Cast iron skillets

[ApatheticNoMore]

Any opinion on these? Is it really true stuff doesn't stick to them? Mostly I use ordinary stainless steel skillets and pots and actually like them a lot (no need to season, can soak etc. - it's good for lazy iow, and I'm far more lazy than gourmet).

But some stuff does stick to stainless (and of course non-stick teflon pans are supposedly toxic, but I don't own any, so wondering if cast iron is the best alternative).

[Teacher Terry]

I used cast iron when young but got sick of the weight,etc.

[Geila]

I used cast iron when young but got sick of the weight,etc.

Same. I also like to cook in batch and the cast iron wouldn't be big enough, or if it was the weight would be huge. You can get a Lodge cast iron pan at Hispanic markets pretty cheap if you want to try it out.

[Alan]

I came to cast iron late in life, like just a few years ago, and love them. If properly seasoned there's very little sticking but they do require a lot of effort to keep in good shape. My wife doesn't want anything to do with them but I use cast iron exclusively. I have a thread here somewhere on the subject, I'll have to try to find it.

Edited to add: Found the thread if you're interested http://www.simplelivingforum.net/sho...illet-Question

[Gardnr]

Pick up a skillet at a thrift store. Clean it and then begin the deep seasoning process.

[iris lilies]

APN, I use cast-iron for the quality of cooking they provide. They’re slow to heat and heavy, And that provides a different frying or sautéing experience than cheaper thinner stuff.


Along time ago, probably about the time of Alan’s thread, I stopped trying to season my pans. I just gave it up as unsuccessful. I now wash them and wipe them out every day so they don’t get rusty and put them away.


I am using my mother-in-law’s cast iron frying pans which surprisingly are not the high quality brands that were mentioned in that thread and I still remember the thread, now I’m gonna go back and review it.
last year I found a cast-iron Dutch oven at a thrift store and I thought I hit gold. But it just turned out to be too heavy for the few times I used it and I ended up giving it back to the thrift store. As it turned out it wasn’t even old anyway, it was some new piece at the thrift store got from a liquidator. It rusted very quickly.

This is my second experience with cast-iron. About 15 years ago I tried them and didn’t like them because they were rusty and heavy. This time around I have a little time to deal with all of that although I can see a point in the future where their weight will be too much for my little old lady hands.


TLDR: cast iron frying pans are very good for their heaviness, they don’t need to be season to be useful.

[Teacher Terry]

Even though my right wrist healed from the break I now don’t have much strength at all. Couldn’t use them if I wanted to.

[Rosemary]

I love my stainless pans... but there are advantages to cast iron for particular applications, for instance, long cooking where something might burn in a stainless pan. I have a porcelainized 5-quart cast iron pot that is great for long, slow cooking on stove or oven. It cleans about as easily as the stainless in general, not as easily as a nonstick pan. I also have a cast iron griddle on top of the stove. I took great care to season that in multiple layers, using flax oil which I read was the best for this purpose. It is indeed basically nonstick - but I haven't tried cooking anything really sticky, such as eggs, on it.

In fact, after cooking on that griddle, I used the flax oil to season two cheap stainless pizza pans that I use for cooking pizza on our grill. The coating isn't as good in quality as it is on the cast iron, but it does make them easier to clean.

As noted above, the cast iron is heavy... it needs to be washed and dried very carefully (don't use cold water on hot pan, dry to prevent rust, etc), and I find it more difficult to store in our very small kitchen; it's much more bulky than my stainless pans, which will always be my everyday cookware.

[catherine]

When I was a little girl/teenager living with my great-aunt in the summers, I LOVED the way the burgers tasted after being cooked in her cast iron pan. So, when she offered to buy me the first thing for my hope chest (there's a phrase from days gone by), did I pick some pretty porcelain? A beautiful lace tablecloth? A silver teapot?

No--I picked a cast iron skillet. I still have it and I still use it. I LOVE it. Another advantage of cast iron is the minerals that you get from eating the food cooked on it.

[Tammy]

It’s the only type of cookware that I use. But I have the ones that are about 50-100 years old so they are thinner and lighter weight than the monstrosities they sell as new.