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When I lived in Morocco I purchased small clay tajines to bring home and I've been cooking in them ever since; several years. Mostly on convection ovens, and once on a flat surface stove. I've just bought a house with a flat surface electric stove and this first time I've used the tajine here, the stove is smoking and smells really strong of plastic burning! My husband had just cleaned the stove (with chemicals) which I was claiming HAD to be the reason, but really? Burning plastic smell? Any ideas here??

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    Have you given the stove a good hot bake since it had been cleaned? It's possible that petrochemicals can give a burning plastic smell (as plastic is petroleum based)
    – Joe
    Mar 4, 2016 at 0:05
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    So, you keep saying "on"... are you doing this in the oven or on the cooktop?
    – Catija
    Mar 4, 2016 at 0:23
  • Was this new stove top induction?
    – Mien
    Mar 5, 2016 at 22:03

1 Answer 1

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You're not using the induction stove-top properly. Induction cooking works by inducting a magnetic field in the cooking vessel. Practically this means that a cooking vessel must be made of, or contain, a ferromagnetic metal such as cast iron or some stainless steels. If you want to use a ceramic or glass cooking disk then you should use a ferromagnetic interface disk (essentially an iron plate) which functions as a conventional hotplate.

See page 17 of the pdf file for an Electrolux range which describes the cookware type to use. Basically you want a magnet to be able to stick to the cookware.

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    why do you think that the stove is induction? Not only doesn't the OP say anything about induction, the fact alone that it heated to smoke speaks against such an assumption.
    – rumtscho ♦
    Mar 4, 2016 at 1:55
  • I assume that a "flat surface electric stove" is an induction stove top.
    – MaxW
    Mar 4, 2016 at 2:00
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    That's a very improbable assumption for at least three reasons. 1) Statistics: noninduction flattop electric stoves are more common than induction ones, 2) people who have induction tend to know that and say it, and 3) as said above, an induction stove wouldn't have heated a clay tagine.
    – rumtscho ♦
    Mar 4, 2016 at 2:03
  • @rumtscho : actually, it's possible if the glaze had iron in it, it might start heating up. Iron is often in red & brown glazes.
    – Joe
    Mar 4, 2016 at 2:50
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    If I'm right, the induction stoves recognize when enough magnetic material is on the stove, and will not work with miniscule amount of iron. Small enough pan, and the stove won't do anything.
    – diynevala
    Mar 4, 2016 at 6:08

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