/ck/ - Food & Cooking

>>20181543
Seasoning is a meme, the pans come presaesoned, just cook in it. And dont cook acids in it.
But for science I foudn it was good the cook a whole package of bacon chopped up to make crispy bacon bits. It seasons the pan nicely, and then you have bacon bits to sprinkle on everything, and a small jar of lard to save to cook with later.
For the lurkers: Don't fall for the cast iron cult extremism. Just cook with it, then scrub with picrel, then keep it dry and oiled so it doesn't rust, the end. You don't have to clean it with enchanted chain mail and salt from the unicorn sea.
And it's normal for food to stick, just wait until it's done cooking and it'll "release".

>>19888485
Briefly "massage" the whole surface with a metal scrubber every time you clean it. Don't baby the pan, use metal spatulas and so forth. In my experience it gets gradually smoother over time.
You don't have to go out of your way to strip it and season it, just keep the whole pan oiled, cook with it and scrub it regularly and eventually it'll even out.

>>19833208
Yeah that's what they say. That's not even true though, cast iron has terrible heat distribution and conduction, what it has is heat RETENTION. It's slow to heat up and slow to cool down. That's useful for a dutch oven, but whatever. I'm just stating my personal preference. You have to baby an enamel coating and not use metal utensils. Only thing enamel is good for is if you are like boiling tomatoes for hours, and in that case might as well use stainless steel.

>>19791130
Stainless steel is probably fine, I didn't think of it.
I did try frying eggs on SS once and it was a disaster. No, I wasn't "burning shit like an animal", I simply didn't go out of my way to do research, I forget it was years ago, in hindsight now that I've learned about the Leidenfrost effect the pan was probably too cold.
> Everyone hypes up the "seasoning"
CI pans come preseasoned. I don't understand what the big deal is either. Food rarely sticks, and if it does it comes off easily with a moment of scrubbing.
I have a stainless steel sauce pan i use for boiling things.

>>19663826
>>19667004
>>19667026
The cast iron threads are pointless, except they help people find out cast iron exists. Cast iron pans are great and easy to use. I only regret I didn't even notice they existed until I was in my 30's.
For me they making cooking easy. I just throw anything on it and it turns out great with little effort. E.g. I used to dither about how to cook chicken breast so it comes out good, tried so many things like in a pressure cooker, slow cooker, wrapped in foil in the oven. But then the first time I tried just searing it on cast iron quick and easy and it came out the best ever.
Long story short: Chainmail is a meme, clean your pan with steel wool. Seasoning your pan is a meme. Just cook with it and then keep it dry and oiled between uses. My 12 dollar walmart pan's preseasoning worked great. First thing I did was fry an egg on it and it only stuck a little because it was too hot, and the stuck crusty egg peeled right off easily. If something sticks just wait and it'll release/unstick itself eventually once a crust forms. Don't use a cast iron pan if a stainless steel pan would work fine, e.g. for boiling things.

>>19601585
>>19601593
Lodge owns Finex you silly geese.

>>19520386
What's wrong with salted butter? Why would anyone ever want butter without salt in it?