[kerkeslager]

Another poster has suggested that you try a butane torch, but I want to point out, that's not just an alternative, that's a better way to do it. It's much easier to move a small torch than the entire dish, so you can keep the flame moving and get a much more even roast. An aubergine (eggplant for this side of the pond) has enough water content to be pretty forgiving, but if you're roasting pita or something else with low water content, a stove will almost inevitably give you burnt spots which taste bad and contain carcinogens. It's maybe not bad enough to be a dealbreaker for a home cook, but you won't see a nice restaurant doing it this way.

And that's setting aside all the other possibilities a torch opens up, like flan or crusting cheese, which are best done from the top.

[uwagar]

i dont know how labor intensive the butane torch is. normally id impale my aubergine on a fork and put it on a small open gas flame and do other things, its takes a while say at least 20-30 mins.

and the butane torch isnt gonna put in harmful chemicals more than my gas flame?

[kerkeslager]

Well, you do have to actively use the torch, so it is a bit more labor intensive, but you definitely don't have to sit there with a torch for 20-30 minutes.

I haven't made baba ganoush this way so take it with a grain of salt, but the way I've approached fruits with similar water content (i.e. squash or apples) is to bake for an amount of time (which is going to give you a more consistent cook all the way through than roasting anyway) and then finish with the butane torch, for a crispy roasted exterior. If you're using a toaster oven without covering, that will already give you some crispiness on the exterior, so you'll likely be able to get the exterior you want with under a minute of active torching.

The sources I can find seem to indicate that butane actually burns at a lower temperature than natural gas, but you make up for this by putting the flame directly on the food, so I'd guess that the food gets hotter (I wouldn't trust sources that say this confidently, as I can't think of a good way to experimentally verify this). It seems like this gives a higher temperature contrast which gives a higher texture contrast between the interior/exterior of the food. It's subjective whether that's a good thing but I personally think it's better.

> and the butane torch isnt gonna put in harmful chemicals more than my gas flame?

I don't know, and I would distrust most sources that claim to know. Natural gas is used for a lot of things besides cooking, so I'm not sure how much effort is put into the purity of the natural gas mixture, and that's putting aside all the piping between source and destination which could introduce all sorts of stuff from molds to plastics. I'm not aware of anyone making claims about the safety of natural gas flames and food. In contrast, butane torch fuels are often explicitly intended for culinary use, and advertising makes lots of claims such as "Near zero impurities" and "No residual oders"[1] (the misspelling is theirs). Without any credible independent verification, I personally don't think these claims are worth anything.

That said, natural gas is a much more complicated mix of stuff than butane, and the chemical reaction of combustion is much more complicated. Butane, in a perfect combustion, should produce CO2 and water, while natural gas, in a perfect combustion, will produce CO2, CO (carbon monoxide), water, NOx and SOx compounds (the latter mostly due to additives to give it an odor). Perfect combustion is a hypothetical reaction that doesn't exist in real life, however, so I can't say how well that hypothetical reaction translates to practical reality.

[1] https://www.amazon.com/Culinary-Universal-Cocktails-Charcute...

[uwagar]

thank you appreciate your detailed reply.

[kerkeslager]

No problem! I love to nerd out about cooking.