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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).
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.Quote:
Originally Posted by Teacher Terry
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
Pick up a skillet at a thrift store. Clean it and then begin the deep seasoning process.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
My grandpa used to say that people are anemic because of not using cast iron. He thought trace amounts of iron were released into our food. I have no idea if he was right.
Yes, that's what I was referring to--we absorb the iron from the food cooked in cast iron. I don't know if it makes an appreciable difference in our health, but it's a good enough argument for me to use it.Quote:
Originally Posted by Tammy
I've had a series of cast-iron frying pans in the pots and pans stable over the years but I don't cook so much that requires a cast-iron frying pan (pots are another matter; I have some Le Creuset I really like for simmering and stews). So a few years ago I went to anodized aluminum frying pans from a restaurant supply house. I love 'em. They heat up quickly and evenly, they're easy to move around, and, if I have to, I can soak them to get off something that burned or scorched on. Save the cast iron (and the weight and maintenance) for the food they're best at cooking.
I just got up from a dinner made in part in a cast iron skillet. The cast iron skillet carmelized the chopped onions in coconut oil. Then I mixed in a paste of garlic, curry paste, turmeric, cumin, chili powder, fresh ginger, and tomato puree... and mixed that good stuff into a pot of cooked red lentils. With brown basmati rice and sweetened coconut it was quite satisfying.
I like to think my cast iron skillets, muffin tin. and dutch oven will still be good as new after 100 years.
Cent'an!
I twice made a special effort to season cast iron frying pans with great care ensuring that they were well seasoned and most things still stuck. I don't like the weight, the storage required so use my stainless steel pans stored in the drawer in my stove with the induction cooktop.
LOVE my cast iron! Only frying pans we have in the house are cast iron - in a variety of sizes. My pride and joy is the cast iron wok my step-mother gave me years ago.
Cast iron is the only frying skillet I've owned or wanted. No matter how well mine are seasoned I always put some cooking oil on a paper towel and wipe oil over the cooking surface. Most things don't stick but they are not some sort of no stick magic. I like the way they heat evenly and hold the temperatures, plus they make really good cornbread. I have one with a cast iron lid that was probably my grandmothers and makes for a nice shallow dutch oven.
Big fan of stainless steel. The newer "no stick" ceramic-lined aren't bad either. I have one cast iron pan and one ceramic-glazed dutch oven (that weighs about 20 pounds empty, ergh). Both good for slow cooking or transfer from stovetop to oven if you've got the guns to lift them. (And even forgetting my chili in the oven for six hours :|( the DO didn't burn it, it just got to be an intense caramelized paste. actually pretty yummy, in a dusty baby food sort of way.)
Question: I also have a cast iron pan that's got a griddle appearance to it - raised bars across bottom of the pan. I think it's got thrift store donation written all over it. Is there any point to this item other than making grill marks on steak? I can't quite figure out how to make this practical; totally doesn't work for anything that needs stirring and raising things up like this means the part that's not in contact with the pan cooks much more slowly - and a cast iron pan is already a slow prospect. https://encrypted-tbn0.gstatic.com/s...rzFCc&usqp=CAc
I bought that same griddle during my initial cast iron infatuation stage. Used it once then added it to my donation box (still sitting in the garage), after deciding it was a foolish purchase on my part.Quote:
Originally Posted by kib
Mine's been hanging on the potrack since the last post about cast iron pans. :laff:Quote:
Originally Posted by Alan
Had one for the longest time. Rarely used it because it was a total pain to clean up, even seasoned. Gave it away. If I want grill marks, it's easier to fire up the barbecue.Quote:
Originally Posted by kib
I had 5 sizes of cast iron skillets and only one I purchased new. The rest were from my family and dated back to my great grandfather (at least). But, they were heavy for me to handle and being alone I no longer needed the larger ones. These I gave to a cousin and I kept two very small ones and another one that is probably either 8 or 10 inches.