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.
America’s test kitchen has done that, although I can’t find one that addresses all the bits of misinformation.
This one is pretty ok, but doesn’t address all things, and doesn’t specifically call out the myths: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZUComSZbZ7o
Notably missing is tomatoes/highly acidic foods. IIRC, it’s fine if the duration is short (about 15 minutes). Shakshuka and quick tomato sauces should be fine, but don’t make Grandma’s all-day tomato sauce. Regardless, for these contexts I’d still grab stainless if that’s an option, but mostly for ease of use/cleaning
The water one is definitely false. You just have to dry it and add cooking oil right away.
Steel wool or a Brillo pad, on the other hand …
I didn’t even always add oil afterwards. I just wash it then stick it on the stove on low to dry it while I unload and reload the dishwasher or whatever.
My wife does hate that I’m fine with my cast iron living in the stove though.
Put it in the oven. No worries if you turn it on and forget it was in there compared to a pan of brownies with a plastic lid… •́ ‿ ,•̀
Cast iron is great if you want to throw the pan in the oven or if you have a grill big enough to fit it. For regular use who gives a shit.
Been using cast iron my whole life
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.
Bames Nond’s having a stronk, call a Bondulance.
That’s a skill issue. Get better.
make me
I’ll make you bb
Cue montage of hard work being done over an energetic Kenny Loggins song
I talked to your parents and they told me to tell you to get better.
🍳🍳🍳🍳🍳
+15XP
*skillet issue
I have no idea what kind of pots and pans I have. I know they’re not cast iron though lol. I just use them and they work.
Then most likely teflon.
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
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.
If you know basic math, it was probably purchased before 1996 based on my original comment. It was also very well used when she gave it to me.
Sorry. Just trying to make a joke a grandmothers’ expense. My grandma had several artifacts that she claimed were ancient and/or hand crafted that were definitely not.
We were 3/4 of the way through mounting her hand painted collectible plates when we found two that were 100% identical.
Has anyone outside of a commercial kitchen ever actually destroyed a stainless steel pan though
Yes. Intentionally 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.
Really? It sounds like you’re burning your tortillas, or your tortillas don’t have enough oil/fat in them.
*corn tortillas
Perhaps you’re cooking them too hot? Or perhaps you’re getting uneven heat (e.g. an electric coil stove)?
Corn tortillas really shouldn’t be at risk of burning like that.
I think it was uneven heating since the steel pan had groves in it
Are those scorch marks an issue beyond aesthetics though? (Genuinely curious, not judging)
They leave a burnt taste in the food
In that case, try boiling a mixture of baking soda and water in it, then scouring it using tongs with copper wool (I’d probably use steel wool, but that might also leave scratches, I don’t know). If it’s giving your food a taste, it is coming off, just really gradually and under high heat.
Done that already before, twice.
Womp womp
A straight angle grinder is better suited for that job
Barkeepers friend (powdered metal and glass polish/cleaner, typically comes in a cannister) will get that off with a little bit of elbow grease.
Half the pans I’ve bought i got at a thrift store for like a buck because people thought they ruined them with a little bit of scorching., and I’ve gotten some nice stuff.
Unfortunately haven’t found that cheaply available in Finland. I know about it too. It’s the only thing I haven’t tried other than straight up sanding it
So the legend of bar keepers friend is that it was invented after someone boiled a bunch of rhubarb greens and noticed it cleaned the pan. I reckon any green high in oxalic acid (the main ingredient in BKF) should do similarly enough to the actual product to let you know if it might work.
There’s probably a local equivalent; looks like the primary “ingredient” is Oxalic Acid so a cleaner containing that would probably work just as well
I fucking hate cast iron pans. It’s way too easy to absolutely ruin one. But more importantly, it’s absolutely impossible to cool one down. If you determine that the pan is too hot and your shit is burning, sing your prayers, cus that shit is burning! What’s that? You can put it in the oven straight from the stove? So neat, but like, I have a pot for that. Also never ever made a dish that asked for such a maneuver.
Let anon go camp in the woods for a week and report back.
The best pan is the $20 no name stainless steel pan from a restaurant supply store. Cast iron is for Dutch ovens that need to retain heat for stews and curries and shit. Anyone that genuinely prefers cast iron over stainless just doesn’t know how to preheat a pan and use cold oil. “Oh I want a pan that requires ongoing maintenance, can never be properly cleaned, isn’t actually non stick at all, and weighs 900 pounds so doing any kind of toss is a total pain in the ass”
I bought like a $30 one at the grocery store a few years ago and it’s still going strong. If I forget to use it for a long time it’ll get a patina of rust, but it scrapes right off. I only seasoned it once when I got it with beef tallow.
Honestly if I threw it away today and bought a new one it still would have been cheaper than buying a Teflon pan for like triple the price and having it only last maybe a year before it gets completely ruined, and you get those forever chemicals in your body as an added bonus.
It’s not like it’s some huge investment, just give it a try and see if it works for you. Buy a cheap one at a big box store, season it with oil or fat, and don’t put it in the dishwasher just hand rinse it with lye-free dish soap and a soft sponge. Maybe that’s too much work for you and you prefer your nonstick or stainless, that’s fine too, good quality stainless can last a lifetime if treated properly and ceramic nonstick pans are getting better and cheaper all the time and pretty much outcompeting PFA-based products because people are becoming more aware of how shitty they actually are.
My biggest gripe with Teflon, after the whole PFAS problem, is that you have to baby it. I never was able to find a plastic spatula that worked well for any application. At worst, some are so darn floppy it’s like trying to flip an fried egg with another fried egg. Not to mention, the leading edge would eventually melt and deform sending plastic shreds everywhere over time.
The things you can do cooking-wise with metal tooling just get you more control and better results. Any pan/pot that lets you do that is going to help your overall cooking experience. Plus, even if you don’t go carbon steel or iron - say, stainless or even glass - de-glazing the pan with some water and heat from the range can make short work of cleaning.
One last point to this rant: your favorite cooking shows are lying to you softly. Your cookware are tools - they’re gonna get fucked up. Used things eventually get scratched, stained, singed, dented, and that’s okay; I promise you they’re not unsanitary because they’re in this state. Those stainless pans with mirror-perfect surfaces, or carbon steel skillets with that pristine golden hue, they’re new; you usually see new product on camera thanks to sponsors and the general optics of the thing. Teflon pans hold out this false promise of pristine cook surfaces that just aren’t realistic. And in practice, even those awful things do not go the distance. So yeah, reject modernity and all that. You’ll be okay.
Why would you use a plastic spatula? I use wood with teflon - doesn’t scratch and isn’t floppy!
Right! I use silicone spatulas because I like the slight bit of flop it has, but there are options besides pan scratching metal and really crappy, pan saving plastic spatulas.
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.
FYI it’s Teflon.
I’m gobsmacked at the idea of playing this much for anything Teflon
I deep fry in my wok. A fantastic invention and purchase they are.
it’s so much better than stainless
debatable but i think so
it takes a little maintenance
everything needs maintenance in the sense that you have to clean it. jokes aside, the only maintenance it needs is to burn oil in it if the seasoning got a little damaged for any reason
can’t cook anything tomato based
you can, it’s not great but won’t ruin it
eight coats of oil you have to burn onto it before you can use it
that’s not true, all cast iron pans come pre-seasoned from the factory
you can cook fried eggs and steak
that is true
even after seasoning it everything will still stick to the pan
not really, it’s pretty non-stick
to clean it you gotta heat it up then dry salt scrub then re-season
not really, you only need to do that if the seasoning got damaged
if water ever touches it the entire thing will disintegrate
that’s not true, you’d have to leave it in water for days to get it to rust
things that aren’t mentioned: you gotta use it regularly otherwise it gets sticky; you can use metal tools like knives and spatulas directly in the pan that would demolish any teflon; the seasoning is more resilient than people think, you can even wash it with dish soap; the seasoning actually gets stronger when you fry fatty things in it (grilled cheese, steaks, eggs, sausages); it’s very simple, durable, rustic, old technology, and incredibly cheaper than skillets of a similar quality (excluding cheap teflon pans); you can unrust it in your garage and even weld it back together if it breaks, which is sick as hell.
you can unrust it in your garage
You can very easily de-rust cast iron cookware with Ospho which is basically phosphoric acid (Loctite naval jelly available at Lowe’s is the same stuff in gelled form, which is a bit grosser). Obviously you have to rinse it really well afterwards, but it’s a hell of a lot easier than trying to physically remove the rust.
“some of this is true”
I’m with you 100%.
I’ll add that I rarely use my cast iron in the kitchen, preferring to use it on camping trips or the grill. Why? The sheer heft of the thing could accidentally cause my glass cooktop some trouble. For those occasions, I reach for my well-seasoned carbon steel pans: much lighter with most of the same non-stick situation as the iron skillet.
I don’t know your glass cooktop, but i’d be shocked if the weight of a cast iron was enough to damage it. Does this mean you also wouldn’t put a cooking pot full of water on it? Mine had no problem, didn’t even get scratched which i was worried it might.
That said i do think cast irons can be too heavy for some people, especially when it’s full
Here’s the thing: I’m a klutz, and do not always watch my hands (damn ADHD). So this whole thread is semi-rational at best. Still, I’m certain that I’m the guy that would drop it one or more inches onto the cooktop by accident. I honestly don’t know how resilient these things are, but I’m not about to find out.
That said, I looked up some numbers for weights and well, it’s really not too different from a full pasta pot. I may just have to work up the courage. Thanks.
Yeah i believe you can break a cast iron, it will snap instead of bend, but i have no idea how hard you’d have to drop it. It also probably would damage the glass
glass cooktop
This is one gripe I have with my own cast iron, is that it marks up my glass cooktop when I use it. I can return the top to pristine condition by scrubbing it with steel wool, so it’s not permanently damaging it, but it’s kind of annoying to me that you can see which one of the burners I use way more often than the others because its discolored in a cast iron-sized circle.
Deep scratches are one major concern/gripe I have with glass cooktops, hence why my skillet goes nowhere near it. Scratches can introduce weak points that can nucleate a fracture.
https://glassdoctor.com/blog/why-did-my-glass-top-stove-crack
When dragged across the glass surface, rough pots and pans create micro-scratches. When they accumulate over time, they can weaken the integrity of the glass to the point of cracking.
I just like how I can use my metal scrapers and spactulas without having to worry about damaging it.
I get that point, but stainless steel also exists.
Stainless doesn’t work as well as ferrous, especially for frying. Carbon steel pans are popular too, sort of a modern version of cast iron.
Yeah honestly I want more pans made like my wok and just have it be anodized carbon steel. It’s so good even if it is not pretty.
Yeah, but one hit with this baby and you’ll send any ghost straight into the afterlife.
In the late 90’s I saw someone catch a cast iron pan to the head. I don’t recommend it.
The only thing I would use cast iron for is to fight the ninjas hiding behind my fridge
Unless you have arms like tree trunks then this is a bad weapon choice. Ninjas are notoriously fast and cast iron is notoriously heavy.
I assume they would be slowed down by having to clamber out from behind the fridge, I can get them while they’re off balance
I never understood fans of cast iron. Its like still using candles for light, sure it gives a warming light, but electricity is cheaper, safer, and quicker to use for light. Same for pans, stainless steel have exactly the same use as cast iron without any of the inconvenience. Sure heating behavior is different, but who cares, you can get to the same results with stainless steel with a bit of experience… If you really want that “hipster cooking” feeling, just use copper, sure its way more expensive and you need to be extra careful, but its still better than to try using cast iron which is a real pain in the ass to use, making cooking twice as long as it should be… And for Teflon… it’s shit, weak as hell and will give you cancer. Aluminum is shit too, still better than teflon and at least its the cheapest.
If you’re buying modern garbage $10 pans from Dollar General don’t be surprised when they’re not performing as well as your Cuisinart SS. I have all SS and cast iron, and they both get about equal usage. CI is just better for meats. The higher heat conductivity and even temperature across the surface (with proper time to warm up) is incredibly useful. Searing is unsurpassable with CI. You can be rough with CI and it takes the beating in stride.
SS is better for quick heat and rapid changes in temperature. Boiling water, sauces, roux, etc.
I’ve had cast iron pans with old dinner remains sat in the bottom for 3 days, it comes off with hot water. And yes I use soap and water. If you use a good oil for seasoning and you set your pan up nicely you don’t have to worry about babying the seasoning.
twice as long
If you’re using CI for the right use cases it is WAY faster than aluminum. As I said, the heat transfer of iron is extremely good compared to thin walled aluminum or stainless. CI will cook chicken very fast. It’s all down to knowing your tools and using them correctly.
I can tap a nail into a wall with pliers, doesn’t mean they won’t do the job as well as a hammer.
It seems obvious you purchase equipment for restaurants. /s
Quite a hot take there. You ignored carbon steel in the conversation.
A large number of restaurants use rolled carbon steel or cast iron for searing and shallow frying.
Well, I found it to be easier than stainless. I know how to use stainless in theory, but I never managed to use it properly. lol
I realized there’s a hipster factor around it but I really find it easy to cook a lot of things without thinking twice. I’m only careful when I clean it.
Yeah, cast iron is a giant pain. I have a relatively heavy steel pan, which is fantastic for cooking anything I would cook on a cast-iron pan because it retains heat well, and it’s easier to clean.
Screw cast iron, the only cast iron thing I like is my enamel-coated pot for soups, and that’s because it avoids pretty much everything about cast iron except heat retention.
Nothing cooks fried eggs as well as my cast iron pan. Fried eggs, scrambled eggs, french scramble, omelettes, any kind of eggs. Sometimes I use it for sausage too.
I use stainless for everything else.
I cook with cast iron almost daily, all I do is scrub it with hot water and let it dry, and it’s ready for the next day.
