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I don't understand why cast iron skillets receive so much attention. They're great sure, but you straight up cannot do particular dishes well with them, like yo
by andrewmcwatters 5y ago
I don't understand why cast iron skillets receive so much attention. They're great sure, but you straight up cannot do particular dishes well with them, like you can with stainless steel pans or a basic non-stick pan. You need all three in my opinion.
How you'd do pan sauces with anything but a stainless steel pan is beyond me. You can do it, but if you took care of your cast iron skillet the way people suggest, you can't get any fond to create the pan sauce.
And you cannot cook good eggs on anything but a non-stick pan if you're not working on a commercial, well-oiled skillet, which is a different beast all together. Shakshouka doesn't count.
No clue what people are talking about when they say you shouldn't clean your cast iron either, it's disgusting to me. It makes no chemical sense. Sure, you've got the pan seasoned, but as soon as you cook anything in it, it will transfer, and there's no amount of wiping that will prevent that. None. If you salt it, you will transfer salt.
Cook with it, clean it thoroughly with soap like you would anything else, dry it immediately, and then just use it again. Any amount of neutral oil you use to cook with it in the future is going to effectively do the same job as seasoning it. Occasionally seasoning it should be fine if you have to restore it for some reason, but you'll end up washing it again anyway.
I agree with the notion that it's strange to treat cast iron with such esteem when it's far easier to screw up stainless steel and have to restore that, which is far more labor intensive.
- SECProto 5y ago> And you cannot cook good eggs on anything but a non stick pan if you're not working on a commercial, well-oiled skillet, which is a different beast all together. Disagree strongly on this. I cook fantastic over-easy egg on my cast iron skillet. > No clue what people are talking about when they say you shouldn't clean your cast iron either, it's disgusting to me. It makes no chemical sense. These people are wrong (and were likely misled by bad internet articles. I know I was about 15 years ago)
- andrewmcwatters 5y agoI totally think you can. You just have to bring the heat up on cast iron in a way that you do not have to do on non-stick, and I don't want fry-crusted edges on my over easy (or over medium) eggs.
- DubiousPusher 5y agoThe main reason I started using cast iron was because I switched from a gas stove to an electric and my food just would not turn out. I could not get a good amount of browning. Cast iron mysteriously fixed the issue. I tried a clad pan with little improvement. It took some time to figure out but I realized I was crashing the pan temperature. This wasn't an issue as much with gas because the heat was always on. But an electric stove cycles. Many clad pans are built with an inadequate amount of core material. Such is the case with All-Clad's D3 pan wich only has about 1.6mm of aluminum if I recall. I now use a mixture of iron and clad pans. But it took some research to find a clad pan with a thick core of aluminum. I use All-Clad D7s which are out of production but can be found on overstock sites or used occasionally.
- tristor 5y agoI love my D7s too. These are the only clad pans I’ve found that are almost as good as cast iron when searing or browning. There’s apparently a Demeyere line sold in Europe that’s on par with D7 as well.
- balfirevic 5y ago> You need all three in my opinion. What kinds of things would require cast iron, provided you have a good stainless and a non-stick pan?
- andrewmcwatters 5y agoNow that you mention it, I think you probably could do nearly everything with just those two. I'm just not used to using a stainless in the oven whereas I instinctively turn to cast for that.
- yvrev 5y agoI have all three, for steaks/burgers I exclusively use the cast iron. Just doesn't brown as nicely on the stainless steel. Not sure if the same applies on gas/induction ovens though.
- gorgoiler 5y agoCast iron has thermal mass. It will cool down the least when food is added. It also will not buckle like, say, a thinner carbon steel pan. This is important if you want to get the pan hot and for it to stay hot. Common for searing large cuts of meat.
- balfirevic 5y agoThat's also true for heavy stainless steel pan.
- morsch 5y agoSince I got a decent stainless steel pan, the cast iron gets used less and less. And when I'm done cooking with it, it goes in the dishwasher.
- ImprovedSilence 5y ago>> And you cannot cook good eggs on anything but a non-stick pan. Disagree completely. And I’m not the worlds biggest cast iron fan that swears by them either, I usually prefer stainless. But for eggs I will 100% of the time reach for my cast iron. I don’t know if it’s because I’ve reached that “mythical” non-stick level in my cast iron or what, but any thing from scrambled to sunny side up work great in mine, and I never have problems, and the pan acts pretty much non stick. Heat the pan to the correct temp (I don’t over heat like u suggest is necessary), and use of butter are probably they key. Along with a “well seasoned” pan. Which as u can tell from this thread, there is much debate on how to get there…
- ricardobeat 5y ago> you can't get any fond to create the pan sauce I often reach for stainless for sauces because the fond comes right off and you can scrub it clean, but you can absolutely get a fond on cast iron, even deeper than stainless. It’s just more of a mess to clean up if it doesn’t come off completely. > And you cannot cook good eggs on anything but a non-stick pan Pretty sure humanity cooked eggs before we decided to put Teflon on everything. Either iron or steel, you just need to preheat very well and use a bit of oil.
- throaway46546 5y agoCast iron skillets make the best eggs. It is just a completely different technique.