• immutable@lemm.ee
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    1 month ago

    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.

    • Annoyed_🦀 @monyet.cc
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      1 month ago

      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.

    • thefartographer@lemm.ee
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      1 month ago

      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.

    • ALoafOfBread@lemmy.ml
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      1 month ago

      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.

      • 0ops@lemm.ee
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        1 month ago

        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

  • Virkkunen@fedia.io
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    1 month ago

    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

          • ch00f@lemmy.world
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            1 month ago

            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.

    • ngwoo@lemmy.world
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      1 month ago

      Has anyone outside of a commercial kitchen ever actually destroyed a stainless steel pan though

      • Lumisal@lemmy.world
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        1 month ago

        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.

        • mle@feddit.org
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          1 month ago

          Are those scorch marks an issue beyond aesthetics though? (Genuinely curious, not judging)

        • Zorsith@lemmy.blahaj.zone
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          1 month ago

          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.

          • Lumisal@lemmy.world
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            1 month ago

            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

            • Zorsith@lemmy.blahaj.zone
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              1 month ago

              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

            • suburban_hillbilly@lemmy.ml
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              1 month ago

              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.

    • MonkderVierte@lemmy.ml
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      1 month ago

      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?

          • Ageroth@reddthat.com
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            1 month ago

            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

          • idiomaddict@lemmy.world
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            1 month ago

            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).

            • Krauerking@lemy.lol
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              1 month ago

              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.

      • meowMix2525@lemm.ee
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        1 month ago

        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.

    • EatATaco@lemm.ee
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      1 month ago

      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.

      • TranscendentalEmpire@lemm.ee
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        1 month ago

        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.

        • EatATaco@lemm.ee
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          1 month ago

          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.

        • EatATaco@lemm.ee
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          1 month ago

          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.

    • DJDarren@thelemmy.club
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      1 month ago

      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.

    • Chef_Boyardee@lemm.ee
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      1 month ago

      Been rocking stainless for about 15 years. No issues. I have no prob searing pork chops without any sticking.

      • NigelFrobisher@aussie.zone
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        1 month ago

        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.

        • sugar_in_your_tea@sh.itjust.works
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          1 month ago

          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.

  • thawed_caveman@lemmy.world
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    1 month ago

    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.

    • dejected_warp_core@lemmy.world
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      1 month ago

      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.

      • thawed_caveman@lemmy.world
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        1 month ago

        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

        • dejected_warp_core@lemmy.world
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          1 month ago

          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.