felinity

Hi

I have a GE profile slide-in electric range with glass ceramic cooktop
and I've been too chicken to buy a Dutch Oven for fear of scratching
or cracking it. An acquaintance mistakenly put a non-flat roasting pan
on her stovetop and it resulted in having to have the entire stovetop
replaced. I know that dutch ovens are flat, but are there issues to
take into consideration? Like enamel maybe?

I can't find any good do***entation on the relative safety of dutch
ovens from their manufacturers and this has me worried. A "Safe for
use" sticker would really help me out...

thanks in advance,

felinity

dee dee

Hello, Felinity,

You ask about the relative safety of dutch ovens -- do you mean the
relative safety of the stove top when you put the dutch oven onto it
-- I will answer assuming that is what you mean :-) Or do you mean
the relative safety of an enameled pot vs. cast iron? Not sure.


I purchased at Amazon, Mario Batali's dutch oven, which has a flat
bottom and is enameled.

http://tinyurl.com/23wjnj

I made goulash which called for browning the meat at med-high heat (I
did in 2 batches), then a lot more cooking on top of the stove. I
believe it cooked for 2 hours total in the oven. When I took the pot
out, I placed it on top of the largest burner. Someone on this group,
I believe, reminded me that these burners are meant to take the heat,
so that is where I place all my hot pots.

IOW, if I want to move a hot pan to somewhere else in order to get it
off burner for a moment, or if it is finished cooking, I will place it
within a ring on another burner.

If as in the case of my stove that has a 12" burner and I want to
place the hot pan somewhere off the burner, I will place it on a
stainless steel table. I have a couple of stones and a couple of
hard wood boards also as a choice to place a hot pot on.

Recently Larry told me about a hotpad that is 11-1/2" square to put
hot things on, which I bought, but I haven't tried it for a 12" pot,
and probably won't.

Beware if you are tempted to buy the Batali pot, it is probably the
heaviest pot for it's size I've ever had -- and I've owned Le Creuset.

I bought this pot to make the NYT bread in a pot, which calls for high
heat. It performed well, very well, indeed, because the high
temperature did leave my bread burnt and the bottom of the pan burnt,
which came out almost immediately.

Dee

felinity

Hi
Actually, I meant which type of dutch oven is safe to use on a ceramic
cooktop?
Some say safe for stovetop but that doesn't mean safe for ceramic
cooktop.

sorry for the confusion,

felinity

rmarksberry

I used to own a glass ceramic cooktop and I also used a Dutch oven. I
wouldn't see any type of problem unless you accidentally dropped a very
heavy Dutch oven on the cooktop.

When I still lived in the house with the glass ceramic cooktop (now
currently live where we have natural gas) I used an 8 qt. Dutch oven
regularly with no problem.

limey

I have a glass smoothtop range. I frequently use a Cuisinart Dutch oven
on it with no problems. The pot is an older model - the cast iron on
the bottom is not enameled.

I also use 10" and 12" cast iron frying pans with no problem.

Yes, you need to use flat pans but I don't know why your friend had such
bad luck.

The secret is to avoid pushing/scratching/dragging the utensil across
the surface, or banging or dropping it by mistake. Try as best you can
to match the size of the pot base to the burner you're using, for
efficiency's sake.

And if you use that famous chef's trick, don't shake the pan back and
forth, back and forth on the burner.

Unless you plan to abuse that range, you can relax and enjoy how easy it
is to clean!

Dora

pltrgyst

Enamel is good, becuase it generally indicates a flat, smooth bottom.

Dutch ovens, along with general cast iron pots and pans, are no
problem as long as their bottoms are smooth and flat.

My Le Creuset Dutch oven and my older Griswold cast iron pans are my
weapons of choice on this, my second glass-topped GE Profile stove.

So don't worry about it, as long as they don't have rough, pebbled
bottoms which can scratch your cooktop.

-- Larry

peter a

In article <1180370120.048786.299640@w5g2000hsg.googlegroups. com>,
Felinity4@gmail.com says...

I use several le Creuset Dutch ovens on my smoothtop without problems.
Anyway, a scratch or 2 is not the end of the world. With early smooth-
tops, scratches were a danger because they would weaken the
ceramic/glass top, but for many years the materials and manufacturing
have been improved so that this is not a risk.

Buying a smoothtop range and expecting it to never get scratched is like
buying a knife and expecting it to never need sharpening - just not
realistic.

--
Peter Aitken

How old, and what type of ceramic top did your friend have? I only ask
because I inherited a glass smoothtop when I bought my current house.
It was already installed and I just figured I'd use and abuse it until
it broke. We have used pans larger than the burner sections, smaller
than the burner sections, not flat on the bottom, cast iron, you name it,
and 13 or 14 years later that top still works and looks fine.

Who is making all these delicate smoothtops that can't take some normal
cooking? I know the old Corning smoothtops that looked like Corningware
had problems with cracking, but they haven't made that type in years.


"Safe" in what way? As far as I can tell it's really not that easy
to damage the new generation of smoothtops.

Bill Ranck
Blacksburg, Va.