Last night after dinner, I cleaned up my kitchen so it would be pretty for the brunch. At 10p (pretty late for this tired mama), I realized I had not yet sauteed the pear/leek filling for my turnovers ... this would not only keep me up later, but also grease up my lovely clean hearth area. It's just some oil spatter that would have to be wiped up, of course, but I was still annoyed.
At this point I remembered that, although induction manufacturers do not officially endorse this method, it's generally considered "ok" to put something in between pan and the induction surface to save yourself some cleaning downstream. Induction tops cook with magnetic forces, so the paper in between cooktop and vessel should not catch on fire. I figured I'd give it a try.
I took a brown paper grocery bag and split it at the seams and laid it out over my induction top (Miele KM5753):
I sauteed my leeks and pears in browned butter (hungry yet?):
This is the butter that eventually splattered out of the pan (or that dripped as I removed the filling to a bowl):
After removing the brown paper and throwing it away, here is my nice smooth, clean induction top. No additional cleaning for the party!
I certainly wouldn't use this brown paper method all the time... it seems very wasteful when, typically, I can just use one of my cleaning cloths to wipe up any messes. In a time crunch, however, this was a great solution. If I was doing some heavy duty frying, with a veritable mess of food and oil, then I might consider this approach as well.
