This has been my experience with cast iron. There’s so, so, so much conflicting information on them. Even in this thread.
I wish the Mythbusters would come back just to test via experimentation all these conflicting claims.
I use a wok and I wish I could use it for everything. I love that little damn thing to bits. I have only seasoned it twice (removed the previous one due to rust) and it can fry an egg fine.
It handles soap, tomatoes and other acidic foods fine as well. Didn’t use any fancy oil, just avocado oil.
My mom’s 300$ tephlon pans don’t even last more than 8 months without getting nicks. My Lil fella is 15 years old.
They want to brainwash into using expensive, disposable, products.
In all seriousness my cast iron never looses its seasoning and is the best non stick I have in my house. I refuse to go back to PFSA
Stainless steel I swear by though. Easy to clean and nothing sticks if you heat the oil properly.
While oil is necessary, It’s more about how you preheat it and your technique, rather than how you oil it; no amount of oil is going to save you from over crowding a cold pan.
Yep, the old hot pan cold oil technique you use with a traditional woks works well with cast iron, carbon steel, and stainless steel.
You basically get the pan as hot as you can, coat with enough to cover the pan with a thin layer of oil, and heat until smoking. Dump out your hot oil and add your cold oil and then your ingredients. If you get good at hot pan cold oil you can make just about anything nonstick.
you’re telling me the infomercial lied to me?!
Nah my cast only washes with hot water and small Scraper. If you need soap. We’ll you don’t like actualy don’t. Seasoning? Just cook bacon, dump the grease leave a bit in put it back on the stove for a hot minute or while you put your blt together. Done it’s hunk of metal not much you can do to fuck it up. And if food is sticking to it probably cause you didn’t get the pan hot enough before you put the food in.
Skillet issue
There is nothing wrong with putting cast iron in the dishwasher. I do it all the time.
If the dishwasher strips the seasoning, you seasoned it wrong
Let the weakness be washed away
Reject tradition. Embrace forever chemicals.
BerlingerHaus uses some kind of artifical stone instead of teflon. I’ve only got a grill pan so far but it’s easier to use and to clean than teflon. Surely wherever you are has something similiar?
Enameled cast iron is definitely a thing, our le cruset Dutch oven is a work horse
Also work very well for oven pizza 👍👍
Don’t these pans last like generations, being passed down? I doubt your grandma and her grandma were bothering to apply 8 coats of flaxseed oil and heating it up to 1000 degrees and the pans would still perform as expected for ages
Has anyone outside of a commercial kitchen ever actually destroyed a stainless steel pan though
Yes.
Apparently you can’t hear up tortillas in them without it forever getting scorch marks. I suppose only thing I haven’t tried is using a machine sander on it to try to remove it.
A straight angle grinder is better suited for that job
Yes. Intentionally though.
I’ve been using the cast iron pan handed down to me for like 30 years. It skipped a generation and went straight from my grandmother to me. I don’t know exactly how old it is though
If I know grandmas, I was probably purchased at Kmart in like 1996.
Most of this is true, I’ve never used cast iron in my life
Some of this is cast iron, I’ve been true my whole life.
True is some of this, I’ve been cast iron my whole life.
True iron is some of this, I’ve been cast my whole life.
My whole life is cast iron. I’ve been true for some of this.
Cast iron life been true. I’ve my is of this for whole.
That’s a skill issue. Get better.
*skillet issue
make me
I talked to your parents and they told me to tell you to get better.
Cue montage of hard work being done over an energetic Kenny Loggins song
🍳🍳🍳🍳🍳
+15XP
I’ll make you bb
I bought a $20 cast iron pan at target, I season it like once a year. I just wash it and make sure to dry it, I’m sure this is against the rules. Seems to work fine for me though. I wouldn’t say it’s nonstick but it’s mostly fine.
A $20 Teflon pan would be flaking and unusable, so for $20 it’s a good deal.
Do test cast iron pans for lead please. Even cheap ones from Target (especially cheap ones)
I bought those cheap marble coated pan, now entering 2 years of frequent use, other than tiny bit of degraded non-stick capability, it works just fine, didn’t even chip. I bought an expensive teflon once, it only last around half year before it start chipping. Teflon is just bottom tier coating now.
I also own a cheap cast iron skillet, cook with it frequently, wash with soap and only heat dry it, didn’t even bother with seasoning after washing, it now has a nice, smooth patina on it that mostly non-stick. I genuinely don’t get why people always baby a cast iron, it’s a hilux, not a cybertruck.
to answer your question, I’ve heard it described as half hobby/half pan. And quality can vary on the finish. Mine required a full restoration after a potato took the seasoning with it. Since then, low maintenance.
Damn. Whatever happened to that potato
Crossed the border with the seasoning literally tied to the roof rack of his car and hasn’t been heard from since. #nogoodpotats
I have a cast iron griddle that I use once a year at my mom’s house. I leave it in the outdoor grill when I’m done using it and don’t even clean it. The next time I go to use the grill, I take out the cast iron griddle and just leave it out in the elements and it rusts like crazy.
Then, the day I’m ready to use it again, I scour the shit out of it, heat it up to 500-600°, throw some oil on it like a greased up whore, and get the lowest quality seasoning on it.
Then I use it to grill some ears of corn so they don’t turn black from the soot of all the wood I burn to heat the outdoor grill. Once the corn is done cooking, I close off the grill and tell the cast iron griddle to go fuck itself.
That sounds like a waste of effort to me, but you do you.
lemm.ee has a profanity filter too?
I don’t see any censorship in that post.
lol look there’s one main benefit of cast iron: it holds heat really well. it is not easier to use or maintain than steel, but if you want something that holds a lot of heat, look no further
No, the main benefit is that it is made out of something edible that won’t give you cancer
Stainless steel is unreactive and is leeching less into your food than cast iron, if that’s your main concern. We already know that burned things are a carcinogen so why wouldn’t that include burned polymerized vegetable oil?
I think they mean Teflon coating. While Teflon itself is not carcinogenic, the chemicals used in its production are in the PFAS group and not so healthy. The question is then if those chemicals are sufficiently removed in the end.
Iron is literally a nutrient.
The one reason professional chefs don’t use it is because it doesn’t disperse the heat evenly tho
you heat it way up then use a low heat after it gets to temp. that’s a commercial issue
If you need even heat distribution, copper pans are the way to go
And they definitely need more babying than cast iron IMO, cast iron pans will take any and all abuse, then you can just clean & season them again and your pan is good as new
If you get cooper too hot, use the wrong utensils or are generally not treating it with kid gloves, it’s gonna end up ruined after a few years, especially if it’s a tin lined one
Counterpoint:
It doubles as a weapon that can induce blunt-force trauma.
Mine is so heavy it hurts my wrist to pick it up. I’d never hit someone with it. They would definitely die or become paralized or something. And also I would injure my wrist, which would be equally bad.
Check out carbon steel pans. They are much the same as cast iron but significantly lighter.
I definitely wouldn’t consider an injured, even broken, wrist anywhere near as bad as paralysis or death. But also, a stainless steel pan works just fine as a bludgeoning implement, too
Oy yah i Rember the Repunzle tutorial.
Nothing beats the feeling of pouring cold water on the still hot cast iron pan.
I didn’t know metal exploded until I accidentally the pan.
Can they actually explode?
Explode? No. Crack? Maybe