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Fisher & Paykel Product Help

Cooking guidelines

Provides information on cookware, cooking tips, using the SuperSimmer feature, and more.


  • Use heavy-gauge, flat, smooth-based cookware that matches the diameter of the cooking zone. This will provide good contact with the glass and help reduce cooking times. Low heat or slow cooking is often due to incorrect cookware size.
  • Cookware with a stainless steel sandwich base or enamelled cast iron will give you the best results.
  • Saucepans or heavy frying pans with jagged edges or a rough base will scratch the glass.
  • Always lift pans off the cooktop - do not slide, or they may scratch the glass.
  • Never use plastic or aluminium foil dishes on the cooktop.
  • Aluminium and copper-based cookware will leave metallic stains on the cooktop. To prevent these building up, clean the cooktop after every use following the instructions in ‘Care and cleaning’. If the metallic stains are allowed to burn onto the surface, they may react with the glass and may no longer be removable. They don’t, however, affect performance.
  • It is safe to place hot cookware from the oven, or another cooking zone, on the glass surface when the surface is cool.
  • Avoid placing anything on a hot cooking zone until it has cooled completely.




  • Take care when deep-frying: oil or fat can overheat very quickly, particularly on a high setting.
General cooking tips
  • Using a lid will reduce cooking times through retaining the heat.
  • Minimise the amount of liquid or fat to reduce cooking times.
  • Start cooking on a high setting and reduce it when the food has come to the boil or heated through.
  • Even after a cooking zone has been turned off, its glass surface retains enough heat to continue cooking. To avoid overcooking, remove pans from hot cooking zones when the food is cooked.
Cooking rice, simmering
  • Some tasks, including cooking rice by the absorption method, may require a setting higher than the lowest setting to ensure the food is cooked properly in the time recommended.
  • Simmering occurs below boiling point, when bubbles are just rising occasionally to the surface of the cooking liquid. It’s the key to delicious soups and tender stews because the flavours develop without overcooking the food. Egg-based sauces are best kept below boiling point throughout cooking, and flour-based sauces should also be gently simmered after they have reached boiling point.
Using the SuperSimmer feature (some models only)
  • The front right cooking zone on some models has a unique SuperSimmer feature. This allows the cooking zone to be turned down to very low and even heat settings. These are ideal for melting chocolate and butter, cooking rice and delicate sauces, simmering soups and stews, and keeping cooked food hot.
  • The high settings of the SuperSimmer cooking zone are just as powerful as those of the other cooking zones, allowing food to be browned, seared, sautéed, or boiled before simmering, all on the same cooking zones.
Searing steak
  1. Stand the meat at room temperature for about 20 minutes before cooking.
  2. Heat up a heavy-based frying pan.
  3. Brush both sides of the steak with oil and season it to taste.
  4. Lower the meat onto the hot pan.
  5. Turn the steak only once during cooking. The exact cooking time will depend on the thickness of the steak and how cooked you want it. Times vary between 2 to 8 minutes per side. Press the steak to gauge how cooked it is: the firmer it feels, the more ‘well done’ it will be.
  6. Leave the steak to rest on a warm plate for a few minutes to allow it to relax and become tender before serving.
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