How to Choose Cookware (2014)
centurylife.org
centurylife.org
If someone wants to get into cooking their own meals to save money, the advice I would give is: go to Goodwill, or a store like TJ Maxx or Ross, where they sell this stuff for almost nothing. Buy the heaviest skillet and saucepan they have. Then buy a colander, some spatulas, scrapers, and tongs, and an 8-10" chef's knife and, if they have one, a honing steel. When you want to make soup, buy a stock pot. Subscribe to some YouTube channels and recipe blogs, and if they make some dish that looks good, but you don't have the right equipment, buy what they use, or something like it. Don't buy everything on day one, and don't get the impression that you have to get the right model of equipment or cooking somehow won't work.
Same with knife set. I had this Amazon basic knife set for long time with regular sharpening it seems to have lasted longer than I'd expect for a 40 dollar knife set.
I am cook everyday, eat out few times a year type of person. So cooking utensils and knives do get use heavily in house.
For that small benefit, non-stick pans have become almost the default. They last a couple of years depending on care which means that your cookware is now a consumable as well was difficult to recycle. A decent stainless steel pan costs about twice what a decent non-stick does and lasts forever. It can also go in the dishwasher and works on every hob type. The best basic advice for the majority of people to make regarding cookware is: get stainless steel except for when frying eggs.
The advice in TFA is sort of similar but a lot longer. To be honest I think it could have omitted all the "$1000 budget" stuff - the people who want to buy copper/carbon steel aren't doing so based on a starter guide.
I just don't think normies are interested in something which requires technique and understanding. Stainless steel requires some level of temperature control.
If people don't know how to cook to the point where they are burning food based on what type of pan they are using, then I would argue they don't know how to cook... very few everyday dishes need to start on a ripping hot pan.
And no, you don't want to set it to the max, that's a common mistake.
Tough audience. Of all the people who have ever come to my house none has ever had a thing to say about cookware.
Also cooking is a social activity.
I’ll do the prep, cooking, cleaning, hosting, and everything else, thank you. If you want something, ask and it will be given, but to think of my guests _working_ when I’m hosting is far from my nature and far from how I’ve experienced being a guest.
I’d invite you to come and cook with me if I wanted you to cook with me, but if you arrive as a guest under no circumstances would I expect, nor want them to be doing anything in the kitchen or around the house, personally.
It depends on the nature of the event and of the guests.
Stainless, and even coated stainless like Zwilling Clad sticks with many meals, unless you're using massive amount of oil or never stop moving it in the pan. Even a dollar store PTFE pan is better if you dislike using a scouring pad and effort to clean it.
My time is worth more than replacing a $30 PTFE pan every 10 years if I can pretty much wipe it clean with a damp cloth. Compared to seeing a burned-on mess that I know will require 10 minutes of scrubbing.
Why would you do such a thing? It breaks my frying pan heart.
Be gentle, clean with oil, wipe off excess. It will love you back.
By comparison, you can soak a stainless steel pan in water for weeks with basically zero negative consequences.
Also, if you live in a culture that frequently cooks acidic dishes, then you're working against yourself by dissolving the seasoning constantly. I also understand that it's fine in moderation.
Carbon steel is fine.
Didn’t do anything special with it at the beginning. Just used it. Basically zero maintenance.
I just wash it with a wire brush and some salt.
> I just wash it with a wire brush and some salt.
That sounds like a bit > zero maintenance, relative to other types that you can either just soak with water or stick in the dishwasher.
I meant no rituals around being careful not to remove “layers”, an original sealing process or other nonsense
Our stove almost always has a 10" dutch oven, 6" pan, and 10" pan sitting on it, ready to use.
Cast iron heats more evenly and with more thermal mass retains the even steady temperature more readily against swings as you add ingredients.
You can get this benefit without the cleaning weirdness by getting an enamel covered cast iron cookware. Great for dutch ovens!
Stainless is pretty mediocre about this which is why aluminum cored steel pans can be nice.
That's what all the annoying weight buys you.
When cast iron is brand new it can take a bit of work, but not a terrible amount - most of the "seasoning" happens just by using it. The two main downsides are things I actually like - the weight, and the lack of even heat distribution.
Maybe I’m just not used to it and need to adjust something, but the cast iron at this point is dead easy to use.
Later you might want a steamer insert, but they are made so that they fit in any pot. You might also want a baking dish for roasting stuff. There is nothing to know about buying those, just get cheapest one in the size you want.
IKEA's stainless steel cookware is perfectly cromulent.
> Given all of the above, stainless steel is the best material to use [...]
> The most critical cookware pieces are a skillet, a saucepan, and a stockpot.
I guess I'm a bit frustrated by the internet-hobbyisation that I see of cooking. People are talking about "when it's time to upgrade" your cookware as if cooking is a sport that you need to excel at and where your score can be limited by your pots and pans.
I've been cooking enthusiastically my entire adult life and I've never "upgraded" my cookware, nor my knives for that matter (also "a set of knives" are not necessary, unless perhaps if you are butchering meat you only need one knife).
I'm not saying people shouldn't enjoy nerding out over kit if it makes them happy (I do have a very expensive coffee grinder after all) but I object to Experts providing Advice that it's necessary or that there are any important decisions to be made here.
I think it's also a bit of a reaction to British class signalling where some people of my parents generation will loudly proclaim that you Absolutely Must Have at least one good Le Creuset pot. At least to tide you over until you get married and you can have a full set.
For any other food, stainless steel is great for beginners. It's oven safe, easy to clean if/when you burn the crap out of something, and relatively cheap.
The other important recommendation I would make is cookware with tight fitting lids (or learn how to make one with foil). This excludes IKEA for the most part, whose pans I have in my apartment right now.
Once you decide that you want to "upgrade" something, I would recommend a nice Dutch oven with a heavy lid.
Why not? Nonstick cookware scratches easily, aren't heat resistant silicone utensils a good way to avoid damaging them?
Not sure what you mean? Lids should cover the top, but they need to rest loosely so that steam building up pressure can escape.
I don't even know what a "tight fitting lid" means (unless you're talking about a pressure cooker). Or why you would want one.
I apologize for my inaccuracy when describing the “tightness” of the lid. Sometimes I get caught up in jargon that is common amongst veteran cooks.
Or a wooden spoon. The ones without a surface coating are not always easy to find, but they’re very cheap, don’t melt, and last for years.
You just never have used the truly cheap stuff. Don’t get a coated baking sheet/pan unless the coating is something durable like enamel. But any respectable aluminum or steel-clad half sheet pan is just fine.
No cast iron - it just takes too long to heat and to cool.
That is really all. Nothing fancy. Turn on the duxtop, it gets hot. To the same temp each time. Turn it off. There is no heat. If you use carbon steel the cooking stops almost immediately.
The need for expensive, fancy pans goes away because the heat is so consistent, reliable and fast. I have tried many ways to stir fry with both gas and electric and they just can't do it. Stir frying with an induction burner and carbon steel wok is a breeze and fun and just works.
As for non-stick. Want to cook eggs that don't stick? Heat the carbon steel until it just starts to smoke. Then add oil and let it smoke a little for 10 or 15 seconds. Done. Add the eggs, no stick.
If you have to cook for twenty people a single duxtop will not work, but then, just get a second one. In my experience that is all there is to it.
Most my by pans are De Buyer carbon steel. I do have some stainless steel pots and pans for when I need them. A couple cast iron pieces mostly use my Dutch oven.
Regarding woks, it's definitely possible to get some nice high temperatures even in the apartment where your only option is electricity. I have a carbon steel wok with a round bottom and I got myself an additional concave induction cooktop from a store that sells equipment to restaurants. I paid about $170 for it, normally it goes for about $300. It is rated 3.5KW and 220C. Frying food for about 10-20 seconds on the highest setting gives it a nice taste like you'd get in a restaurant.
1) Get some flakey oven biscuits-from-a-tube or thick sliced baguette and have them toasted, buttery, and ready on a plate for just before your eggs wrap up. After making it three times it becomes about obvious how to time these.
2) Get one of those infrared temperature thermometers you can aim down into your pots and pans. I get a pot just smaller than a pyrex bowl and boil water just beneath the bowl, a double boiler. Wait for the water to boil.
3) Toss some eggs (6 eggs is a nice breakfast for two with the biscuits) into the bowl. With a spatula, keep stirring the eggs while you monitor the temperature. Try to keep the temperature near the bottom of the glass around 70C, 160F or so. But keep the eggs constantly stirring. Literally dont put the spatula down once the eggs are in.
4) It can take like 10 minutes, but the eggs will start to thicken; if you're stirring them enough, they will be a homogenous, pleasant orange color. As they start to move beyond paint consistency, they will start to rapidly approach their end of cooking. When they just start to really thicken up, take the bowl out of the pot using a mitten. Bring the bowl to the plates with the biscuits, and put them on the plate.
There is no cheese, no butter required for the eggs. Some salt is nice. I've gotten a lot of compliments for these eggs; this recipe is one of the most common egg recipes out there and I dont know the name for it. My wife calls them 'Frenchy Eggs', I believe because of a technique origin I don't know. A rasher of bacon or ham is a lovely complement but it will not be the star compared to the eggs themselves.
You can spend the rest of the day washing that bowl with a scouring pad.
* Cast iron: this site implies that cast iron may not be safe, but it is the safest option if you need a little iron in your diet- most people do and an iron panel will tell you if your iron levels are too high. Safer than cast iron may be wrought iron- it is less likely to have accidental contamination issues [1]. Darto sells wrought iron pans at a reasonable price [2].
* Stainless steel- also a great option and this site does mention concerns of nickel leaching out. Nickel is not as concerning as lead contamination, but it is a concern for cooking acidic food. This site refers to all low nickel stainless steel as low quality, but there's a potential health advantage here to having a no nickel or low nickel pan even if it doesn't hold up as well.
* Rivets and other issues. I just bought a Noni no nickel stainless steel pan. It's made from a single piece of stainless, including the handle. [3] Rivets in pans can be contaminated with lead.
More details from XRF testing of cookware are here [4]. I also saw some other Century Life articles. They recommend silicone utensils but most silicone is contaminated with low levels of cadmium [5]. Undecorated wood is a safer bet. Century Life also mentions Le Creusset and enameled products without a discussion of lead contaminated. [6]
[1] https://www.eng-tips.com/viewthread.cfm?qid=302979 [2] dartointernational.com [3] https://www.solidteknics.com/solid-products/ [4] https://tamararubin.com/2021/01/i-want-to-buy-some-nontoxic-... [5] https://tamararubin.com/?s=silicone [6] https://tamararubin.com/category/le-creuset-cast-iron/
See the section on cast iron:
>I can’t really recommend cast iron and carbon steel for most people. Cast iron/carbon steel pans are heavy (heavier than any other cookware of comparable size and thus an automatic “no” for anyone with weak wrists/arthritis/etc.), require seasoning and sometimes re-seasoning by burning oil onto its surface (seasoning can wear off, and for those of you trying to escape Teflon nonstick, I’ve found no scientific studies about the long-term health effects of eating tiny particles of seasoning), require care to avoid rust (will all members of your household treat it right, including kids who might decide to soak the pan in water?), unevenly heat up and thus require more babysitting on the stove (constant stirring), can’t be used with acidic foods or the iron leaches and give off-tastes/colors (unless you get enameled cast iron pans but those cost a lot of money and still have the other disadvantages of cast iron, plus enamel is brittle and can chip), typically have horrible handle comfort that also get hot during cooking much faster than stainless handles would, can take longer to clean since you can’t just use abrasives or scour like you could with stainless steel, and takes a long time to heat up and cool down (which can hurt unaware pets/kids and also means higher energy bills). Cast iron is fine for low-heat stovetop cooking or oven use, but it’s not all-purpose the way other pans can be. You don’t even need a cast iron pan for searing: it’s a myth that only cast iron/carbon steel hold enough heat to sear meat without collapsing in temperature. Sure, thin aluminum nonstick pans crash hard in temperature. But thicker aluminum and copper pans can match or even beat cast iron, and the aluminum/copper-based pans also spread heat much more evenly. That’s not to say that you can’t cook with cast iron on the stovetop, but if the objective is to make cooking easier so that you’re more likely to eat healthy home cooking, then most people would be better off with something lower-maintenance and easier to use
It's tough to put into words how wrong this is. I'll agree on comfort, but I'll follow it up by saying it matters little. If you can't maintain cast iron because it's too complicated, you probably aren't an accomplished enough cook to be hand tossing things in the pan. Use both hands to move it, and a wooden spoon to stir with.
The list goes on: requires seasoning (yes, put it upside down in a hot oven for an hour with a thin layer of oil - simpler than cooking even the most basic of recipes), re-seasoning (with non-stick this is the point where you'd throw the pan out), there have been scientific studies that show health benefits, they heat unevenly and slowly, so just add 1-2 minutes preheating,
The great thing about cast iron for new cooks is that you cannot ruin them. Throw cold water in. Leave it to soak in the sink. Try your best to scratch it with a metal spatula. Leave tomatoe sauce in it overnight. In a year when your non-stick teflon pan is sticking, and your stainless steel tri-ply is coming apart, and your alumimun pan warped, get out the scrubber, scrub the rust off your cast iron, put a thin coat of vegetable oil on it, flip it over and bake it in the oven for an hour. Good as new.
A large anodized aluminium sauté pan is probably the best for normies, preferably on induction, while foodies will want carbon steel and an overpowered gas stove.
The true aficionados will also have silver-plated hand-hammered copper to do their Michelin star sauces.
0: https://www.sousvidetools.com/eu/thepolysciencecontrol-freak... ($1500~)
If I want to saute some onions, I can set it to 300F and focus on the onions. With a stove that controls power instead of temperature, I need to pay attention to how done the onions are as well as how hot the pan seems to be so I can adjust it. With a slowly-responding stove like an electric radiant stove, this is unpleasant.
This is an especially big deal when using a nonstick pan. A temperature-controlled stove is pretty good at automatically avoiding overheating it.
In particular if you want to cook with a wok, gas is much better.