information on timing for everything she tries, type of pan (usually), what the food will look like as it cooks, etc. Exactly the kind of details that mathmom and thumper were providing.</p>
<p>A lot of good points about her cookware possibly being the issue with some of her problems.</p>
<p>Another Joy of Cooking fan, the one from the 70s, but I got it much later.</p>
<p>It was an adjustment, but now that I’m used to electric I like it. Not the energy consumption, though. Given a choice, I choose gas.</p>
<p>I have Joy of Cooking (one of the intermediate editions…after microwaves were invented…but not the latest edition). It’s a great book. However, when I need the “basics” I use a Betty Crocker Cookbook. </p>
<p>But it really doesn’t matter which one you choose as long as it’s not complicated.</p>
<p>Every "take it off the burner and let it sit for x minutes " recipe for hard boiled eggs that I’ve ever tried has left me with undercooked eggs. I second thumper1’s recipe. </p>
<p>I went through a lot of trial and error learning to use an electric range in my first apartment after growing up with a gas range–I was constantly having stuff boil over. Success will come with time. </p>
<p>I’m sure my kids absorbed nothing from merely watching me cook–it’s definitely a learning-by-doing skill.</p>
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<p>I think the most important knowledge they absorb is the knowledge that it can be done – that they can actually take a recipe, follow it, and end up with something edible. I wouldn’t understimate the importance of that knowledge as it is critical to the development of a cook.</p>
<p>Well, there’s “watching” and then there’s observing… looking at a simmer, looking at a rolling boil. Taking a stir to feel the cream sauce… etc. etc. Yes, it is learning by doing, but watching and helping… or doing while experienced cook stands by… those do work. At least they did for me and mine.</p>
<p>Any suggestions, best way to judge how hot the heat is. With gas it is so easy to turn it down and be able to see how much heat you are actually using.</p>
<p>Ive only cooked on electric.
FOr pancakes- you can tell when the pan is hot when drops of water bounce off. For eggs, I bring water to a boil then turn off heat ( with a tight cover)- for three minutes.</p>
<p>It just takes practice-</p>
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<p>Wouldn’t THREE minutes make a SOFT boiled egg…not a hard boiled egg??</p>
<p>Well I don’t always take them out of the pan-( or use a timer) :oI pour the water out & wait till they are cool enough to touch before I do anything- ( and since I get distracted- that might be a while)</p>
<p>I just found this-
<a href=“http://www.cookingforengineers.com/article/249/Soft-Boiled-Eggs[/url]”>http://www.cookingforengineers.com/article/249/Soft-Boiled-Eggs</a></p>
<p>The major difference between gas and electric is just how fast the temperature changes. Gas is instant on and instant off whereas electric has a lag both in heating up and cooling down. </p>
<p>On the heating up side one just has to be a bit patient with electric. On the cooling down side its often best to just remove the pan from the burner with electric since there’s a lot of heat retained in the coils. </p>
<p>As for things like boiling an egg it shouldn’t make any difference. Boiling water is boiling water.</p>
<p>Have used electric all my life. Even when I was a kid, our summer cottage had an electric stove. When I got married, our 1st house had a gas stove. I burned a few pots. My husband cautioned me about having the flames licking up the sides of the pots. My 1st pot of rice was, well, ruined - lol. Lets just say I ruined a few of our wedding gifts.</p>
<p>Boiling eggs - medium high for a few minutes, get a rolling boil, then let the eggs rest. Sorry to say for pancakes, I use an electric skillet.</p>
<p>Oh with the stove, we have a counter top, so the heating element goes back to black when it’s turned off. We place a teapot on the burner, so no one accidently puts something on the hot burner.</p>