eli5 Why do foods baked in an oven taste different from the same foods cooked on the stove?
In: Chemistry
Now you gotta ask the real question; If you had to give up one or the other, which would it be?
Only eat stove cooked food, or only eat oven cooked. 🤔
I think a few factors are at play here, first and foremost being that we tend to cook very different recipes in ovens vs stovetops. You don’t usually bake bread on the stovetop, and by contrast it sucks to saute in an oven. There is crossover though, so other issues to consider is the type and direction of heat.
On a stovetop the heat is coming from the bottom of the cooking vessel, which can lead to burning or pleasant fond developing depending on technique. An oven is full of hot, dry air which will tend to dehydrate the surface of food (great for crispy skin on poultry for example), and the heat is coming from all around the food.
Still, if I had to bet, I’d say that the biggest difference is that we cook different foods in those appliances, and if you compared identical recipes you’d find little difference in a blind taste test.
Ovens create convective heat, or heating the air, to cook. Because of that, the temp can stay relatively controlled and have little moderation. Many oven recipes rely on that consistency of temp to produce the intended result, often slow browning (Maillard Reaction) for baked recipes. Secondly, unless using cast iron, most bakeware does not impart a flavor into the food (glass, silicon, parchment paper).
Stove top uses conductive heat, or heating of the material, to cook. Temperatures can have variation depending on the material and its variance of conductivity or heat transfer. Often stove top cookware can achieve higher direcrt/conductive temps in order to sear or sauté food by forcing it to brown faster. Not to say that bakeware is not as heat resistant, but because stove top uses direct flame or direct heating element in an open environment, the stove top cookware acts as a conductor of heat with much greater effect than the air surrounding the heat source. Stove top cookware may have a higher instance to impart flavor into the food as well.
In an oven, the food is held at some specific temperature until it is cooked. The the heat is transferred through hot air via *convention*. It is heated mostly evenly from all sides. The transfer of heat is pretty slow and gentle.
In a stove, the food is hit with a constant amount of heat. The heat is transferred through *conduction* via contact with the hot pan. It is heated only on one side. The transfer of heat is fast and harsh.
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Where this gets more interesting is with the interactions between water, the Maillard reaction, and burning.
**Water** takes an awful lot of energy to turn from liquid into steam. While it’s liquid, it can only ever reach 100°C. Your food will stay that temperature until all of the surface water has evaporated. Only then can the surface temperature of the food increase.
**The Maillard reaction** is the chemical reaction that browns food. It makes food, tasty. This reaction only takes place above 150°C. **Burning** takes place when the food exceeds 250°C.
To make tasty brown food you need to evaporate surface water, then hold the food above 150°C and below 250°C.
In an oven, the hot air will evaporate a lot of surface water, then hold the food in that sweet range. Water will collect on the tray, and may prevent the bottom of the food from browning. This can be corrected by putting the food on a rack.
On a stove, the food can be blasted with heat to rapidly boil off water. But while this is happening you are boiling the food, potentially over cooking it, and not browning. Once the water is gone, the frypan can get really hot. This is great for browning but introduces opportunity to burn.
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