My First Grease Fire

While I'm still enamored with my new blog, I decided I might as well take advantage of that fact.

I have a gas stove. I have a nice big, round skillet pan. The problem is that it is so large in diameter that, when centered over the burner, it gets very hot in the middle, and the middle of the pan is becoming brownish and overused. I noticed that the pan is actually wide enough to span two burners, though barely wide enough to cover both flames. I thought I'd try a little experiment.

With the pan spread across two burners, the bacon was cooking nicely, and the heat seemed to be distributed evenly. I'm so smart. Wow, that bacon sure is sizzly. Poof — an orange flame leapt into the pan and started dancing around. My first instinct, of course, was to move the pan away from the burners, which was enough air motion to extinguish the flame. It lasted all of about three seconds, and everything turned out mighty tasty.

So, the lesson is, when cooking bacon on a gas stove using one skillet spanning two burners, keep the sizzly bacon away from the edge of the pan.