I use cast iron for screaming hot because everything else seems to warp. I suppose that doesn't matter so much if you're cooking on gas, but on electric I definitely feel the effects.

If what you bought is in the same family of what I've linked, then 350 is it.

Here is a link that might be useful: BHG triply

And therein lies the reason why I don't have any stainless steel frypans.
As Stumpy said....cast iron is best...your stainless will discolor at "screaming hot".
To get a pan screaming hot I put it on the burner ( gas) on high and leave it for at least 5 minutes....longer if it's a big pan.

I don't see why clad stainless cookware should have any problem with an oven at 351F or even at 799F. My guess is, the 350F limit is for the gass lids. I'd use a different lid, or foil, and bake away.

On the burners, I've never personally had a clad stainless pan warp on the flame. My feeling is that they warp if they are then placed in or under cold water or otherwise cooled too fast or unevenly. I've never have had this brand, though.

The problem with stainless pans used at ''screaming hot'' is that oil will scorch on the steel. You can scrub it off, but it is a pain. Still, cookware is for cooking, so I'd require it to do it's job if you don't have a more suitable pan. So it gets a bit ''used'' looking - you're a cook, not a collector.

Most of the pans I've seen have handles that can't handle the heat, that's why the temperature requirments.

I also use cast iron if I want a "screaming hot" pan and it's safe for the oven no matter the temperature. Plus they are cheap and last nearly forever, I love 'em.

Anyway, I'd say that your pan might not get "screaming hot", but it'll probably get hot enough, I'm assuming the recipe wants the chicken seared. At 350 I'd add 10 minutes, probably, for chicken parts and then check the temperature, then cook longer if necessary.

It all depends on the recipe, the size of the chicken pieces, white or dark meat, a lot of factors I don't know yet, so that's my best guess.

Annie

John - I've had everything warp on me except cast iron. My "everything" might not be all-inclusive, but it includes anodized aluminum, "disk-sandwich" pans, clad pans. Both Calphalon and All-Clad have graciously replaced warped pans, but have also told me that the reason they warped was because I was using too high heat.

My guess is that while electric cooktops have their faults, a reasonably high powered one will get hotter than your typical gas range. Look at the big swingin' 23K BTU range that everyone's going nuts about over on Appliances. Eurostoves' test - one gallon, 75 to 212 deg in a 9.5 inch pan: 9:48. For the sake of this post I just did the same test on my cooktop. Closest I could come in pan size was 10 inches so I know we're not talking apples to apples, but...umm... about 2:40 for me.

(Full disclosure - I did turn on the heat - without the pan on - before the minute or two of mixing and measuring a gallon of tap water to be exactly 75 degrees.)

Interesting. I didnt realize electric elements got so hot!

Yes foodonastump that is the cookware.

I, unfortunately, have electric.

Anne Burrell was cooking with what appeared to be stainless, I'm thinking All Clad but what do I know? I purchased the BH&G following a bit of research mostly on the cookware forum because it was in the right price range.

Thank you for the responses. I probably would just use my cast iron so I could follow the recipe. I'm a serviceable cook, enjoy it and will give anything a whirl but I need the guidelines of the recipe and can't stray too much; know what I mean?

I've heard that gas stoves take longer to come to a boil than electric. I've always wondered how or why that would be, but FOAS, your experiment certainly showed it.
Always having cooked on electric, I have no comparison, so thanks.

A typical electric range burner is about 2,500 watts. That comes to 8,873 BTUs of heat output.

A typical gas range burner will give you from 12,000 to 15,000 BTUs of heat output. Significantly more BTUs.

dcarch

Yeah but evidently electric puts the heat in the pan much more efficiently. My 8,873 BTUs of electricity was FOUR times faster than a 23,000 BTU gas range. (And yes, I say four times because after posting I realized a typo; it was 2:20.)

My cooktop's heat distribution could certainly be better, and it's no secret that response time is electric's critical flaw, but raw power? Obviously no comparison.

sorriso- I bought a set of the 18/8 Triplyclad -Tramontina from Walmart last year for my son for Christmas. He loves it, but he had to learn to cook, saute at a lower temp. He gave me the 12 Qt stockpot for my B'day because his was so nice.
I kept the insert and specs on the cookware. It states:"Stainless steel cookware is oven safe up to 450 degrees." (for this particular cookware.) I don't know if this helps you. Call Tramontina and ask them. I think you should feel good about the cookware you bought. If it is the same as the set I got, it is very nice.
Tramontina makes different lines of stainless cookware, so their specs may differ.

I would also use a cast iron skillet for screaming hot.

I just read the recipe. I think a stainless steel pan will work fine for the stovetop part. Personally, I'd then put the pan in the oven, regardless of manufacturer recommendations. If my stainless steel cookware can't handle 15 min at 400F, I'd want to know so that I can get more versatile cookware! Seriously, as long as handles are steel (not plastic, wood, etc) and you don't use the glass lid (probably not Pyrex), I cannot see how a steel pan would be fazed by 400F. That temperature is nothing to steel. Or even to aluminum. Melting point of those materials is appx 2700F and 1200F respectively. Your oven is made of steel and it doesn't melt.

I haven't had electric elements for a while, so I can't say anything about that. I'm saying this is what I'd do on gas.

But, a cast iron pan will clean up more easily so if you have one, I'd use it.

(FYI to all, the recipe is marinate butterflied Cornish game hen, pre-heat pan, spread bird on hot pan and press flat with something, sear about 5 min, then weight off and into oven for a quick roast.)

General comments:

1. John has some very good points. Stainless steel shouldn't have problems taking much higher temperature; however, if the cookware is clad with two different metals, at high heat, the coefficient of expansion of the different metals may cause warping or de-lamination of bonding.

2. Some metal alloys (Memory Metal) actually have "memories". Under some temperature conditions, those alloys can take on a different shape.

This is not to challenge FOAS's experimental results. I don't have any data to back me up and I don't have an electric range to try out my own experiments.

1. When metal glows it's only at about 1,000 degree F. A blue flame from gas can be at 2,900 degrees F.

2. An electric stove heating element is a poor deliverer of heat. Inside the element, it is typically a nickel/chromium resistance wire, insulated by a thick ceramic dielectric coating. It takes a while for the heat to get to the outside of the element then to the cookware. A flame is instant heat; no warm up required.

3. I am curious as to why; I am not aware of any restaurants using electric for cooking, if indeed electric can delivery heat better than gas. After all, electric heating can be much cleaner, and keeping a kitchen clean is a major problem for a restaurant.

dcarch

dcarch - I don't have scientific answers to your questions, but having quasi-followed Appliances over the years I've NEVER seen anyone question that electric boils faster than gas.

An electric stove heating element is a poor deliverer of heat

Evidently a gas flame is an even poorer delivery boy.

After all, electric heating can be much cleaner, and keeping a kitchen clean is a major problem for a restaurant.

Are you saying when properly adjusted, natural gas isn't a clean burning fuel? That'd be news to me, too.

I am not aware of any restaurants using electric for cooking...

I'd guess there are many factors involved. Some I've already touched upon, and economics would certainly come into play.

Here's some info, similar to foas' finding:

http://www.foodbanter.com/cooking-equipment/7620-high-btu-gas-electric.html

I'm going to speculate that with gas, a great deal of the heat energy (70%, according to that link) is carried away in hot air. Perhaps with electric coil, there is less airflow (after all, gas means combustion which inherently requires airflow) hence improved efficiency.

When I was a backpacking guy, 20 years and [censored] pounds ago, there was a gadget that was sort of a baffle, you wrapped it around the pot and it channelled hot air to flow along the sides of the pot, improving the efficiency of your little white gas stove. Backpackers care, because fuel has weight and with our packs already 50 lb, being able to carry less fuel mattered.

I imagine that if you enclosed the pot in a box, with just a airflow hole at the top, thus trapping as much heat as possible, the efficiency of the gas burner would improve . . .

Or, if the pot were annular, like a bundt pan, so that hot air were funneled through the center . . .

Or, if you put your water in a "radiator" of copper tubing, spiraled in and above the burner flame, for more surface-to-mass ratio . . .

Or you could spend $10K for a Bluestar . . .

Or you could simply put 1 gal water in the microwave, with a wood chopstick (safety measure), and be the king of efficiency.

"dcarch - I don't have scientific answers to your questions, but having quasi-followed Appliances over the years I've NEVER seen anyone question that electric boils faster than gas. "

I will take your word for it since I have not visited that Forum. The key is to locate actual controlled studies to confirm if that is an empirical truth or one of the many anecdotal kitchen myths. I will say this again, I am not claiming that it is not true; I am saying that I have questions which I myself can't answer.

"Evidently a gas flame is an even poorer delivery boy. "

Either that or whoever tested gas was not aware that "watched pot never boils" :-)

"Are you saying when properly adjusted, natural gas isn't a clean burning fuel? That'd be news to me, too. "

Not what I meant. If gas is such a poor deliverer of heat then all the extra BTUs will be wasted in heating the air, and air conditioning is a big cost in restaurants. Gas also require an immense amount of make-up air for combustion, and to exhaust air for a restaurant to the roof thru fire proofed welded steel ducts in a high rise office building in NYC is incredibly expensive. In addition, electric cooking appliances are much easier for cleaning, and cleaning is a big problem for commercial kitchens. Why don't they use electric?

"I'd guess there are many factors involved. Some I've already touched upon, and economics would certainly come into play."

This heated debate really boils down (PUN + PUN!) to one single question: Except cooking in a TV studio, why no chefs prefer electric for cooking?

dcarch

I shrug my shoulders, dcarch. All I know is that any boil time tests that I happen to have seen have left me unimpressed. And I've never seen anyone argue that gas is faster, even though everyone seems to prefer gas over traditional (non-induction) electric.

That's just boil tests though. Response time is probably reason enough for many to prefer gas. Overall I'm very comfortable with where to set my burners for a given purpose, but I admit that there are times, like when I want to maintain barely a simmer on a large batch of stock or sauce, that I want to pull my hair out as I bump the temp up and down and wait for the result.

The Tramontina Triply-Clad Cookware from Walmart is oven safe to 450 degrees. The Better Homes & Gardens Tri-ply Clad cookware is also made by the Tramontina company. I spoke to a Tramontina rep about the differences between the cookware - BH&G cookware is made in Brazil, Tramontina in China. BH&G has more comfortable/wider handles on the dutch oven, stockpot and deep skillet. The BH&G has glass lids; Tramontina has stainless lids. The reason the BH&G cookware is only oven safe to 350 is, as Johnliu pointed out, due to the BH&G glass lids. I don't know if your recipe calls for the pan to be covered in the oven. If it doesn't, then your BH&G pan will be fine in the 400 degree oven. If the pan needs to be covered, see if you can find a stainless lid from something else that will fit, or perhaps tightly cover with heavy-duty aluminum foil.

Folks, hop on over to the 'Appliances' forum and
read some of the threads on induction cooktops and
ranges. There are even YouTube videos showing how
fast induction can boil water. Induction has been
used in Europe for decades, but is just now making
inroads here in the U.S.A. Check it out. That's
going to be my next range.

One would think that someone who enjoys being in the kitchen as much as I do would know the difference between four cups and four quarts. But I just realized I used the former in my test. Duh! So I retested with an actual gallon - yes, a weighed 128 ounces - of water beginning at exactly 75 deg as measured with a Thermapen, and it came to a full rolling boil in 9:10.

So, my electric's 8,873 BTUs (if dcarch's conversion from 2500W is correct) still beat a 23,000 BTU gas albeit by a much narrower margin than originally stated. To me that still proves decidedly that electric puts more heat where it counts.