I was going to say the same thing as Weedmeister but "newspapers" rather than paper towels. :)

The limitation is with wok stir fry, unless you have a dished wok specialty unit. If not, to take advantage of the greatest power output of your unit, you need a flat bottomed wok that's as big on the bottom as your ring. People who are stir fry snobs (wet must dissipate instantly lest it steam the meat) don't want flat bottomed woks. Etc., etc.

I use a cast iron wok to deep fry small quantities on induction because it doesn't require a lot of oil. No need for paper then, since the wok sides catch the spatter. I've also used my big braiser on the double element. I don't fry often, but it works on my Gaggenau.

You can fry just fine on induction. There are even some induction units that have a fry control sensor that monitors the temperature of the pot and doesn't let it get hot enough to smoke and degrade the oil.

It is possible that there are induction units that do get overheated when frying, but considering that the highest temperature you can fry at is 450 F, it really shouldn't be a problem. Except maybe deep frying a whole turkey, or fried chicken for the whole church picnic... Opening a drawer and/or setting a small fan to blow on the controls might help if the cooktop got finicky. :)

By Electrolux, however seems to only be in Australia for now... ):

Here is a link that might be useful: Electrolux Wok Trivet

That's silly. Gas puts you at risk for a grease fire! :P

Induction is very nice for frying.

The electrolux trivet looks like some modern sculpture but not very trust-inducing for stability.

Happy to hear that I do need need to fear deep frying on the few occasions where I do.

Plllog --> Looks like my gagg induction has a fry sensor on the front 2 hobs (7" and 8"). Not sure the what the "fry sensor" does however.

For the wok snobbery issues --> I blush as I did spring for a gagg wok unit primarily to be able to use gas for the cast iron round bottomed wok that I inherited from my family and to be able to char eggplant and toast lentil pappadums and puff chapathis.

Lalitha

Frying, deep frying, and wok frying -- I consider these to be different things, but the answer is the same: In general, induction hobs can put more power into frying pans and deep frying pots than the gas burners used in residential kitchens. Hence, any frying compatible with the requirements of transfering virtual power in the field over the hob to real power (that is, using a flat-bottomed magnetically-susceptible pan) will work for frying.

There is no question that a 100k BTU level gas burner as used in many Chinese restaurants will allow wok frying with greater performance than frying over a flat induction hob. The closest induction approximation to high BTU wokking is the Cooktek 3500W (~30k BTU) wok hob with its curved surface and matched wok. (Criticisms of this wok's design are not out of order, but it does work pretty well.) I imagine that wokking over a CC 22k BTU gas burner will also work well enough for most home cooking.

To specifically answer the OP's question, deep frying is a matter of cooking with hot enough oil, and induction will heat it up faster than gas and easily overcome the losses from the deep frying container's sides and convective losses of steam leaving the pot.

kas

Lalitha, that's wok love, not snobbery! I was taught to stir fry by Asian home cooks. I'm not great at it by their standards, but they are. They use cheap, thin woks but not the highest heat setting, on ordinary, old residential appliances so as not to scorch the oil. In this forum, however, there's a more power wok snobbery that wants that 100K BTU restaurant burner. The mamas I learned from allow time for their woks to heat, and cook in small woks in small batches. Very different from restaurant work. But I've learned not to tangle with the wok snobs. They want what they want. You'll have to fill us in on how your wok does on the Gagg. (Okay, I'm jealous, but I'll live. I have no heirloom to entertain.)

From my reading, the fry sensor is supposed to control the temperature of your oil so that when you deep fry you don't mess up. I think this is aimed at the same market that the T-Fal 1 TBSP oil french fry maker is. The schnitzel and chips for lunch daily crowd. They just need to crank out food and this makes it easier. Like the chicken nuggets button on that range. :) It should say in the manual how to use it. If not, try the Purcell-Murray website.

Please share? How do you go about charring an eggplant in a wok. I was just discussing with my mother today why I don't often char eggplants (PITA), though mine is likely to be mashed up with techina and served cold. Wok sounds intriguing...

The guy in the store? What does he know about induction?

Bosch 800 has auto chef-which is a contraption where the frying temperature is maintained during the time when additional food is being added to the frying vessel. Automatically!

Is there a gas feature which permits the stabilization of temp when food is added? I don't think so. Gas simply does not have the precise control that induction has-with or without Bosch's auto chef, despite what salesmen think they know.

The same guys who love to have gas flames lick the sides of the vessel, even tho only the bottom should be the flame receiver. Yeay-power, control, or perceived control.

I fry on an induction cooktop, as well as deep fry just fine. I use the Nuwave induction cooktop which allows you to set the precise temperature and it keeps it there, thus you do not burn your oil by overheating. I love it, and it is super fast.

we fry occasionally on our induction and use newspaper also on occasion to minimize the mess. However, the heat created with the pan during longer sessions can be high enough to scorch the paper and you then have burnt paper smell in the house. So parchment may be a better choice UNDER the pot and newspaper around it. I assume you are talking about deep-frying (lots of oil ) or shallow-type frying ( an inch or two of oil).

We have a Wolf induction cooktop which I only (after 7 years) realized has an issue with deep-frying where if you try to set the power to high, the lower heat conductivity of the oil means that all the power goes into heating the pot - and the oil only slowly heats up - which leads to the pot getting super hot, quickly, the thermal shutoff kicking in, and power going off.

So to make deep frying work on this cooktop, you need to set the heat to say medium, let the oil heat up, then bump up the power. Turbo mode works great on boiling water for pasta - doesn't work great for deep frying oil.