eli5 Why do foods baked in an oven taste different from the same foods cooked on the stove?
In: Chemistry
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.
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