Better than cast iron for me is enamled cast iron. It's not non-stick but it's extremely durable. Worth the price.
Cast iron leet
271–280 of 337 posts
Re: Cast iron leet
#272Once you master the cooking on stainless steel pan, it is a dream…
You can even cook eggs on stainless steel pan, no need for non stick stuff.
Re: Cast iron leet
#273In 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…
When my cast iron gets rusty I just keep cooking with it. The rust goes away. I assume into my food where it becomes an essential nutrient.
I don’t get the big deal about seasoning. I always cook with some sort of fat, so nothing sticks usually.
Re: Cast iron leet
#274Cast-Iron Cookware (CIC) blogspam: this appears on HN several times a year:
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.
Re: Cast iron leet
#275My only gripe with cast iron is the absurdly small handle that they almost always have. They are not designed to be handled well and in a stable way, especially with added weight from the food.
Re: Cast iron leet
#276Earlier quoted context omitted.
Personally - I find carbonsteel pans are basically my favorite ever. 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 stain…
> What's not to like? 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 abou…
Yeah, carbon steel is pretty much end game for me. Lighter than cast iron, better heat distribution, heats up faster. Similarly near-indestructible (more indestructible, even, since it won't shatter if you drop it). Slot a silicone handle cover on it and it's basically perfect.
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-...
Re: Cast iron leet
#277Earlier quoted context omitted.
I have a Lodge skillet I’ve been using and seasoning for a decade+ with a simple technique: After use, rinse, lightly scrub, with water and a little dish soap (basically what comes out of one squeeze of a sponge). Towel dry, apply a thin layer of canola oil over the cooking surface with a paper towel. Throw on medium heat over the stove for ~5 minutes. Done. I can pour maple syrup over salmon at high heat in that pan…
Personally instead of using soap as part of the seasoning process, I pour a bunch of Morton sea salt into the pan and a little bit of water, and abrade it that way with a sponge. It also has the benefit of creating a lovely matte finish at the end of the seasoning process. I've also found the seasoning process works better at each iteration this way. It's also how I clean the pans if I have to.
I clean the pan about 80% of the time with just salt and a paper towel. Pour salt in, rub it around, dump salt in the trash, marvel at how nice the pan looks (seriously, I have to admire it every single time).
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.
Re: Cast iron leet
#278Re: Cast iron leet
#279I read somewhere that iron and steel expand at a microscopic level, when heated, such that you can fill these small holes up with oil and get a non stick cooking surface. 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.
> 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.
I wonder what the phenomenon is then?
Re: Cast iron leet
#280In 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…
The real problem I have is that modern cast iron pans are extremely rough. Old cast iron pans are extremely smooth, by contrast. I suspect that accounts for a lot of the variance that people experience using cast iron.
It is possibe to have the cookimg surface in a cast iron pan smoothed and in my experience, worth it.