The only exception is when I've accidentally, and stupidly, left the pan with only olive oil in it in full heat and went off to do something else, at which point it starts smoking and smelling bad.
Getting a little off-topic here, but as a former firefighter, please allow me to plead with everyone reading this to not ever start cooking (on the stove-top anyway) and "go off to do something else." Fires start (and spread) much more rapidly than most people's naive intuitions tell them, and we're also much more vulnerable to getting distracted and forgetting about the cooking, than most of us want to admit.
Note that cooking (particularly including unattended cooking) is generally the leading cause of structure fires, at least in the US in recent history.
Cooking was the leading cause of reported home fires and home fire injuries in 2015-2019 and the second leading cause of home fire deaths. Cooking caused 49 percent of reported home fires, 20 percent of reported home fire deaths, and 42 percent of home fire injuries.
Based on 2014-2018 annual averages:
Two-thirds of home cooking fires start with the ignition of food or other cooking materials.
Clothing is the item first ignited in less than 1% of these fires, but clothing ignitions caused 8% of the home cooking fire deaths.
Ranges or cooktops account for three-fifths of home cooking fire incidents.
Unattended equipment is a factor in one-third of reported home cooking fires and over half of the associated deaths.
Frying dominates the cooking fire problem.
Well that's me told then. I promise I won't do it again, sir :P
For the record, when I say I "went off to do something else" I don't mean I left the pot on and went away, I mean I stayed in the kitchen and turned my back to it, while I was preparing to cook. This happened last summer. I started heating some oil in my French oven to brown some meat. It takes some time to heat the oil because I start from a low heat and increase it gradually to avoid damaging the pot (enamel is very sensitive to sudden temperature changes). Because I'm an idiot, I eventually turned the heat all the way to the max, even though it's a French oven and it will get hot enough to brown meat even at medium heat. In the meantime I prepared my other ingredients, then I turned back to the pot and it was smoking, so I took it out and left it to cool down, then changed the oil and started all over again. I think this has happened a couple more times over the years, when I changed homes or got a new stove.
I have certainly managed to burn food in hot oil, of course. That makes a lot more smoke and smells a lot worse. I have never seen any flames though. And I'm completely paranoid about frying, not even deep frying. A friend of mine had an accident when we were kids, when frying some eggs, and it's left him a scar for life, so I still treat frying oil a like an extremely dangerous substance. Which it is.
Comments
The only exception is when I've accidentally, and stupidly, left the pan with only olive oil in it in full heat and went off to do something else, at which point it starts smoking and smelling bad.
Getting a little off-topic here, but as a former firefighter, please allow me to plead with everyone reading this to not ever start cooking (on the stove-top anyway) and "go off to do something else." Fires start (and spread) much more rapidly than most people's naive intuitions tell them, and we're also much more vulnerable to getting distracted and forgetting about the cooking, than most of us want to admit.
Note that cooking (particularly including unattended cooking) is generally the leading cause of structure fires, at least in the US in recent history.
https://www.nfpa.org/Public-Education/Fire-causes-and-risks/...
Well that's me told then. I promise I won't do it again, sir :P
For the record, when I say I "went off to do something else" I don't mean I left the pot on and went away, I mean I stayed in the kitchen and turned my back to it, while I was preparing to cook. This happened last summer. I started heating some oil in my French oven to brown some meat. It takes some time to heat the oil because I start from a low heat and increase it gradually to avoid damaging the pot (enamel is very sensitive to sudden temperature changes). Because I'm an idiot, I eventually turned the heat all the way to the max, even though it's a French oven and it will get hot enough to brown meat even at medium heat. In the meantime I prepared my other ingredients, then I turned back to the pot and it was smoking, so I took it out and left it to cool down, then changed the oil and started all over again. I think this has happened a couple more times over the years, when I changed homes or got a new stove.
I have certainly managed to burn food in hot oil, of course. That makes a lot more smoke and smells a lot worse. I have never seen any flames though. And I'm completely paranoid about frying, not even deep frying. A friend of mine had an accident when we were kids, when frying some eggs, and it's left him a scar for life, so I still treat frying oil a like an extremely dangerous substance. Which it is.