51–60 of 337 posts
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.
I agree overall, but there are a lot of misconceptions about cast iron that can give it a learning curve. 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…
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.
Cast iron is easier to deal with if you have an outdoor or really-well-ventilated oven for re-seasoning, which you'll have to do from time to time, in my experience. It's actually far, far easier to just get a new pre-seasoned cast iron pan (I also bought Lodge, as the fine article's author did), but if you're going to buy a new pan every year anyway, suddenly nonstick doesn't seem like a bad deal.
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.
In general I find that cast iron is very overrated. > 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…
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.
What really impressed me with cast iron skillets is how they actually get better with use. I bought my first cast iron skillet 10 years ago, originally it came with a relatively rough cooking surface. This meant that it was still somewhat sticky even after seasoning it. But now, 10 years later, the cooking surface has worn to a completely smooth state through constant use, it's very easy to cook anything on it withou…
My grandmother has some cast iron pans (one of which came from her mother) that are so smooth to the touch that it is hard to believe they are the same material as the gritty Lodge pans at the store. This is what I love most about these pans! It completely flips the script on our disposable culture and gives you something that just keeps improving as the decades go by!
Sorry to be skeptical, but are the links affiliate links? Added to that question is the question of the quality of the article. While I agree completely with the main point about using cast iron pans, I think the post glosses over some issues. To be clear I own two cast iron skillets and NO non-stick pans. But it ain't as easy as the post makes it. "Easy to clean" with a scrubbing net is misleading because it is only…
In general I find that cast iron is very overrated. > 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…
A downside of non-stick pans are the unknown side effects of the non-stick substance used, though.
The ‘unhealthier’ the oil, the better it will season!
This does miss one huge drawback of cast iron for cooking some dishes - heat control. Cast iron retains heat like crazy and doesn’t change quickly. Get that thing up to a searing temperature and it’ll be 10-15 minutes before you can get an egg anywhere near it for example. A thinner steel pan will heat up and cool down much rapidly allowing for a lot more control. Luckily there’s a fantastic non-nonstick option for t…
Carbon steel wok is only viable on a powerful gas stove. Right now where I live there is a campaign to get rid of gas stoves. And the existing ones are far, far from being powerful enough to use wok properly.