It’s insane to me that people don’t wash them and call it seasoning.
It’s apparently a different story when someone seasons their underwear.
We do wash them, I clean mine by boiling water in them, scraping any stubborn bits with a wooden spatula, rinsing it out under running water and wiping them down with a clean towel and heating the pan again to evaporate any remaining water. No microbials will survive being boiled and then heated again, anything stuck to the pan dissolves away in boiling water and a clean towel will wipe away anything else. After that I add a few drops of oil and wipe down the still hot surface with the thinnest possible coating of oil.
Seasoning for cast iron doesn’t mean holding onto previous flavors. It definitely shouldn’t taste like last night’s dinner. Seasoning in the context of cast iron is the build up of thin layers of polymerized oils from heating them up in a clean pan that forms a durable protective finish that is incredibly non-stick.
So more accurately parallel your underwear example how cast iron is cleaned, if you took your underwear, boiled the hell out of them, used something to give them a scrub, rinsed them out well and then heat dried them.
Your method sounds great and I’m sure it works well, but I just want to make sure you know that modern dish soap won’t damage your seasoning at all.
I fully get that modern dishsoap isn’t caustic enough to truly strip the seasoning, but I have noticed it does very slightly affect the seasoning.
For 99.9% of the time it’s not necessary to use dishsoap and if something is really burnt on, then I’ll tend to go with something a bit more abrasive like a green scrubby pad or maybe steel wool or a paste of baking soda and water.
It’s the same thing I do for my carbon steel wok too, boil water, rinse well, dry with heat and reapply oil to the reheated surface.
I hate cast iron, but ‘seasoning’ is just a misnomer that was adopted to refer to the oils polymerizing on the pan. The oil (usually something like canola) is literally bonded to the metal.
Not cleaning a cast iron pan is gross, fats left in the pan will go rancid.
The only soap you can’t use is lye based as that will strip the seasoning off.
Whatsa matter? You don’t like your pancakes to taste like last nights steak?
It still gets them to reply, every time.
¯\(ツ)/¯ wouldn’t kill it. Just scrub any flakes off and re-season. The abuse they can take is almost unreasonable.
Unseasonably mad
I am in flavor of this.
You… hate cast iron? Of all things people could hate, cast iron is the choice here. Mmaight.
Cast iron has a weird cult following. It’s like the jahovas witnesses of cookware
I don’t like using it because of the maintenance and manual cleaning, but I do use it because of the iron rich food it makes, and the longevity of the cookware.
Also I heard Teflon is literally freaking poison for you, like one of the worst things to consume. And pots and pans always tend to flake Teflon after a while, from general use. So we got rid of everything Teflon.
I don’t know how true it is but it feels good. Doing some manual labor isn’t a bad thing either.
Ugh they’re so gross.
I threw my cast iron away about a year ago. Just couldn’t get the hang of it, probably a me problem. Moved to a stainless steel, and my goodness, the crust I get on meats is unparalleled.
The obsession with cast iron like it is some kind of magic ritual is honestly really weird. After you cook with it, wash it with water and dry it with some paper towels, that’s it, no need to make it more complicated than it really is.
If things are sticking to your pan, use more oil in your pan; with enough oil, you can cook on a rock and make it nonstick.
Just wash it with dish soap like everything else, use a soft scrubber like everything else.
If you have an actual polymer layer, it won’t be harmed.
Dry it off, throw it on the burner. Get it hot, give it a touch of oil, and store it.
As long as you don’t leave it sitting in water you’ll be fine.
I wash with soap and add a little oil every cook. Works great.
I leave mine sitting in water all the time. It still works.
Carbon steel > cast iron. Lighter, basically the same heat properties, and you don’t get peer pressured into unnecessarily babying a lump of solid metal.
Seriously no reason to dote on either of them so much. Only real care you need to take is that they can rust, so don’t leave them wet. And don’t needlessly scrub them with chain mail or angle grinders, or you might need to take a few minutes fixing them with cooking oil and the oven.
Carbon steel has the heat storage of cast iron but transfers it fast like aluminum. I thought a cast iron seared steak was great until I used carbon steel and omg is it so much better.
You would probably like cast iron more if you stopped committing war crimes against it.
Gets angry over the fact that you have a dishwasher
Actually not my photo but I finally have a dishwasher after like 25 years of living with my SO.
Lol I like cast iron cookware, but you do whatever with what’s yours as long as you leave mine alone.
Cooking has been a hobby of mine for decades now. I have gone through a lot of phases in cooking, especially early on.
I have used cast iron, carbon steel, stainless steel, and a dubious flirtation with all aluminum.
16 years on now and this is what I reach for 100% of the time:
Skillet/sautee: cladded stainless. Both standard side and high sided.
Dutch Oven: Enameled cast iron.
Pots Pans: Cladded stainless steel. For smaller 1qt to 2qt I like All Clads D5 for its heat retention. Larger than that I like the D3 for its lighter weight
Grill Pan: cast iron. Hate the excessive weight though
Non-stick: Ceramic coated aluminum. What ever Americas Test Kitchen recommends that year. I consider these disposable items. I stopped using TEFLON a long time ago.
I used cast iron skillets for several years. I found them to be finicky. Heat retention was stupidly high and that’s not always a good thing. Excessively heavy and god forbid you attempt any sort of tomato based sauce or anything acidic for that matter. Circumstances forced me to use stainless steel and I just found it matches my needs in a kitchen much better than cast iron. It gets used, it gets cleaned and I put it away. No having to have the vaginal juices of a thousand virgins on hand to make sure it doesn’t destroy the next egg I try to cook.
I consider cast iron skillets like safety razors. They had their day, but continue on because of a dedicated set of die hard users. Nothing wrong with that, just not my thing.
The above goes for carbon steel as well, although it usually isn’t nearly as heavy.
Ugh. You wanna know the secret to cooking on cast iron/carbon steel? Just cook with it. Put fat in, get it hot, put your food in. It’s really that easy. Wipe it out when you’re done, rub some oil on it. That’s it. You can even cook tomato sauce in it, it’ll be ok. People have been using cast iron to cook all kinds of things, acidic and not, for literal centuries. This myth that cast iron/carbon steel pans are these delicate special snowflakes that need constant attention and maintenance needs to die.
I have a side business restoring antique cast iron pans and I use them for most of my cooking. I cook whatever the fuck I want in them, I leave the pan dirty on the stove a couple days sometimes when I’m busy, I use a scotch brite and scrub them clean with dish detergent, it really doesn’t matter.
Go get a shitty Walmart pan and complain that CI is too hard to work with, it’s ridiculous. My CHF #8 is an amazing piece of hardware
But they do need special maintenance, compared to Teflon pans or ceramic pans, they are the most finicky and hard to work with.
There are a lot of things people have done for centuries. Being old doesn’t make something superior.
The problem with the people who prostletyze cast iron, is they usually assume that everyone cooks like them, but the reality is that cast iron is generally a pain in the ass. I mean just the fact that you need to cover the entire pan in oil Every time you put it away should be enough of an indicator.
You don’t and it isn’t. I cook exclusively on cast iron, and I oil it only before I put some food that requires oil. I use hot water and a paper towel to wipe it clean. Been using it for years, way less scrubbing than stainless 90 percent of the time.
But I use it exclusively and daily, so ymmv.If you treat cast iron with the same care that a non stick pan requires with just a little bit of oil it will be better over time. With those same instructions an average non-stick pan, used daily will degrade in 5 to 10 years. Iron is heavy and inconvenient, but carbon steel pans run 90% of the Michelin rates kitchens you will find. Cast iron can do much of the same work at home and, in the US is much easier to find. A 10 inch Lodge cast iron pan can be found in any X-mart. A 10 inch Matfer Bourgeat is a bit pricier and harder to source. Good luck with pan fried fish in a non stick pan after a month. Same with cooking 40 burgers or omelets a day for a month. 2 of the items I mentioned could do that easily. The average non-stick pan could not.
Oh hell no. Nonstick pans have to be babied - plastic spatulas, gentle sponges, and they get worse with time. Cast iron you almost cannot destroy, and gets better and better with use. Scrub away with chainmail, scrape with a metal spatula, it doesn’t care. Too hot? Doesn’t care.
no. Teflon pans are just the worst. silicone utensils only and never turn the burner over half or your budgie dies. BTW your theory about oil coating is idiocy.
Lol so mad
The polymerized coating on cast iron is stripped almost immediately with anything acidic. It’s basic chemistry.
Put some fat in the pan… You mean exactly what I do with my stainless steel?
Also cooking the way you describe builds up carbon, which is carcinogenic.
What needs to die is the emotional attachment people have to a technology that has its place, just not for every day cooking.
My grill Pan and Dutch ovens are cast iron. But they are Enameled making them a lot more useful. ,
I don’t have a horse in this race but everything is carcinogenic to some degree, burnt toast isn’t going to make any real difference. And why would cast iron have a polymer coating? Unless I’m missing something wasn’t the whole point to avoid that?
Your “basic chemistry” doesn’t match up with the lived experience of the plethora of people that frequently use cast iron/carbon steel. And yes, it doesn’t matter what type of pan, including non-stick, if you want your food to taste good you’re probably gonna start by heating up some fat. You’re only building excess carbon in a cast iron/carbon steel if you leave on bits of burnt food and season over that. If you clean your pan properly (with soap and hot water, because that’s totally allowed), that won’t happen. Tons of people cook with cast iron/carbon steel every single day and have absolutely no problems with it. And don’t get me wrong, I’m not saying everyone should only cook with cast iron/carbon steel, all I’m saying is using those pans is way less finicky than you’re making it out to be.
“basic chemistry” linseed oil is acid resistant so stfu.
Lol so mad
I use cast iron for most of my stovetop cooking, but I’m sure it’s because my cooking style evolved around them, they were so cheap and absolutely the best pans I could afford. They become nearly nonstick, can go from stove to oven to grill, even fire. So for something like $5-20 each I accumulated a set over time, and I love them. We do wash with soap, dry right away, it doesn’t kill the surface. Now I have some money for pans, we do have one gorgeous stainless All-Clad skillet I call the “stick skillet”, my kids like it. But in terms of PRICE to quality, cast iron is where it’s at. That one All-Clad pan cost almost as much as all my cast iron put together.
I used flax oil to season my dutch oven, and finds it stands up to frequent tomato based pasta sauces for a bout a year, but it does eventually fail, an you know immediately when that happens, iron flavoured bolognese. Did that for a few years and finally got an enamelled set for that. As for the frying pans, mine are really old (1920s) and quite lightweight, nowhere near as heavy as newer Wagner 1898s and Lodges. I find the heat retention just perfect when making a carbonara, i turn the burner off when the pasta is three minutes from done and the heat is just perfect to make the carbonara sauce cook without turning into scrambled eggs. The other use, pan frying steaks, nothing does that better. They’re not for everything, I have one 7 inch teflon pan that i use for one purpose only, and that’s french omelets. I have zero interest in trying that in a cast pan.
it’s just a pan
You can take care of your pans anyway you want. But it’s telling when people treat neglect like it’s an ethic.
It’s your expensive quality cookware, if you want to ruin it I can’t do anything about it.
Whispers gently to well seasoned dutch oven
Shh, it’s okay, the bad man can’t hurt you.
In all seriousness I actually have this pumpkin Le Creuset cast iron Dutch oven and it’s in fine shape. The pans that I hate are the gross frying pans my SO brought to this relationship which are disgusting. This Dutch oven can go in the dishwasher no problem actually.
In this thread are people trying to use one tool for everything.
You don’t use a screwdriver for everything.
Likewise, in the kitchen, you don’t use the same utensil for everything.
And I’m sorry, for the people that have one fork, one knife one knife, one pan. No. Unless you live on shit food, you can’t cook with just that.
If you actually want tasty food, you’ll need some hardware. There’s just no way around it.
Disclaimer, I’m French, and an actual cook (non practising).
Good a non-practising French, thought I could smell you through the screen for a moment.
Ya the smug alert in that one was to high
I was giggling uncontrollably, so I knew that a US guy had to have replied to one of my posts with something hilarious. Of course I wasn’t wrong.
You can use a wok for just about everything. Not great for baking, but anything else can be done in a wok, but even us chinese cooks (I am white, but learned to cook Chinese food) will look at you weird if you actually try to cook everything in a wok.
You aren’t cooking many things if all you’re using is a wok.
A wok is simultaneously a frying pan, a sauce pan, a soup pot, and a deep frier, when not in use. It’s Schrodinger’s kitchen appliance.
I’m a former chef that was trained in over 10 styles of food prep. I just don’t bake much.
Woks don’t have buttons! How the hell do you expect to deep fry things without any buttons!? I’ve seen into the back of a McDonald’s before, their deep fryers have buttons and beep and shit. If a wok ever beeped at me, I wouldn’t think “oh, fries are done,” I’d think, “am I going insane?”
Unless you’re using one as a helmet, in which case it’s more of a ding than a beep, but it means it just saved your life and you should tip your blacksmith. You should also probably clean the wok before you use it to sear something and set it aside or bake cookies or anything, though.
You just pout oil in it, bring the oil up to temp, and set a timer when you drop the food in. Just like deep frying in a pot at home
A wok is great for searing stuff and then putting some of it aside, so that you can cook several things at once. Nothing else has ever come close to it.
But that’s the limit of the wok. It’s a fucking amazing device, but it’s not the ultimate cooking ninja super appliance that does it all.
Ummmm wow. Wasn’t aware that the 7 wok stove that I cooked on daily for a decade was just for searing things and setting them aside. I guess the chicken broth in the center wok, and all the frying of the frying wok should stop existing since a French cook is trying to tell Chinese cooks how to use their own invention.
Sometimes you have to use some pot as meat tenderizer…
Sure, if it’s heavy enough.
I feel bad for people who truly can not afford good kitchen stuff, granted most people in my area can. Otherwise yeah, assuming the person were discussing can afford it. There’s no going around spending a little money on good kitchenware if decent results are expected. It’s not like people have to drop thousands, but a few hundred is kinda normal.
Also tip for anyone who’s building up their first kitchen, those gimmicky things that are always on sale are almost always crap. Buying that stuff is worse than gambling, cause at least gambling doesn’t leave you with a kitchen full of worthless clutter.
I feel bad for people who truly can not afford good kitchen stuff
Now there’s a lot of people who can’t.
Because kitchenware is actually hideously expensive. And even here, in France where we have access to the fundamental cooking industry tools - ok maybe slightly less-)
(Ok, I said I was in France, it’s cool, feel free to downvote me now)
I find it amusing that as someone that actually spent years learning how to cook, and that I took the took the time to understand the chemistry and logic of cooking, I’m downvoted because:
- I’m french (because a fair number of users are idiots, and yet I’m still here to face them)
- or they believe they can cook with a microwave (a US affectation)
- or maybe it’s just a jest across the atlantic, since we made them a country, they hate us for some reason as a joke, haha.
Well now you’re getting downvoted for complaining about downvotes
I don’t really care. Being French here means you’re being downvoted.
Just like I’m donwoting US users.
I’m English, don’t forget to downvote me!
Lol if you didn’t care you wouldn’t be constantly complaining about it
Oddly enough when there are fuck the mexicans or fuck the poles posts, people are vaguely interested.
Wash it all you want, should be fine as long as you hand dry it after.
