Hacker News Reader

I'm a fairly poor cook and I have to say, the "make a French omelette on a cast iron" challenge is just about the easiest challenge I've ever done. Cast iron + butter is incredibly non-sticky (ditto for carbon steel, which has the same seasoning properties but is thinner). I've read online so many times that French omelettes are The Reason to use nonstick pans; I was shocked when I first tried making one on seasoned carbon steel. It just didn't stick at all. I suppose it makes sense, though: how else were French omelettes made prior to the invention of Teflon?

And my first attempt was just on a cheap pre-seasoned Lodge pan and it worked like a dream. It's not particularly finicky and didn't require meticulous labor — the seasoning is way less physically delicate than nonstick coatings.

What brand of pans do you recommend?

Lodge is reasonably good and cheap for both cast iron and carbon steel — they're a bit less pretty than the higher-end stuff because they have the pebbly look of unsanded steel, but in practice it doesn't make a huge difference for cooking. Solidteknics pre-seasoned pans are amazing, but pricier, and are a nice hybrid between cast iron and carbon steel (and they're smooth, like vintage cast iron / carbon steel).

In general I would recommend buying pre-seasoned pans — the initial seasoning is the laborious part, but with pre-seasoned pans you just skip all of that. Maintaining seasoning is pretty easy, it's basically just "use the pan" and "don't put the pan in the dishwasher." If it looks like it's getting old or messed up, just wipe a tiny bit of oil on it and cook at high heat.

Personally I also think carbon steel (or Solidteknics "wrought iron") are better than cast iron — they're lighter, heat up faster and more evenly, and they're still pretty durable. But they're a bit more expensive, and they all are similarly not-sticky.

Yeah, agree on both fronts, carbon steel is wonderful.

I wanted to add, regarding cast iron, you can always sand the pan down a bit to smooth out the surface.

On of the biggest benefits to iron or steel cookwear is that you can easily remove and re-apply the non-stick coating. Lodge has the directions on their website. Just make sure you buy pans that have oven safe handles as you bake them repeatedly with a thin layer of oil to build up the seasoning.

We do crepes and eggs on some old lodge ware cast iron skillet.

Behold my l33t level 10 cookware maintenance skillz:

We got it on sale for like $20, new, but then I accidentally left outside for a few years, which created some rust spots.

I fixed it by hitting it with a stainless steel pot scrubber and dawn for about 120 seconds, then put it in the oven at 350F with some canola oil on it for about an hour.

These days, I scrub it with a nylon brush (no soap) or wipe it out with a paper towel.

I've never been able to do a decent crepe or egg in non stick, due to uneven heating.

shrug

I threw out all our nonstick stuff after I observed the coating routinely coming off into food.

The exception is for eggs, we have a dedicated pan we only use for them, and although I've just read the other comments here about how easy it is to fry an egg in other pans, I find it goes much better in nonstick. And only frying eggs + using a plastic spatula seems to pretty much eliminate any wear on the coating.

I polished up a lodge cast iron pan to get a smooth finish, seasoned it properly with grape seed oil, and cook with butter. It works so well, it feels like I'm using a non-stick pan.

Not sure why, but using a little butter instead of oil seemed to be the key.

I use butter with either my cast iron or stainless steel frying pans, and my eggs turn out better than they ever did on non-stick. I think simply using butter or olive oil makes cooking easier but also more flavorful.

I wouldn't trust plastic in a pan.

I cook scrambled eggs in a stainless pan with a decent amount of butter (about 20% butter). It's actually pretty easy to clean. Soak the pan in water for five minutes and use a steel wool brush and everything comes off easily. Many people recommend seasoning pans by overheating polyunsaturated fats; screw that it also creates a bunch of bad chemicals. Your number one concern should be health, then taste second. Chefs' obviously have different priorities so don't care what they have to say. Most restaurants produce unhealthy food containing a lot of sugar, processed oils and sodium but that tastes good as that's what customers demand.

> especially eggs

Cooking eggs on a stainless pain isn't particularly difficult, you just need to change your technique and use quite a bit more preheating along with more oil or butter than you traditionally would for a non-stick pan. So, it's useful in that sense, but it's not as if we wanted for pan fried eggs before non-stick existed.

Here is the quote from Jacques Pepin about the utility of non-stick, starts at 1:35, https://www.nytimes.com/video/dining/100000001116746/jacques...

Basically, yes, it's certainly possible to get non-stick properties with a well-seasoned, very well-maintained pan. But even someone like Pepin, who has more than enough knowledge and experience to keep a pan in good working order, went the route of "that's too finicky, nonstick is just easier."

Making eggs on stainless steel is definitely more difficult... I'd say it's pretty easy with cast iron or carbon steel though, which were the traditional ways to make eggs pre-nonstick pans.

> along with more oil or butter than you traditionally would for a non-stick pan

Which means you're trading one health benefit for another.

The low-fat diet myth was dispelled years ago by more rigorous scientific studies. I grew up for decades thinking butter led to heart attacks but that was a criminally bad pseudoscience that people accepted as fact for almost the entire duration of my life, and it makes me angry that I got fooled for so long.

I think the evidence that low-fat diets, popularized by the now infamous food pyramid in the early 90s, were a colossally bad idea is pretty irrefutable these days.

However, the jury is still out (rightfully, IMO) on saturated fats, and there is plenty of good science that says to be wary of them (yet, still not as open-and-shut as is often reported in the health media). I think this article gives a good, fair overview: https://www.health.harvard.edu/staying-healthy/the-truth-abo.... It references this meta-analysis, https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/20071648/, that found that saturated fat did not lead to greater heart or cardiovascular disease, but there are some fair criticisms of their methodology, e.g. https://academic.oup.com/ajcn/article/92/2/458/4597393

But, in any case, yes, for decades the nutrition experts in this country recommended replacing fats with carbohydrates and that was just horrible advice that wasn't supported by the science.

I posted upstream in favor of nonstick pans, but I will say that oil and butter can be part of a perfectly healthy diet. I'm less sure about fluorocarbons

What is the difficulty with fish and eggs? I ask because I used to use eggs to deglaze my cast iron skillet. Cook something and then when I'm done cook scrambled eggs in it to soak up all the debris. As a plus side the eggs have the flavor of whatever you're cooking.

(To be clear, I'm really interested in what the issue is. This isn't meant to be asking a question as a form of sarcasm.)

There are many egg preparation methods, e.g. a French omelette or over-easy or sunny-side up, where a non-stick surface (and here I mean either a non-stick pan like Teflon or a well-seasoned traditional pan) is essential. Using scrambled eggs to deglaze an iron skillet definitely isn't one of these methods.

It's absolutely not essential for over-easy or sunny-side up (I don't know what a French omelette is). I just use butter or olive oil, and they turn out better now than they ever did without burning or sticking.

I watched your video you linked to, and all that Jacques Pepin said was that it was easier to use a non-stick pan. But he didn't say it was essential at all. He just said it was easier, which I think we can all agree upon.

I have a fantastic antique dutch enameled cast iron omelette pan. It is amazing.