Cast iron leet
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> Here's a list of myths about cast iron skillets: (...) You can't cook with acidic foods (e.g. tomatoes) because it'll destroy the seasoning
You might not destroy the seasoning but you will get metallic tastes in your food. I don't get why anyone would pick cast iron over stainless steel for an acidic sauce that needs to be cooked for a longer period of time.
Also not mentioned downside of cast iron - you need to dry it perfectly every time or it rusts very easily.
Stainless steel has better heat retention and distribution, doesn't react with acidic foods, is easier to clean, and never rusts. Nonstick pans are better at being nonstick than cast iron. So cast iron ends up being second best for most use cases but the cult around it is certainly strong. (And I admit that they do kind of look cool).
Cast iron = the Python of cooking pans.
read this : https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/GenX#Pollution
Florine is remarkably not inert.
Teflon is a relatively stable Florine compound.
But as you say, it can destabilize when the pan is used within a few sigma of ideal cooking temperature.
>Some PFAS are approved for use in the manufacture of non-stick cookware coatings. These coatings are made of molecules that are polymerized (i.e., joined together to form large molecules) and applied to the cookware through a heating process that tightly binds the polymer coating to the cookware. Studies show that this coating contains a negligible amount of PFAS capable of migrating to food
Ceramic glazes have been problematic [0].
[0] https://www.npr.org/sections/thesalt/2017/12/08/563808879/ca...
Porous ceramics can easily breed bacteria, good and bad. And glazes on ceramics can contain all kinds of delightful compounds that can leach out. You certainly don’t want to eat or breathe unfired glaze.
As for ceramic nonstick cookware, I’m not convinced that such a thing exists. I think that “ceramic” coatings are actually sol-gel, and I can’t find a straight answer as to what is in them. They do advertise that they are fluoropolymer-free, and they seem to be stable to rather higher temperatures than PTFE.
Python is a top choice for a number of applications..?
Swiss army knife of languages
Webpage programming with Django, you might not like it (?) but for many people it's the top choice.
All underlying stuff is implemented in !Python.
Source: my own experience using cast iron cookware for the last 30+ years, cooking on induction first, a wood-burning stove for the last 20 years.
Epicurious's taste tests indicate that the proper figure is 30 minutes.
That said I don't mind the fact that some iron makes its way into our food. I mainly cook vegetarian/pescetarian because my wife does not want to eat meat ever since she saw some practice in a slaughterhouse at age 16. This means it is harder to make sure our food contains enough iron. One of the ways of achieving that is to use cast iron cookware when cooking acidic foods. The longer the food is in the pan, the more iron makes its way into it. Eventually this leaves that metallic taste but that takes quite a while in a well-seasoned pan.
I don't use cast iron for boiling, simmering, and otherwise cooking liquids. It's a frying pan for frying.
I use stainless steel sauce pans, pots, etc. for liquids.
I clean the cast iron while it is hot. A lot of food comes off without water, only a little water is required to remove the rest, and the cast iron is mostly self drying. Since I usually use electric burners, I can stick it back on its burner to dry with the burner's residual heat. [1] This is also a reasonable time to oil it.
If something is really stuck, for example if I didn't clean the pan when hot, I heat the pan again and clean it when hot.
Cleaning stainless steel when it is hot is another algorithm that works on my machine.
There's certainly ritual and habit around my use of cast iron but I am not saying you should use cast iron. Particularly since I enjoy the process of using cast iron and you don't.
[1]: on my portable butane stove, I will reignite the flame and reheat the pan if necessary.
I suspect a degree of sarcasm just wooshed over me.
It also soaks up any excess fluids.
Slightly heftier than stainless and much easier to season. I have a set of stainless (relatively nice triple clad Cuisinart) and I still much prefer the carbon steel pans.
It's essentially what cast iron pans would be if we had better manufacturing techniques, and they work really well.
Backing up though - I would 100% take cast iron over just stainless (in every situation except a professional kitchen) and there's not much that would entice me to buy a non-stick pan, basically ever, at this point. The only thing they do ok is eggs, and a tiny egg pan in cast iron does basically the same without ever needing to be replaced (or giving me liver cancer).
Cast iron isn't hard to use, is indestructible, has a very low chance of poisoning me (and handily helps provide iron in my diet), and just makes things brown like nothing else I've used - nothing will make hash browns or a grilled cheese sandwich like cast iron.
Plus it's dirt cheap (less cheap is carbon steel, but again - very nice).
What's not to like?
All true, but if you're steelmanning it, you really need to mention the weight. Also it doesn't conduct heat well.
I also use cast iron for other things though. They have different strengths.
You cover the pan with a fat, overheat it, and the fat polymerizes : https://www.seriouseats.com/how-to-season-cast-iron-pans-ski...
Heck, I've done it on aluminum pans and eggs are fine, just like old-school breakfast spots and their griddles.
If food starts sticking to it, spread a thin layer of oil on it and then oven cook at the highest temperature you have.
You shouldn't use soap on the pan, that will remove some oil. Most soap won't remove the seasoning, but maybe lots of soap and excessive brushing will and food will start sticking quicker!
Once you're done with the pan drop some hot water in it (ice cold water could crack the pan) and scrape off the food - which should come out nicely. If that doesn't work or you left the pan dirty from the previous day, pour water and scrub a bit harder until smooth. Salt can help as well.
To make sure you dried it correctly, put it back on the stove and (optionally) rub some oil into it.
If you're cleaning it hard enough to remove the brown/black layers that form near the bottom - you're cleaning way too much, and never letting it build up a layer of seasoning.
Despite the claims that modern soap won't hurt, I find it varies tremendously by brand. So I don't use it.
I literally just drop about a tablespoon of salt into the large skillets, and wipe out with a paper towel while it's hot still.
The egg pan gets a light scrub with a non-scratch sponge, and that's basically it.
Also - I'm in no way affiliated, but this is basically the best cleaner for cast iron you can get: https://www.amazon.com/Ringer-Original-Stainless-Cleaner-Pat...
While that is generally the advice, in my experience you're much better off treating them somewhat carelessly. The main thing is to not clean them too much, and to not let them stay wet. The seasoning happens with regular use. With a new pan you want to let it stay on the heat a bit after use so the oil has some time to stick to the pan properly. After the third or fourth time using it it should start getting pretty anti-stick, until then just use a metal spatula to dig stuff out of the pan.
It's heavy. The handle gets really hot.
my 12" stainless pan is hefty but not heavy. the smaller cast iron 10" or 11" is about twice the weight. I use it to cook just about everything. I think once the coating on my nice 12" non-stick pan goes off I'd probably get a carbon steel one (if it does... you can prevent most of it by not cooking things too hot and i mainly use it for hashbrowns on about medium.)
And still cheap! Slightly more expensive than cast iron, but not much; an entirely usable Lodge carbon steel pan is $40 on Amazon. The silicone handle cover is an extra $12.50 (although you don't reeeeally need one if you don't mind wearing oven mitts).
Personally I ditched nonstick coated pans — sure, PTFE is supposed to be safer than the old Teflon formulations, but the chemical used to replace PFOA in many formulations is GenX, which recent EPA studies indicate is probably similarly bad [1]. Carbon steel and cast iron just avoid all of that.
1: https://www.epa.gov/chemical-research/human-health-toxicity-...
Lodge is pretty good though IMO.
The handle does get hot, but it takes a LONG time. I can easily cook a couple eggs, or make a few grilled cheese sandwiches without any problem.
Cooking a whole batch of pancakes is too long through - I need sleeve/glove after about 25 minutes. Even then, though - it's not "burn me" hot, it's just uncomfortable to hold for more than a few seconds.
Still, never trading. If I manage to reproduce, my offspring will be the fourth generation to own and love the 10" Wagner skillet I got from my grandmother.
I’d recommend putting just a little oil on a paper towel and spreading a very thin coat across the surface. Only takes a few moments.
I stopped using my pans that required oil because of that.
I got the enameled cast iron pan, so it actually works out nicely.
Thin layer of oil out in the open goes bad quicker than oil closed in a bottle.
Eating a meal always implies eating your cookware and packaging. I don't want to eat chromium and friends, or PFAS. Non-stick is gonna get banned eventually, mark my words.
If a person is already near optimal iron levels, could cast iron push them over into just a bit unhealthy territory? Maybe not enough that people complain, but what would a sensitive study show?
Cast iron is great for searing or for fried eggs or buttery scrambles.
I love my car on steel Matfer fry pan and try to use it as often as possible.
But for acidic or long simmering brown sauces that'll stick and tear off my seasoning, I'll probably teach for stainless steel. Afterward I'll scrape it down and it's good as new.
Nonstick has its purpose. One that I rediscovered recently is very low fat pan frying. Even though all my steel/iron pans are well seasoned, I still need more butter or avocado/grapeseed/coconut/etc oil when compared to cooking on a Teflon pan. If you are trying to cut calories, you'll need to count the additional cooking oil that goes into your carbon steel or cast iron dishes.
Yes, I am aware of the benefits of good fats in my diet. But sometimes you want to track or reduce total kcal consumption, e.g., if you are a weightlifter but aren't currently bulking. Reducing fat intake is the easiest lever, since you want to keep protein intake high, and want to limit carbs.
So yeah. Use the tool you enjoy using. I've seen Chef Jacques Pépin beat an omelette in a Teflon pan with a metal utensil, so who am I to judge???
Non-stick : JavaScript / Python
Cast Iron : C
Carbon Steel : Go
Stainless Steel : Java
Lots of people do it who should know better. That's going to damage the coating, shortening the lifespan of the pan, and putting little bits of Teflon into your food.
Out of the concerns above, pieces of Teflon in your food is fortunately not a huge concern: Teflon is not toxic in the slightest. It works as nonstick because it doesn’t really react with anything, and that means it won’t react with your body either. It is a common material in various medical equipment like implants, frequently used as catheter lining.
Now, if you heat it to 500 degrees or more, it starts decomposing, and the resulting chemicals are toxic. So, don’t broil in nonstick (but slow braising in oven is fine).
Also re oil, a great tip is to oil the food not the pan along with using nonstick too.
Oh, on that famous Pepin video (which is the one that taught me how to nail the texture), consider that Pepin probably has 100 pans a month sent to his agent/pobox unsolicited. He'd don't give a crap about that pan lol.
I just put a little evo on a paper towel and apply it all over the pan.
I can pour maple syrup over salmon at high heat in that pan and it doesn’t stick. Not something you can do with stainless.
It's also how I clean the pans if I have to.
The other 20% I need water because something stuck bad, and usually I'll just use my soapy sponge. But if the pan is real hot still, I'll just put water in it and let it deglaze the stuck stuff.
I recently found that you can get a jump on the process by polishing the cooking surface. I took an orbital sander to a new skillet last month, from 60 up to 180 grit, and it works great. Seasoning with six rounds of flaxseed oil was a complete failure - it all flaked off immediately - but the pan cooks pretty well anyway, just the bare metal. Of course I oil it lightly after cleaning to keep it from rusting, and it is starting to develop a nice patina.
I mean, yeah, you have to use tools the way they're meant to be used for them to be effective. But dry isn't the goal really, just leave a thin coat of oil on it and it'll never rust.
They're cheap, rock-solid, non-stick (and you're welcome to use metal tools against them) - and if you abuse them enough, you can just re-season them in a couple of hours and they'll be back in factory condition.
I personally have a few pieces of stainless cookware and a cast iron skillet. I use the skillet for probably 75% of my cooking. Its ability to retain heat is lovely. I can't really order steak at restaurants anymore because I can do it at home for half the price with a beautiful crust and sear, perfect mid-rare inside. Once you grease it up and heat it up, nothing will stick to it. You can cook at high temp, brown things, sear things, finish them in the oven - all with a natural non-stick finish. Cleanup just involves at most a scrub down with sea salt and a little water, and a thin coat of oil.
You could still cook acidic food acidic food on it if for a short period of time if you've got a good season - and not too acidic - but no, it's not the tool for every job.
Getting the skillet was definitely a step change for my cooking. It's pretty hard to beat a 10.25" Lodge skillet for $20, delivered, from Amazon.
Cast iron is kind of the opposite of a wok, which is made so you get about as close as you can to cooking with the flame and no residual heat from the cooking vessel. Note that woks are designed to be cooked on crazy output stoves that you don't really see in Western homes. This allows you to sear with much more control of the thermal transmission at the cost of a blazing hot kitchen and a hefty gas bill.
That said, if you do a lot of baking a nice thick sheet of steel is definitely the tool.
I wish there were heavier and affordable stainless steel pans for searing, as I can just chuck those in the dishwasher.
I did once melt the hood of a gas grill by putting a piece of steel in it. Held heat so well the cover and front of the grill warped.
> You might not destroy the seasoning but you will get metallic tastes in your food.
I cook sauce in mine and it doesn't taste metallic.
> Also not mentioned downside of cast iron - you need to dry it perfectly every time or it rusts very easily.
Absolute horse apples. I treat my pan like garbage and give it a wipe ONCE and it never rusts.
It is fine preferring one type of pan over another but you are saying patently untrue things here.
I suspect that accounts for a lot of the variance that people experience using cast iron.
I also don't taste metalic notes in my food and that includes doing stuff like shakshuka right in the pan.
Stainless multi-clad isn't really a replacement for cast iron. They're different tools. Same goes for nonsticks, which are great for some things but not high heat (and yes every product that claims otherwise is lying to you).
Cast iron and carbon steel are close alternatives, where the tradeoff is between weight and thermal capacity.
People shouldn't mythologize cast iron, both in cultish enthusiasm, or exaggerating its flaws.
I don’t get the big deal about seasoning. I always cook with some sort of fat, so nothing sticks usually.
However, I converted all non-metal stuff to pure carbon ash by heating the pan to 750 F with my 25 year old electric range. At this heat it was very uncomfortable to keep a flat palm hovering one foot over the pan for any period of time. But it cleared up very nicely after some smoke that I extracted with a dedicated kitchen fan. The ash was scraped off like dust. I wouldn't do this without an exhaust under any circumstances though.
That said, I throw some acidic stuff in my cast iron and I can't say I can notice the metallic taste.
A cast iron pan is not really a replacement for stainless steel (I don't think anyone has anything against those), it's a replacement for non stick pan.
Calling it a replacement for non stick pan is actually quite insulting: nothing sears meat like a cast iron pan, we should say that non stick pan are a poor replacement for cast iron pans.
The reason I moved to cast iron pan (more than health concerns or caring about the environment) was to cook meat like chefs on youtube do, after years of cooking mediocre dishes on non stick pans.
The only major downside is the weight (2kg) and how hot it gets - which makes it hard to use for the miss.
I could be wrong, but I thought that cast iron has higher thermal conductivity (53 w/mK - watts per meter-Kelvin) then stainless steel (14 w/mK). Both are relatively poor thermal conductors compared to aluminum, however (>200 w/mK).
If you dry it with a kitchen towel (you don't even have to do it carefully) and then hang it up overhead instead of placing it flat in a cabinet or on the stovetop, it will never rust.
But non-stick is just terrible.
It's super trendy to obsess over getting the hottest pizza oven--something that gets up to 800 degrees, etc--so you can get super authentic restaurant pizza at home. That's great and a fun hobby for some folks I'm sure, but a cast iron pan with a long overnight fermentation of the dough is a game-changer for from scratch pizza for me.
Here are two methods that I used to get the crust to brown: a) Pre-topping: Prep just the crust by putting the pan into the oven for 5-minutes as the temp rises from 400 to 500-degrees. Top the crust with sauce, cheese, and toppings post the prep stage.
b) Post-baking: Once the pan is out of the oven, I put the hot pan on the stove for a few minutes if the crust needs some more cooking.
For what it’s worth, I use Kenji’s recipe for pan pizza [1]. I prefer his method of measuring ingredients using grams vs. other units of measure (teaspoons, cups) that I tend to get wrong.
We have a Ooni(koda 16) and I'll occasionally do the cast iron one. Using basically the same recipe. It's very similar but different, we like both.
I preheat the pan in the oven, pull it out, transfer the dough to the stone, and put on the toppings. The pan stays hot, so the dough starts cooking while I prepare the pie. Then after cooking for 6 minutes in the oven, I can take the pizza out of the oven again, put on the cheese, and cook for a few more minutes to melt.
The cast iron is also super easy to clean, unlike the stone, which was pretty much impossible to get fully clean. After it cools, I rinse it off and coat with a thin layer of oil. Then it's ready for the next use.
Luckily there’s a fantastic non-nonstick option for that too; a carbon steel wok. Amazing tool that is frankly under-utilized in the western world.
J. Kenji López-Alt released a book this year that goes over how to use it in great engineering-focused detail for anyone wanting to give it a shot.
The one we got is 15,000 BTU, which is frankly too much. You can find 10,000 or 12,000 BTU options for cheaper, and will probably get some more fine grained control out of it.
The butane lasts for quite a while in it for wok use as well, since you’re generally only cooking for a few minutes at a time.
I’m also very inspired by this video [1] which shows what appears to be a jet engine under a wok used by a master chef.
I have a carbon steel wok on a typical (here) gas burner (~7k BTU). I can make single portion on it. It requires moving the food around the wok surface constantly to parts that had some time to get hot. Forget about throwing more than one portion into it, it will just start to boil. So the only time I get to use it is when my family is away or when I want to make something for myself at an odd hour but pretty much useless for a meal for my family.
The restaurant looks REALLY nice. Singapore is starting to look really nice -- maybe I should visit?
Sure, the chef is amazing. I'm surprised his wok does not have a long handle. So, he uses a towel as a pot holder when he holds the small handle on his wok.
No joke he has a lot of heat. At one point he even has some of the oil in his wok flaming a little!
He seems to have his wok heat source going 100% all the time. So, to pay for the fuel he cooks really fast, lots of dishes per hour, and has a cheap fuel source? Also, he needs to have some good exhaust air flow for his kitchen or soon will also cook everyone in the kitchen and restaurant!
For his heat source, looks like he has repurposed an old GE J79 jet engine, e.g., as used in
Mostly so that my house doesn’t stink. I can go hot hot hot just out the back door and not worry about the smoke.
A standard gas bottle (refill ~AU$40) lasts about 8 months.
[0]: https://www.bunnings.com.au/jumbuck-2-burner-hooded-bbq_p317...
The point of the wok is that the liquid gathers in the centre of the wok leaving the sides with very little liquid on them which helps a lot with browning. You can also throw small amounts of relatively delicate ingredients (like garlic) that will get sauted in deep pool of oil in the centre and then you can add more ingredients and build your dish.
With any flat bottom you give away some properties of the wok, depending on how large the flat part is.
Another nice property of wok is that because of its dome shape it will not deform even at high temperature differentials. Any flat piece of steel subjected to high temperature differentials will deform over time.
You're right about pans getting warped, I have this issue from time to time with my carbon steel pans, luckily it is an easily fixable issue (using a sturdy rubber mallet on a pre-heated pan is my favourite method).
(1) Off the kitchen, have a back porch, i.e., no roof, call it a deck.
(2) Get an inexpensive, propane powered deep fat fryer turkey cooker.
(3) Use the propane burner to heat a wok.
Get plenty of heat!
Did that! Cooked quarts of Moo Shi Pork (basically sauteed pork matchsticks with steamed, shredded cabbage and various flavorings) at a time. Worked great. Lost the setup in a move!
I'd be very interested to hear from the serious home cooks on this issue, as well as the perspective of professional chefs. While I consider myself an advanced home cook, I've come to the conclusion that I'm not limited by going electric only - it's the heat, not the flame that matters for most of what I do.
For those cases where I really do need flame (roasting peppers or something maybe?), I can always go outside to my grill.
Again, would be very interested in other perspectives on this.
That's a privilege a lot of people in cities don't have. I would love to have a gas cook top, but my building is electric only.
Edit: I'm also in the "advanced home cook" category, not a pro.
I have not cooked on induction though, which might be a big improvement over the electric ranges I've used.
Another thing about gas ranges that is purely mechanical, is that I can slide pans around to get them off the burner when I need things to cool down fast and I don't want to turn the flame completely off. I have come to really rely on this. The electric ranges I've used have a glass top and it will get scratched up if you slide the pan around.
Some might consider it inefficient and a waste of energy, but it makes seasoning pans much easier.
- Gas is overrated. The excess heat it generates indoors is not worth whatever benefits it has. The heat on the sides of pans can sometimes be helpful, but perhaps more often is a hindrance - have to make sure to scrape the sides of pots thoroughly and regularly when making a cream sauce, for example. I don't find gas to boil water faster than an electric cooktop. I usually use an electric kettle for 2/3 of the water with coil and gas stoves, but I don't have to bother with induction. Small portable gas burners (as made by eg Iwatani) are quite handy to have around for those times you really want the advantages of Gas (a bbq or grill would serve same purpose).
- Induction is great, except for wok cooking. Specialized induction wok burners do exist, but are still pretty specialized pieces of equipment. 120v induction hotplates are not so good (but not as bad as coil ones). One thing I don't like about induction is they tend to have some electronic whine when operating - presumably as they switch on and off to regulate heat output. I dislike how complicated the electronics are - when something goes wrong, they're so expensive to repair that it's barely worthwhile.
- Coil stoves are decent, as long as they have a 220V supply - 120v coils, eg hot plates, are awful. I appreciate their ruggedness and simplicity - it's basically a wire from the wall, through a potentiometer, to a big resistor.
- Solid disc resistance stoves are awful
- Cooking on a wood stove is not practical usually, but it can give a nice home-y feel, especially if you're simmering some Apple Cider or Mulled Wine.
Not to endorse any specific company, but a Thermalloy 8-inch pan is available for approximately $20 USD.
they are not popular at home but, even in the western world, carbon steel pans are the most common type of pan used in restaurants, they are also known as Lyonnaise pans. Recently they are becoming more common and you can even buy them at Ikea: https://www.ikea.com/us/en/p/vardagen-frying-pan-carbon-stee...
Not only they (carbon steel pans and woks) are faster to heat and easier to control than cast iron, they are also lighter, and another advantage is that they have longer handles that don't heat up as much, which means you can grab them without using oven mitts or handle covers.
But it's fighting the tool. Unless one has a strong commitment to minimalism, or a kitchen/galley which demands it, one is better off having other skillets for that. Wrought iron, carbon steel, stainless, pick a couple you like.
But to get that deep caramel crust on southern Johnny cake, you'll want cast iron. Fantastic for getting a deep even sear on a sous vide steak.
The reserve heat should be your friend.
I which I could find an alternative to non-stick woks. I’ve ordered a steel aluminium laminate. Maybe that will work.
So, er, don’t do that? Nice thing is, for that price, I can buy more than one pan!
And unlike other pans I can get it up to a searing temperature with enough heat storage that it actually sears.
All that being said, yeah, nonstick pans for $80 that only last a year? Ok. They are worth it. So we have both. Yes and a wok.
The one I have is like this (around $ 20 USD):
https://www.apaneladeferro.com.br/frigideira-de-ferro-fundid...
I cook everything on it: steak, fish, eggs, sautéed tomatoes, etc.
> They are easy to clean ( with one of these)
I never have to clean it with anything, just wash ;)
If you have to scrape, either you burned the food or it wasn’t seasoned. You don’t need to do anything special to season, just cook everything on it and don’t scrape clean.
It’s funny for us Americans to watch our fellow Americans go through their “cast iron is amazing” phase. Cast iron is actually very common here as well, but many young people start with a cheap nonstick pan and only later discover that there is a range of cookware options available.
In reality, an experienced cook will use a variety of cookware for different tasks. Having cast iron, non-stick, stainless steel, and enameled cookware available is very common.
I appreciate cast iron, but this trend of worshipping it as the one true cookware is funny. Good nonstick pans are amazing when used properly and replaced when they wear out.
There is worse stuff in tap water.
The old griswald pans are prized by bargain hunters because of their near glass like smoothness. I dated someone that had a huge collection she'd found via craigslist and the like. Cooking with the smaller pans was really fun.
I've been using the same two nonstick pans for years now and can't say I have that problem (I only use wood/plastic on them).
I'm still concerned about the chemicals used though.
I had a very high-quality non-stick skillet, only used wood/plastic utensils, and the non-stick coating started coming off after about three years (of pretty heavy use).
I plan to have it refurbished, there are (at least in Germany) services where they sand-blast your skillet and apply a new coating. Seems wasteful to throw away the entire skillet for that.
I went through half a dozen non-stick pans over a 5 year period that all had their coatings fail. After having expensive brands with lifetime warranties fail on me due to poor build quality, I swore off of them and went with hard anodized and haven't had an issue since.
So you need either a pizza stone or cast iron pan to transfer a lot of heat fast. I bought a skillet since it costs the same, I have more control over the pizza making process (e.g. browning the bottom on the stove before putting it in the oven), and can use it for steaks and such.
One of the great things about the Internet though is that there is truly a wealth of information out there to learn these things. I was an okay cook before the pandemic, but I spent most of my free time during lockdown learning how to cook and even found an online culinary school I could take classes through. It made a massive massive difference both in the quality of my output and the level of frustration I experienced during the process. I went from dreading cooking to really enjoying it as a form of zen.
If you use the right techniques to match your tools, everything starts to come together easily.
DeBuyer carbon steel pans are the same price as Lodge cast iron and are much lighter and better for certain tasks. The handle is a lot longer too, which makes it more fun to use than cast iron.
I recently bought a new cast iron skillet and it just doesn’t seem to be of the same quality, it’s a lighter colour and doesn’t seem to season as well. Are there different grades of cast iron, or are they just not made like they used to be?
Then I got an induction stove. I now consider cast iron to be overrated.
The heat retention makes an induction stove pretty pointless (apart from the energy efficiency I suppose) with cast iron.
I'm getting old and my wrists aren't as good as they used to be, so slinging around cast iron pans and pots really hurts after a while.
I bought various sizes of Tefal Hard Titanium+ pans and I really like the weight, ease of cleaning, but most of all the heat reactivity.
Might look into carbon steel, but I'm a bit wary of how it's going to be to clean.
If you have experience maintaining cast iron, the process is the same for carbon steel, both when it comes to cleaning and seasoning. They're very similar. I basically just treat carbon steel as a thinner and lighter version of cast iron (and the thinness changes certain attributes such as heat retention)
Carbon steel is very much like cast iron: it's easy to keep clean and seasoned, but some people like to make more elaborate rituals for whatever reason. I'd say it's easier to keep clean that cast iron typically actually, as it usually has a smoother surface finish, and having to herc a big heavy pan around in a sink is a legit annoyance.
However… I always keep one nonstick pan in the kitchen, and it sees a fair bit of use. My practice is to buy something cheap, since I’ve found that the nonstick coating will last only so long, even on an expensive pan. By not spending much, I avoid feeling upset when it’s time for a replacement. (My current one came from IKEA, for about 15 EUR. I expect to get a year out of it.)
My number #1 accessory for cast iron is a Duxtop Induction Cooktop (one burner). If you can't find it yourself on Amazon I would skip the cast iron skillet and work on that skill first. <snark/>. Someone commented on the heat retention but I find that with an induction cooktop I get very good temperature control. Maybe its just me, but I just don't notice a problem and I am picky about my eggs.
Another person commented on cast iron woks and I echo that. I found a flat bottom cast iron wok (and again you can probably find it yourself on Amazon) and it works very well with the induction cooktop. Probably better with a gas stove that blasts heat, but for me I can cook things (fried rice with eggs) that are much better than any other method I know of.
Just my 2 cents and an apology if that is not an affiliate link. I am so used to seeing them and wondering if the review is affected by the profit that I now suspect everyone. I don't mind so much when people announce them.
Err, why are you asking us that when you can simply look at the links yourself? (Since the very presence of your question could taint the author’s post, I will tell you - they’re not. Affiliate links contain a tag=xxxx parameter).
Writing a multi-paragraph rant based on an easily debunked suspicion isn’t a great idea.
> Being able to use metal utensils on a skillet is so nice. I can really scrape food off the pan without worrying about chipping the paint.
The multiple mentions about scraping make me think the author has some unconventional cooking techniques, like using too high of heat or not using enough fat, this should basically never be happening with pans that are even a little bit nonstick.
> after spending $150+ on a all-clad non-stick pan, which died after a year or so of heavy use, I realized this was not the way
If this is referring to the All-Clad hard-anodized aluminum pans then I definitely think something is odd is going on here. I have used these nearly daily for years now, including washing them in the dishwasher, and while they have shown some wear, they are still performing perfectly. They also have a lifetime warranty like the rest of All-Clad's products. They are also not that expensive—currently $70 for a two pack:
https://www.amazon.com/All-Clad-E785S264-Anodized-Nonstick-D...
I have transitioned the opposite direction of the author. I used to use cast iron, and now I never do because of the All-Clad HA1 line. They can be washed in the dishwasher, are much lighter to handle, are metal utensil-safe, and can go up to 500 degrees in the oven. If they ever break, All-Clad will fix them for free.
Again, dishwasher. This alone is just so much better than cast iron.
There's been a lot of discussion in the cast iron fanatic circles about how terrible Lodge's pre-seasoning is and how it's better to build up your own. I own one Lodge and two other brands and I've noticed the other two I seasoned myself are basically as good as Teflon and the Lodge (which admittedly hasn't seen as much cooking) sticks like it doesn't have any seasoning at all. YMMV I guess but I feel like it's worth putting in the effort to season yourself and keep up the seasoning.
There are a dozen mutually exclusive methods for seasoning cast iron. I’ve never found one that works as well or as simply as advertised. In a 1bd apartment, the seasoning process will make it difficult to breathe for nearly the full process unless you have incredible ventilation. Stripping the previous seasoning after burning something (only once, but it mentally scarred me, as you might be able to tell from the ranting… ;)) is incredibly difficult. So much steel wool. So much elbow grease. That was the final time for me, and I gave up after several weekends without being able to get the burnt odor to go away. There is a limit to how many hours I’m willing to invest in cookware, and it was not much higher than ten. You are welcome to call me lazy over it. :)
Jokes aside, you can buy some flax oil, wipe it on thin, and let the pan sit a few months and the oils will polymerize on their own in a few months. Or, you can buy a naturally pre-polymerized boiled linseed oil (flax oil that has been heated--just make sure you get one without chemical dryers like Tried & True brand) and it'll polymerize on its own in a few days. Likely it'll still smoke a little bit when you cook.
But you could also get a cheap hotplate and take it outside if you're really worried about the smoke. You don't need to use the oven method, just use a very, very thin coating of oil, bring it up to temp slowly and hold it there. Cast iron is a decent heat conductor, so you can get good coverage.
People get way too obsessive about seasoning cast iron, like it's magic to get a good seasoning and a horror if the seasoning gets stripped away. It's not. Badly damaged seasoning is like 10 minutes inconvenience.
I use it for steaks because they are hard to sear in other cookware. The cleanup and seasoning processes make cast iron hard to use for anything else. I plan to get a ceramic one (with iron core) but even if it solves the seasoning process and the cleanup process, it isn't the best to sear steaks in it.
My point is that each tool has its use and in this specific case, cast iron is not the tool for everything.
https://www.wasserstrom.com/restaurant-supplies-equipment/pa...
These pans are pre-seasoned and ready for use.
I feel like carbon steel is the biggest secret that people outside the restaurant biz are oblivious to. I have cast iron, but my carbon steel gets used much, much more.
Stainless steel is perfect for searing. Easier to maintain than cast iron too.
A well seasoned cast iron pan lets me move the steak or burger round and build up a nice coat on it.
To sear steak in any pan (not Teflon):
Pat steak dry with paper towel. Brush with thin layer of high-heat oil. Season with coarse salt & fresh cracked pepper. Heat any pan (except Teflon) until Leidenfrost effect occurs. Put steak on pan, wait about 1 minute per 3 oz. Afterward, gently nudge steak with tongs; if it moves freely it's ready to flip, if not leave it on longer. Higher heat will result in more intense charring/crust, but will accelerate the process (will not have a significant effect on cooking of inner meat). After you flip, either reduce the heat halfway through cooking (won't work with cast iron) or plan to remove meat about 3/4 way through cook time. Remove to cutting board and rest 10 minutes [per lb]. Serve.
A dry surface + oil + very hot pan + wait until there's a crust is the secret to never getting the steak stuck. The oil ensures uniform heating and good heat transfer which will result in a more uniform crust and less sticking. You can go without oil but it can still stick if the steak wasn't dry enough or your pan wasn't hot enough or the surface is scratched. You could use butter but it'll burn.
Sometimes people mention rust and it’s true as well. We washed it many times in dishwasher and it’d rust. But then scrape it with a scraper, oil it and heat it until oil polymerizes - voila you’ve your pan good as new.
Oh and if you need to cook tomatoes, get enameled cast iron skillet - you’re not going to go back ever to non-stick.
I often want to de-glaze the pan after cooking the meat to make a pan sauce. I have had issues sometimes if the sauce is too acidic the seasoning starts flaking up.
I don't understand how people cook eggs in cast iron. I have an antique cast-iron pan with the smooth surface and a pretty good seasoning but it's not even as nonstick as my crappy old ceramic non-stick pans. I do like my eggs to be very soft and delicate but maybe its okay for crispy fried eggs.
Overall I think it's worth having one since they're cheap, even though they're only really great at a few things.
I have also cast iron and I polished and seasoned the living shit out of it and it still sticks omelette. For delicate things like eggs I use an non stick pan from tefal for 10€ that I buy new every 2 years….. why not? It works way better than stainless and way way way better than cast iron.
The only advantage of cast iron is heat retention but this is solved with reinforced stainless steel.
Btw copper is for sauces and marmelade … got them too….
Here some other downsides of cast iron…
You have to maintain it realy well with regular seasoning and cleaning. You cant clean it with a ironsponge. Acid stuff will atack it. And du you realy want whatever this seasoning is in your food? That stuff has to be polychained burned oil. And Iron is one of the most agresive free radicals that you can pump in your bloodstream ;)
Ps: I am french so I am a complette ashole if its about cooking
My biggest "pro" for cast iron is that it's incredibly easy to clean without worrying about ruining the pan. Our stainless steel pan gets scratched if I look at it wrong, even using the rough side of the sponge. Not sure if we just have the wrong pan, or worry about scratches more than we should?
For our cast iron I use chainmail if there's every anything stuck on hard. For the stainless steel I feel a lot more out of luck! Metal utensils, soap, rough side of the sponge, I'm never worried about it!
Thats my problem with cast iron. I cant be rough with them
At the end most pans work good if used correctly and its a personal preference ;)
Yes, on seasoning, as you explain, it's easy, natural, would be tough to avoid, is good to have and easy to maintain. The common complicated descriptions seem to be to make the authors look like they have some advanced, tricky expertise -- nope, it's all just dirt simple.
If have a cover, then can also use the pair effectively as a stove top oven, e.g., for pizza, as in my
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32433275
For a pot, say, 6 quarts, stainless steel with a thick aluminum bottom bonded on the outside can also work well.
But really having a pan that you can abuse, and all it takes to get back to cooking trim is a little oil is great. note there are some real artists with seasoning pans out there, and if you look online you will probably find one, but I don't bother with any of that, I rub a little oil on it after I clean it and if I am feeling especially diligent I will get the pan hot. 10% of the effort for 90% of the result.
As sibling commenters have mentioned, smooth vs. rough does seem to make a difference.
Source: I have cast iron like these and use it to comfortably cook eggs and food where sticking would be a problem all the time.
Unlike several other commenters here, it absolutely hasn’t seemed like a tool ‘mostly for steaks’. In fact I cook most things in cast iron, carbon steel wok or finally fall back to stainless if neither is appropriate.
> you have to use soft plastic utensils or else it'll scratch the coating
Yes, and? Don't use metal utensils
Yes, the coating wears off eventually, but if you're careful it goes a long way
I wouldn't stand using a cast iron pan for everyday use.
The wok is very versatile. I use it for most things by default.
The skillet is great for pan frying.
The dutch oven is great for braising without me stirring it too often.
Cast iron is situational because it has large heat opacity: you can think of it as a pizza stone for pan frying.
The advantage is you can compensate by long preheating if your stove is inferior.
The disadvantage is it's slow to respond: When you turn to high it delays a while, when you want to lower the temperature you still need to wait.
- it's really heavy, you really need two hands to take them sometimes if the food is heavy
- the handle is so small, and that plastic to protect the handle from the heat does not feel safe
- Keep the heat too long, sometimes I forget it is hot and burned myself
Non-sticky pan are quite light. I need to change mine soon (because the teflon is gone now). Maybe some have some recommendation of better cast iron?
No. No you cannot. You can cook a cut of meat commonly called a ‘roast’, but you sure as heck aren’t actually getting all of the culinary results of roasting.
It was fun going through airport security with it, too.
Personally I'm not really that worried about PFAS uptake from non-sticks for my one non-stick meal per day, but it'd still be interesting to know the most efficient way to do things outside of non-stick.
The blunt truth is teflon pans are the best tool for eggs. There's alternatives you can make work, but nothing quite as good. So most of us just have a dedicated egg pan.
Seasoned carbon steel is probably your best bet for eggs outside of teflon. Its surface is usually smoother, and it seems to take the seasoning a bit different.
But since that ceramic coating came out a few years ago, I bought one and didn't need a replacement since.
Right now my main pan is from a Kickstarter campaign (Stur). Plus a sticky metal one where that's enought.
Whenever I’ve washed up an iron pan I always put it back on the heat with some oil. You can literally see the water bubbling out of the surface as the pan gets hot and the water boils off.
That’s not what’s happening - there are no ‘microscopic’ gaps that water is getting in to, iron is too dense for that.
Earthenware pots are pretty specific but should be safe too.
Is their ceramic glaze safe? Or do you mean unglazed only?
Also, now that air friers are all the rage and they all seem to have a non stick coating and they are heating said coating more than a skillet would, are they basically poisoning us?
[0]: https://www.greenpan.nl/ (sorry Dutch website, but if you search for greenpan on amazon you will also find these pans)
I’ve seen greenpans perform about the same in terms of non-stickiness and durability as regular nonstick pans.
In light of https://www.leafscore.com/eco-friendly-kitchen-products/why-... and my own personal experiences I am deeply skeptical of “ceramic” nonstick being any safer than typical PFOA-free but PFAS-containing nonstick pans.
In fact I suspect (and 2-3 years ago confirmed) that most “ceramic” nonstick pans are still coated in teflon like materials. Possibly GreenPan isn’t, but they also won’t tell you what they ARE coated with…so I’m pretty sure they know they’re doing something dirty.
AFAICT there are a few that truly don't have teflon, but most will lie
It was still cheaper than a cast iron pan and the amount of time I save cooking is enormous.
Having destroyed the seasoning on a great many cast irons, this is a remarkable sentence to me.
Honestly, the reason why I love my cast iron is because of how lazy and rough I can be with it. I rarely clean my cast iron unless I leave oil in there for weeks or there is a ton of residue from sauce or something. I use scrap out the bottom with a metal spatula and call it a day.
(It’s important to let it get to right temperature first, which takes longer for cast iron, and should be slowly to get even heat)
In practice hard anodized aluminium is the best compromise for people that aren't cookware geeks.
When it comes to cast iron this is clearly false. In the US, there are thousands of cast iron pans still hanging around that were used for decades or generations by non-rich non-“cookware geeks” who gasp used soap on their cast iron cookware and didn’t treat their cast iron cookware as if it were a delicate snowflake. Instead they just cooked with it, cleaned it how they wanted to, and nothing went horribly wrong.
Stainless Steel is also somewhat hard to care for.
The post glossed over this, but it is certainly possible to damage your seasoning, especially if something you're cooking sticks to the pan. However, this doesn't mean you need to do some day-long "reseasoning" process that involves stripping the whole thing and baking it in the oven. Just clean the pan, put some oil in it, put it on the burner, and rub the oil in with a balled up paper towel until it gets hot. Do this after you cook until you build up a good seasoning and then stop. If your seasoning gets damaged for any reason, just rub some oil into it after you cook until it's good again.
The key for me was learning to care for carbon steel woks. It's basically the same as cast iron, but there's a lot less misinformation and internet superstition out there.
Unless you want everything you cook in the cast iron pan to smell like what was burned in it for weeks, you really do. Or, hear me out: buy a new cast iron. The seasoning process is really onerous, but the manufacturer does it in bulk, and a new cast iron is typically cheaper than a quality nonstick pan. The incredible inconvenience of re-seasoning has made me want to never do it again after a few attempts over the last dozen years in various apartments. Nope.
When everything is working, cast iron seems great: quick brush off, slight bit of oil to rub in while it's still warm, done. When a spot of rust appears, or large spots on the interior become matte while the rest is shiny (or the reverse), or you're using it as a dutch oven and burn a steak, well, that's when the nightmare begins. After several weekends of attempting to get that smell out and get it re-seasoned, I gave up, left it in the leave/take area of my then building, and bought a new one. But I haven't used that one much, because I know it's only a matter of time until something happens and I am faced with the whole process again.
I don’t find it very high maintenance at all.
Cooking food? Buy a spray to oil it! Buy a nonstick pan that will last a year. Buy dishwashing soap! And cool washing up brushes that dispense the soap! It’s not clean unless you scrubbed it back down to the state it arrived in! Keep buying those products!
It’s too much work to clean an iron skillet! Well you don’t clean it: you just wipe it. What??? No you must clean it! Dawn says so!
Etc
You do have to be careful about scratching anodized stuff too. The anodization will scratch and flake off if hit with hard material like steel. But again it's usually not anodized material directly in contact with the cooking surface since they put nonstick there.
But if you had non-stick pans you wouldn't need to scrape food off them.
I believed this before reading the article.
Is it commonly accepted wisdom that this is bunk?
I always use dish soap, and it will definitely take off any oil that hasn't been polymerised.
I think the people who believe this (and use cast iron) probably haven't seasoned it hot enough or have scraped off the seasoning close enough to the metal.
It is true that dish soap used to be much more aggressive, and those soaps can cause issues for pan seasoning (and also for your skin…), but those soaps haven’t been sold (in any meaningful quantity) in decades.
You can even cook eggs on stainless steel pan, no need for non stick stuff.
https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=false&qu...
Buy a cheap nonstick skillet, use it until it doesn't work. Repeat. You'll be happy you did.
Or cook on a stainless steel rod over an open fire.
The ‘unhealthier’ the oil, the better it will season!
Cast iron is forever.
- Coat your iron with a heat-tolerant oil (peanut, avocado, ...) in such a way that it won't spill or make much of a mess. This usually includes very thin layers and maybe a drip pan.
- Cook it at 350-480F for 5-120 min. This often involves an oven, but you can do fine just bringing the pan up to high heat with some oil for a minute or two before you cook anything.
- Repeat as necessary.
The seasoning isn't critical for most dishes. Don't overthink it; just get the pan roaring hot once in awhile and start cooking in it. If you do manage to screw it up somehow (you probably won't), half a minute with some steel wool will make it easy to start over and try again.
With modern microwave-fridges, I can place my food in and leave it chilled out until it's ready to cook. A simple tap of the app starts it cooking for me and it's ready as soon as I open my apartment door.
This plus my regular, drone-delivered meal replacement shakes mean I never have to waste time worrying about skillets or whatever ancient tech this guy is rambling about.