Pan Fried Perch Revisited

One of the things I love about cooking is there is always the opportunity to learn how to cook using different methods. Shortly after buying our Jenn-Air JES9860AC I was already considering buying the radiant glass-ceramic cartridges but never acted on it. A couple of weeks ago I finally ordered them and waited anxiously for them to arrive. The cartridge system allows a plug and play system that is fully customizable. You can read more about my stove and the cartridges here if you are are interested.

Radiant Cartridge

I was so excited when I finally had both cartridges since one was slightly delayed due to back order. So I waited until I had both then decided to see what they could do. Nothing in my kitchen gets a free ride so it either performs to my expectations or it is out of the kitchen!

I quickly realized that cooking on these cartridges would mean changing my cooking style. Unlike coil element the radiant elements heat instantly and they retain residual heat for quite some time after being turned off. Both of these qualities make the radiant cartridges energy efficient. However this means the burner must be turned off before the food is fully cooked yet the food is left on the burner to finish cooking using the residual heat. The exception to this is when you are cooking something milk based or delicate.

Panfried Perch

I decided to test out the cartridges by steaming potatoes, warming homecanned green beans and pan frying perch. Adjusting how I used the elements was rather easy for the potatoes and beans. I was pleasantly surprised at how soon I could turn off the burner for both using the residual heat to finish the cooking. Rounding out the meal was panfried perch. Overall I was pleased with the performance of the radiant cartridges.

I have posted about panfried perch before. During the nicer weather I enjoy fishing so have several meals worth of perch, pickerel and bass in the freezers. Pan frying is a great way to prepare smaller fish fillets so it's something I know how to do quite well. However, pan frying on the radiant burner proved to be a bit more of a challenge so I will have to work on that a bit. As you can see the perch wasn't as quite as nicely browned as in the original post. I'm sure with a little tweaking I will be able to achieve the same results with panfried fish as I would achieve with the coil elements.