> "Medium heat" is when the ring is half-way up. "High heat" is when the ring is all the way up.
This is incorrect.
Medium is when the surface of the pan is around 350°F. High is when it's around 450°F. (Low is 250°F.)
How to get and then maintain the surface of the pan at that temperature is probably one of the trickiest skills there is for people to learn. Because obviously if you put an empty pan on the middle of your gas burner dial and just leave it there it will quickly heat up to ultra-hot (550°F+). While if you dump a bunch of watery vegetables in there to sauté it will just go down to like 150°F and not heat up further.
In the end setting the right burner strength to maintain your desired temperature is a crazy nonlinear function of heat, pan temperature, pan material (both conductivity and thermal mass), food quantity in pan, food temperature, food water content, and lid on/off. That you learn through just a lot of trial and error, involving a lot of listening for sizzle and seeing bubbles and browning and feeling for radiant heat with your hand. Not by setting the dial to a particular setting.
If you want to know why so many people have difficulty doing something so "basic" as frying an egg, this is why. If you want to know why part of the interview to cook in a restaurant is also quite often... just to fry a single egg... that's why. (It's "fizzbuzz" for cooks.)
Also, please don't do things like insult entire nationalities here. It's very much against HN guidelines.
This is incorrect.
Medium is when the surface of the pan is around 350°F. High is when it's around 450°F. (Low is 250°F.)
How to get and then maintain the surface of the pan at that temperature is probably one of the trickiest skills there is for people to learn. Because obviously if you put an empty pan on the middle of your gas burner dial and just leave it there it will quickly heat up to ultra-hot (550°F+). While if you dump a bunch of watery vegetables in there to sauté it will just go down to like 150°F and not heat up further.
In the end setting the right burner strength to maintain your desired temperature is a crazy nonlinear function of heat, pan temperature, pan material (both conductivity and thermal mass), food quantity in pan, food temperature, food water content, and lid on/off. That you learn through just a lot of trial and error, involving a lot of listening for sizzle and seeing bubbles and browning and feeling for radiant heat with your hand. Not by setting the dial to a particular setting.
If you want to know why so many people have difficulty doing something so "basic" as frying an egg, this is why. If you want to know why part of the interview to cook in a restaurant is also quite often... just to fry a single egg... that's why. (It's "fizzbuzz" for cooks.)
Also, please don't do things like insult entire nationalities here. It's very much against HN guidelines.