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
Cue montage of hard work being done over an energetic Kenny Loggins song
🍳🍳🍳🍳🍳
+15XP
I’ll make you bb
I talked to your parents and they told me to tell you to get better.
*skillet issue
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.
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.
80% of my life is wasted effort. 15% is giving up at “good enough.” 5% is me looking back at my choices and and saying “yeah, I guess that was a good idea after all.”
lemm.ee has a profanity filter too?
I don’t see any censorship in that post.
Maybe it’s .ml? I see shit, whore, and fuck (as in poop[s•••], sex worker[w••••], and sex[f•••], in case they get censored)
Ah, they filter other way too, huh.
What a shitty instance
Do test cast iron pans for lead please. Even cheap ones from Target (especially cheap ones)
How can I test one for lead?
It’s like gold, you bite it and see if it’s soft.
I looked up “lead testing” and my state, and was directed to their health department’s recommendations for both lead in homes and for child care center testing. They have links to several labs with kits that get mailed to you, typically you swab or take a sample, then mail it back to the lab. There are also in home test kits for lead on sites like Amazon that process immediately (have a color change when lead is present iirc), idk how accurate those are but could be at least a good starting point for some items.
The FDA bans lead in cookware: https://blogs.edf.org/health/2023/08/15/fda-says-cookware-that-exhibits-any-level-of-leachable-lead-upon-testing-is-prohibited/
Although I’m a little surprised it took until 2023 to make this happen. In any case, stuff bought at retail should be fine. I’d be very surprised if Lodge cookware–what Target usually sells–ever had lead in it.
Amazon stuff, though? That place is a leaky sieve of Chinese goods that wouldn’t normally be allowed.
Lodge won’t, but all the random no-name brands might. That and the “chef ____” type cookware is rarely quality controlled, it’s generally just made to make money off a famous person’s name off food network
There was lead in literal food on shelves. https://www.pbs.org/newshour/health/recalled-lead-tainted-applesauce-pouches-stayed-on-dollar-tree-shelves-for-weeks-fda-says
Really think about supply chains and products and the benefits that China or hostile nations may have to send poison to the US (instead of bombs). People assume these products will be safe but we have modern day examples where they clearly aren’t, no matter what the laws say. The law doesn’t matter if it isn’t enforced. Items can be swapped or mislabeled. https://www.nzherald.co.nz/lifestyle/temu-toxicology-test-concern-as-lead-is-found-in-an-item-sold-on-the-site/XL5OYZ6JWJEQFAHEVK6GZUMIGY/
It’s fine and good to wash cast iron - particularly if you had something corrosive in there. Don’t do it in the dishwasher (change in heat can be bad for it - same reason not to machine wash kitchen knives).
People who say washing your pan will remove the seasoning have not properly seasoned their pans or see food residue washing out and think it is the polymerized oils bonded to the metal that are washing out. If that’s the case, they are washing way too aggressively.
There used to be some truth to the advise of not washing cast iron because those old-fashioned soaps had lye that could break down the seasoning. So I guess if you like to use boutique soaps you should be mindful if they contain lye. But if you’re just using dawn dish soap like probably 90% of everybody, go to town, you’re not going to remove seasoning with dish soap
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
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If I know grandmas, I was probably purchased at Kmart in like 1996.
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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.
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.
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
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
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.
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
Yes. Intentionally though.
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
Le creuset Dutch oven is a different budget :x
We found a used older one, used it just about daily for a couple years before my dumb ass left it in an oven that was too hot (some old ones only got to like 400F apparently) and caused a bunch of cracks. We messaged le cruset and after sending them some pictures and a sob story they sent us a brand new one.
Doesn’t need to be a new one or le cruset, enameled cast iron is just nice generally in my experience
I got a $30 enameled cast iron 6-quart Dutch oven at a post-Christmas sale. It wasn’t Le creuset, but it was a kitchenaid, which was over $100 at its original price. I also got a crockpot brand one, which was under $40 at its standard price, and they both lasted over a decade, until I moved across an ocean (afaik, my former neighbor is still very happily using them and my old kitchen aid stand mixer).
Ahh enameled cast iron. The forgotten brother of the glory that is cast iron. The truest form of slow cooking but still limited to softer utensils. I got a cheap one too and the sucker still is perfect enough for a roast.
some kind of artifical stone
Ceramic - similar to glass in that it’s made by melting sand (tiny stones)
My pans are ceramic, they’re great nonstick pans. Usually any patina of burn-on is easy to clean off with some barkeeper’s friend. Everything else comes off in cooking. Still wouldn’t use metal utensils on it though as at the end of the day it is still just a coating and scraping it will degrade my pan. But they’re still like new a couple years after buying them and they’re very aesthetically pleasing pans to boot. And no pfas to my knowledge.
One of them is an aldi find, safe in the oven up to 450°
The other one is just a t-fal frying pan with a plastic handle. So not oven safe at all.
No, not normal ceramic. It has non-stick properties (imho superior to Teflon).
Yes. It is non-stick and not teflon but it’s still a non-metal coating on top of a metal pan.
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
Skillet issue
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.
I’ve always just used the bead test where you drop a drop of water in a dry pan and if it beads up and rolls around, instead of just sizzles, then the pan is hot enough to add oil (although this also works if it’s too hot, but I have a good sense of how long it takes to get to this temp, so I’m usually testing just before and just after it hits this temp). Then when the oil is shimmering, this is the time to add food.
you’re telling me the infomercial lied to me?!
I have no idea but those aren’t stainless steel pans. Like if you are using Teflon you don’t want to preheat. Every pan type is used differently.
honestly I just wanted to reference the infomercial lol
My sauce pans are stainless and are The Shit. Had them four years now and they’re still in good order.
My frying pan is cast iron and is The Shit. Had it a year and it’s still as good as when I bought, and I use it every day.
I will never go back to flaky non-stick bullshit.
Stainless steel sticks because you need more butter in your pan 👌
Been rocking stainless for about 15 years. No issues. I have no prob searing pork chops without any sticking.
I always thought non-stick was better for egg, but actually I’ve been cooking eggs on stainless steel without them sticking for quite a while now.
Yup, it works fine, and I’ve had much better luck than cast iron. On the other hand, maybe I’m not seasoning properly. On the other other hand, stainless steel doesn’t require seasoning.
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.
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.