As previously discussed, I got a portable gas burner to make up for the electric stove in my new house. Based on online reviews, I passed up the models available at my local Vietnamese grocery (yes, we have one) and instead bought an Iwatani 35FW*, the top-rated portable butane burner. Given that it was only $80, it didn't seem like much of a splurge.
Two immediate thoughts:
- I shoulda bough one of these things years ago.
- I'm sure glad the new house has a high-suction ventilation hood.
This thing is hot. It's definitely hotter than my former gas stove, and I think it may be hotter than the package rating of 15,000 BTU. I got "wok hey", the proper scortching of stir-fried foods, on my Thai fried rice in seconds, and had to keep flipping stuff to keep it from burning. I had to take the wok off the burner between items or it would be all smoke. I could scramble eggs in the wok, which means that it was at least 375F on the surface. Really impressive.
Here's a wokful of fried rice sitting on top:
I know it's hard to tell in this shot, but the rice is properly browned and the green beans are blistered. BTW, that's Kenji's Thai Fried Rice with Blistered Green Beans**, which was great and I recommend reading his series on fried rice from last week.
So, if you ever do need to buy a portable butane-cannister burner, now you know which one to get.
* http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00522F2R2
** http://www.seriouseats.com/2016/02/upgr ... basil.html