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@Ann_T, when you use the Romertopf to bake bread like this, do you soak it first or just use dry? I have one and I don't know why, but have just never thought of using it to bake my bread. Having a DUH moment.

That's the thing. I've been to HI about 40 times for business. Its a long day getting there and the airlines fly some decrepit planes on that route. You seem to fly in First. The front of the plane to HI is nothing special and not cheap. Paris is closer by half a day.

Greek flavors roasted chicken with carrots and watermelon radishes that roasted in the chicken pan, lemon roasted potatoes, and tzatziki.

I am very interested in following along! Hawaii is on our short list of potential places to visit, but the long flight has been a deterrent for me so far. Maybe your report will change my mind 🙂

Regarding the Analon copper that has been mentioned several times here as a good nonstick option, I wrote to Analon to ask about the construction and got this reply: "While we appreciate your interest in the construction of our cookware, we regret to inform you that specific details regarding the thickness of the stainless steel, aluminum, and copper layers are proprietary information and cannot be disclosed." I would assume this means that they have something to hide about the construction.

The manual does say "Cookware smaller than 5.5"/14cm may not work (material dependent)". So it seems like it's not a clear cut hard boundary. Can anybody identify a 6" pan that fails? That is, what sorts of pans are harder to detect? Or very small pans that work fine?

Yes. Zhang Liang are international.. I've seen, but not visited the branch in London's Chinatown. However, they are in a bit of bother here in China after some branches were closed down after food safety violations. I've made hotpot just for me occasionally. Not for a while, though. Not very practical and anyway, the point of hotpot here is social more than gustatory, although the food can be great.

I think they’re a totally different class of hot dogs. I personally view them more as concession type of treat for lack of a better term. I don’t think you can compare them. I love a McDonald’s cheeseburger on occasion. I appreciate my local tavern’s burger. I prefer grilling my own but I live in an apartment now. And my Tovala isn’t programmed to grill! 😆 everything has its place at times.

This dough was somewhat abused, but proves what I often say. It is really difficult to screw up. The dough for this sourdough was made on Sunday, April 28th with just 80g of discard and after the last stretch and fold went immediately into the fridge. Matt took the dough out of the fridge at 3:30 AM on Wednesday May 1st and left in on the counter until around noon. The dough had almost tripled. He cut off 550g of dough to make a pizza and returned the remaining dough to the container and put it back into the fridge. I left it there until around noon today. It was left on the counter until 5:00PM. It had more than doubled AGAIN. So I shaped a big loaf and left it to proof. Preheated a Römertopf Clay baker in the 450°F oven and when the loaf had proofed, scored it and slid it into the clay baker, covered and baked for 25 minutes. Removed the cover and left it to finish baking for another 15 minutes. Turned out pretty good.

It depends on the pan and the appliance. This (detection) is a general issue with induction, and it's difficult to predict--and easy to dispute--if your particular pan works on your particular appliance. The appliance makers don't test every conceivable small pan. The generalize.

Quick fish curry with cod, snap peas, shiitake, red onion, garlic, jalapeno, pea shoots, coconut milk, curry powder and roasted sesame seeds. Served over rice

I have a cheap pan from Amazon I use solely for low heat work, eggs etc on my CF commercial. It's 15cm (5.9") base & the CF has no problem detecting it.

More invalid food: Chicken and ginger simmered in caramel sauce (ga kho gung), braised cabbage with dried shrimp, and jasmine rice.

Sold! I hadn't heard about malatang, although I have seen individual hot pot restaurants. Looks like there are a few malatang spots near me, including the first US branch of Zhang Liang, if that means anything. Will definitely try it one of these days.

I was at TJ the other day and needed some salsa. They had several. I looked them over and picked the “extra hot” figuring y try his is consumer grade stuff, how hot could it be? Well, I was wrong not only did it have decent heat, it had pretty good flavor. now this wasn’t any salsa that was going to test your fortitude. It was hotter than anything you could find in the supermarkets around here.

Dinner continuing my Indian food craze. There was left over butter chicken and today I also made a tomato based Brinjal/Eggplant curry and a coconut milk based Saag Aloo/ Potato and Spinach curry. I’m pretty much all curried out for a while now Hah!

So even though the manual says 5.5" the pan detection won't reliably detect a pan at that diameter? I haven't noticed problems with pan detecting using my All-Clad windsor pan, which has a base of about 5.75 inches. Could this behavior be different between the original Freak and the Home version?

@liamsaunt looks so tasty on a beautiful plate kudos your way

I hope so! Last year was fairly good, but I hope for better this year!!! 🙂

Miso salmon ramen bowl with roasted cabbage, purple daikon radishes, and the first bunch of chives from the garden

The pan detection doesn't work properly/dependably.

Breakfast this morning was a tender omelette, meaning it was barely cooked with tiniest amounts of fish sauce and soy sauce, with chilli crisp and coriander.

Adding some heat this yr!!

Bolognese over spaghetti squash

Most of my measurements were of a nonstick pan, not stainless. When I did measure stainless I put oil in the pan so I was measuring oil rather than metal. Any advice on buying a thermocouple I can tape to the pan without spending a lot? And type of tape to use? (The thermocouples I have are for sous vide, pointy probe shape tips.) Note that now that I understand how things work the thing that is bothering me is that the steady state temperatures I'm getting are higher than the set point by 20-40 deg depending on the pan. And yes, this doesn't make sense thermodynamically, so it suggests that either the Freak is misreading the temperature or my thermometers are. It seems important to figure out which one. On this very thread people have been suggesting the Analon copper pans. These are advertised to have a layer of copper in the base that spreads the heat and visibly appear like they have a quite thick layer. But Analon (like almost every other pan manufacturer, I'll note) says nothing about how thick any of the layers are, and the pans are cheap at $70 for a set of two skillets. I asked them and have not heard back. This is not uncommon, though. The pan companies tell you how many layers there are but not how thick anything is, like Demeyere is supposed to be great because it has 7 layers! Maybe it'll be even better next year when the 9 layer version comes out! I asked another vendor about their pan thickness and they didn't know but did eventually get the information---it took a week. Wouldn't cast iron be uneven on every heat source? The Freak manual says minimum pan size is 5.5 inches. Why do you think it is actually 6.3"? What goes wrong if the pan is smaller than 6.3 inches?