5
Avoid Overheating: Check Your Burner
If food is smoking or burning, reduce heat. Using medium or
lower heat and limiting the time the empty pan is heating are the
basic techniques to avoid overheating.
The pan can overheat even on medium heat if the burner is
providing excessive heat.
To check if your burner can overheat
even on medium heat, place clean pan on medium heat. Heat pan for
the minutes given in the following chart:
Product
Heat for:
Cook-n-Serve Bowl
3 minutes
3 Litre
2 minutes
Cook-n-Serve Stewpot
5 Litre
2 minutes
2 Litre
1 minute
Curry Pan (Sauté Pan)
3.25 Litre
2 minutes
Deep-Fry Pan (Stir-Fry Pan)
2 minutes
Saucepan
2 minutes
Press one finger firmly into whole wheat flour (
atta
). Do not pinch.
Flick from a distance of about 2
1
⁄
2
inches/6 cm a small, fine, even
dusting of flour on centre of pan and immediately begin counting off
seconds
("one second, two second, three second" etc.) while watching
the
flour. The time the flour takes to become dark brown gives a
rough indication of how hot the pan is. As long as flour has not
turned dark brown within 15 seconds, the pan is not overheated.
Follow the steps in the chart alongside to complete the test. Do not
exceed the preheating limit of a pan in any case.
Flour turns
dark brown in
15 seconds or
less?
Pan is…
Action needed
A. Yes
Overheated 1.
Remove pan from heat at
once.
2.
Reduce heat setting.
3.
Try again when pan has
cooled.
B. No
Not
overheated
1.
Continue heating pan.
Repeat flour test at
1 minute intervals.
2.
If flour turns dark brown
in 15 seconds or less, pan
is overheated: follow
action as per
A
.
3.
If flour does not turn dark
brown in 15 seconds or
less, stop when
recommended Maximum
Preheating Time for pan is
reached. The heat setting
is all right for preheating.