Save my Christmas catering please!

[FromaBubblegumTree]

We have rented a big house for a family gathering at Christmas We will be 9 adults and 4 children so there will be a lot of cooking.

I've just noticed that the kitchen at the property has an induction hob.

I know they are popular on MN, but I hate them with every fibre of my being.

We have encountered them on previous family holidays and have all struggled with making them work consistently. You think you have left a pan of something simmering nicely for 15 minutes, but then discover that the heat has mysteriously turned itself off and things are beeping/flashing. A simple pot of pasta-pesto for the little ones just turns into a nightmare.

Can anyone recommend a "using an induction hob for idiots" guide?

I'd like to try and get to grips with the logistics before we arrive as I don't fancy trying to cook a full Christmas lunch (or indeed anything else) on something that (to me) seems to turn itself on and off at random.

Thanks in advance.

Edited to reformat a garbled sentence.

They basically work just like gas hobs in principle in terms of responsiveness. The difficultly comes with understanding how the specific one works in terms of the controls. So if you can't work it out look up the manual. Chatgpt is surprisingly good for this.

You need to be using pans that work on an induction hob. So bear this in mind if taking extras. Also lots of hobs won't work if the pan is smaller than the allocated space. So you need to look at the cross or circle where the plan goes and make sure it's appropriately sized.

So much can be frozen in advance and reheated in the microwave: red cabbage, bread sauce, gravy, custard etc..

Depending on the power output you might find the hob cannot cope with all four rings on maximum. Personally I would never go back to an ordinary hob. Had mine over 26 years.

@Tiptopflipflop

Thank you! Maybe it's a "size of pan" issue. I can ask the owners for the specific model and look up the instructions in advance. We won't be taking our own pans.

@Forgottenmyphone - we have a very long drive to get there and will be having an overnight stop on the way so taking frozen stuff might be a bit risky.

@Fiddlesticks1 It's a house that sleeps 20 people - I very much hope that the power output reflects this.

Thank you for taking the time to reply.

What would you use the hob for? i.e. what will you be cooking on the stove that you can't prepare ahead for Christmas Dinner?

I haven't catered for Christmas for a few years now, but honestly I rarely used the hob at all! Everything was either cooked in the oven, reheated there, or microwaved to reheat. Apart from turkey everything was prepared ahead.

I suppose you'd need it for other meals though. I remember once going to a holiday cottage that had a gas cooker set up, and as someone who hasn't a clue about gas cooking (am all electric), I brought my own two ring ceramic plug in hob that is for emergencies in case the big hob at home doesn't work for some reason! Perfect for what I needed, but catering for that crowd, whoa, you are very brave 😊

I think that one issue with them, if you aren’t used to them, is that: when you remove a pan from the hob, sometimes even briefly, the hob turns itself off. It thinks “aha, pan gone, best be safe and switch off” and it just does it. So you need to get in the habit of leaving the pans in place and just turning it right down if you want it to quickly cool, rather than whipping it off the hob out of the way and putting it back a minute later.

Once you realise that they’re turning themselves off when the pan leaves the hob, it all starts making more sense.

(I don’t have one - we have gas which I like because you can SEE what it’s doing!, but like you I’ve had them in holiday rentals and this is what I eventually figured out).

@persephoneee

We will be there for a week, so a lot more meals than "just" Christmas dinner.

I can't prepare much ahead of time as we will be travelling for the best part of 2 days before arriving.

There will also be various combinations of family visiting throughout the week.

I most certainly won't be doing all of the cooking - there will be other capable adults, but I just want to pre-empt either me ending up gibbering on the kitchen floor with a bottle of gin on Christmas morning, or the other capable adults saying "Bubblegum, how do you make this hob work?" when it's their turn.

@TallagallaPenguin

I think a lot of our issues on previous holidays have been related to taking the pan off/moving it narrows eyes at DH I agree that a lot of my issues are with the fact that you can't "see" what is happening.

Oh I so feel your pain OP. People keep telling me that they’re great, but then I end up with cold water and lots of swearing. I like FIRE, I’ve decided.

Would taking things like an air fryer ,and a slow cooker help you out or maybe the place has those available if so it should be listed.

Agree they usually stop if you take the pan off for more than a few seconds, or another cause could be if a pan boils over they will usually shut down as a safety measure.

You might want to check what the beeps are signalling - on mine (Zanussi) when you take off the pan it beeps after a few seconds and displays an F, then when you put the pan back (within a few seconds) it beeps again and goes back to displaying which heat setting it’s on. If you don’t put the pan back within the time it allows you, you have to turn the ring off and on again. Mine always shows you what setting each ring is on so you should be able to see it that way.

@madaboutpurple

Good suggestion but I don't own either of those things and have never used them so that would be a whole new level of uncertainty for me!

It's a very well-equipped, high end kitchen (apart from the bloody induction hob!), but I wouldn't expect them to list every single item that's available. They may well be there already.

I'll have 36 hours to do a bit of trial and error so hopefully that will be fine...probably...