Elegant hobs for Indian cooking

Hobs are permanently built in the kitchen platform and in level with it. They can have gas burners or induction cooktops. They can be made of stainless steel or glass. They look elegant. They are designed to have adequate vessel space, auto-ignition, convenient access to the burners, and easy gas knob maneuverability to control the temperature. No food spills can reach below the hobs, so they are easy to clean. The vessel supports can be removed for easy and effective cleaning.

Faster cooking

The gas burners are designed better. Most of them have two or three rings.  The flame is focused on the centre of the utensil. This reduces the cooking time. There are hobs with one to five gas burners. The buyers can have their pick. Most hobs have a flame failure protection.

Modifications

Hobs were developed in Europe. They need to be modified for use in India to suit the local way of cooking. Most companies dealing in hobs have modified their designs to serve the special needs of Indian way of cooking, which involves the tadka for the daals and vegetables, making of phulkas, rotis, parathas, bhakaris or rotis, and roasting vegetables like brinjals. 

Incentives

The prices of best kitchen hobs in India range from Rs 10000 to Rs25000. There are many brands dealing in gas hobs.  These include Surya, Prestige, Bajaj, Sunflame, Whirlpool, Elica, Faber, and Siemens. They offer a one-year warranty and free delivery within three or four days. They offer discounts from 10 percent to 40 percent, payments facilities and incentives like cash back up to 15 percent

Some problems

 Although all the companies dealing in hobs claim that hobs are more efficient and save gas and cooking time, not many users are fully convinced. Some complain that the cooking with hobs is slow. That means higher gas consumption and more time in the kitchen. Many express doubts over the suitability of European designs of gas burners in Indian conditions. They are not sure that the design modifications made by the companies have actually improved the functioning of the hobs in Indian conditions.

Uneven heating

Some users say that with hobs, the cooking vessels are heated only at the edges, not at the inner side. This leads to uneven heating and cooking becomes that much more difficult. Some say that cleaning is not easy in case of built-in hobs. If it becomes necessary to replace a hob, the replacement hob has to be of the same size. If that size is not available, which can be the case frequently, the kitchen platform has to be modified, which means a lot of trouble and inconvenience. 

Cleaning not easy

Some users say that built-in hobs cannot be cleaned easily and perfectly. They say when milk spills over, which is often for many people, it reaches below the burners even though there can hardly be any gap.  The spilled milk goes below the burner too. And cleaning the plates below the burners or the burners themselves is no easy job.  But like all problems, companies are busy modifying their products to take care of all such situations and built-in hobs could be as acceptable as gas stoves soon.