Professional appliances

Buying a professional appliance gives your kitchen more than just a hip, stainless-steel look. For the money, a professional cook top comes with professional heat, measured in Btu. Btu stands for British thermal unit; one Btu is what it takes to heat one pound of water one degree Fahrenheit,  roughly the heat produced by one wooden match.

Typical ordinary burners generate around 7,500 and 9,000 Btu. Newer models — those made in the past few years — can produce 12,000 Btu, which is enough heat to get a really good stir- fry going.

New high—end models, like those made by Kitchen-Aid, Thermador, Viking, and DCS, often come with “power burners,” which can produce as much as 15,000 Btu. Power burners can keep a pot of gumbo piping hot, or boil a large pot for pasta. With that much heat, eight quarts of water (definitely enough for a pasta party) will boil in about six minutes.

But the bells and whistles aren’t all about getting hotter. The newest gas can also regulate low temperatures. The drawback with gas has been that you can’t truly simmer on a gas cooktop. The newest models have solved this problem with a simmer burner, which keeps a constant low heat by turning on and off.

More functional cooktops are gaining in popularity with the new interest in staying at home. People want to be able to get restaurant-quality results without having to go to a restaurant.