On my way back from SFO last week, I had a lot of time to read Air Canada’s inflight magazine, EnRoute. There was a very interesting article about cooking with a blowtorch.
Has anyone out there tried this? I bought a blowtorch, but am worried about burning down my house (great, now the Talking Heads are in my head).
I’m thinking cook outside on a piece of fire resistant paving stone. Any thoughts about fire safety and trying this indoors?
Thanks for the link: we have a kitchen blowtorch (one of those small butane-poweres ones) and don’t use it nearly enough. About all we’ve used it for was carmalizing sugar for creme brulee.
The one I have is fairly easy to control; it has safety interlocks so you don’t ignite it accidentally, and flame control, etc. It’s merely a matter of being careful: put the item in a location away from flammable material (I’ve done it on top of the stove) and don’t get careless.
If you were using a real propane torch, it might be a little tricky, but I’d think the stovetop would be good enough for most uses.
I asked about blowtorch cooking on eGullet a while back and there are some good ideas in that thread. The blowtorch I have is a Benzomatic, found in practically every hardware store and it works like a dream. Using it, it’s hard to comprehend just how hot the thing can get. The benzomatic works at roughly 4000F which is many times hotter than even the hottest pan can get. In a way, the sheer power of the thing limits it’s uses. I can’t even toast bread with it because the little nubbins sticking out from a piece of bread get charred before the crevasses even have time to warm up. Perhaps I need a wimpy, emasculated kitchen blowtorch as well for some of the smaller jobs.
But it’s a dream on certain things and it’s wicked fun to play around with. Some of the things you do with it, you simply can’t replicate with anything else.