/ck/ - Food & Cooking

>>5073663
>We just got a new stainless steel frying pan
>everything stuck to it like holy fucking shit

No, you're fucked. Also, that bird thing is a lie. Enjoy your bullshit pan!

use it for stuff that has to stick

Read this: http://www.overstock.com/guides/how-to-break-in-a-stainless-steel-frying-pan

>>5073663
Scrub it with steel wool beforre first use.

>>5073745
>BREAKING IN YOUR PAN:
>1. Buckle up fucker, because EVERYTHING is going to stick to that shit for the rest of eternity!
>2. When this happens, just tell people "MUH STANELESS" and mumble some bullshit about browning being marginally better. Sometimes. When you can get it off the fucking pan.
>3. Fin.

>Is there anything I can use to help alleviate the sticking issue?

Learn to cook

>>5073759
Congrats, you're only the second person I've filtered since filtering became a feature

>>5073663
fry the birds in a non stick pan then throw the stainless in the trash

Let the pan heat up before adding oil.

These pans are very sensitive to that. If you put the oil in when the pan is too cool it won't create the non-stick oil barrier you need.

>>5073663
Use cast iron or carbon steel or a ceramic pan.

>>5073771
>Let the pan heat up before adding oil.
This. This. This. Biggest thing I learned when I started wok cooking was: hot wok, cold oil. (Typical Cantonese 4 word epigram). It applies to stainless pans as well, because that thing is basically just a flattened out wok.

I've fried eggs on mine in butter and they slid right off the pan. Just like everyone else said, heat the pan first, then add oil, wait a bit, add food.

>>5073745
>if you are allergic to nickel avoid stainless steel pans
Is this true? I didn't know that.

>>5074971

Well, some kinds of stainless steel contain small amounts of nickel so I could see how someone might think that. However, it's bound up in the alloy and isn't free to get into the body. It sounds to me like a case of someone not understanding that the nickel is trapped in the stainless alloy and therefore is not a risk.

>>5073771

This.

Also don't flip your food too soon. Food WILL stick to a stainless pan when the food is still cool compared to the pan. Just wait, the food will release when the bottom layer is cooked. Trying to flip before the bottom of the food is cooked will also result in sticking.

Look up "seasoning stainless steel pan" on youtube. Some great instructions there.

Mostly it's two things:

heat the pan first until you can pour in a quarter teaspoon of water and it will turn into a quicksilver like puddle that floats around in it without evaporating. Then pour in some oil until the pan is well covered. bring oil to smoke point, keep it there for three minutes, then pour out excess oil. Let the pan cool down. You have now a super smooth protective layer in your pan in which you can see your own reflection, like a mirror. It is almost like non-stick. This layer keeps until you wash it off with soap.

If you don't want to keep a film of oil in your pan do at least the water test, then pour in the oil. Don't panic if meat sticks initially, it will come loose again of its own accord.

Despie all that stuff can stick you use way too high temps.

>>5075005
forgot to say: remove the water first or else the oil will explode all over you!

I don't feel you, for we have only one stainless steel pan (which both my mom and I seldomly use except for pancakes).

>>5074971
>Read this: http://www.overstock.com/guides/how-to-break-in-a-stainless-steel-frying-pan
>Alergic to an element.

>>5075084

http://www.mayoclinic.org/diseases-conditions/nickel-allergy/basics/definition/CON-20027616

>I better comment on something I'm not familiar with before I even google it!

>>5073669
>No, you're fucked. Also, that bird thing is a lie.
Jesus, ignorant and ill-informed in equal measure. That's a baaad combination.

>>5073663
Get ceramic/stoneware ya rube.

polish the insideof the pan with salt and a dry cloth

>>5077271
Irony. I detects it.

>>5073663
OP, don't listen to this twat >>5073669 he's just trolling you.

I think all the main tips you need have been covered in the thread already but here are mine:
especially for things prone to sticking (starchy foods, eggs) never put the food into the pan before it is preheated
preheat the oil to least the shimmering stage, but you can go hotter
don't be tempted to move the food too soon, plenty of things that stick initially will release no problem once they've coloured up on the underside
although you can use one of these at VERY high heat use med-high only until you get used to cooking on one

Although I have a stainless frying pan similar to the one if your pick and I use it regularly I would recommend either a cast iron skillet or a carbon steel/black iron pan as well. Any of these can develop an awesome non-stick surface with a little work and they don't require a lot of maintenance despite what you might have heard. They're also metal implement friendly just like stainless.

>>5077300
I don't know what stone you crawled out from under but I wish you'd go back.

>>5077418
>OMG DUN LISTEN TO THAT GUY WHO SAID EVERYTHING STICKS TO STAINLESS LISTEN TO ME

>OK YOU HAVE TO DO ALL THIS SHIT, BECAUSE DAMN, DOG, SHIT WILL STICK LIKE CRAZY IF YOU DONT...

Jesus wept. Is all of /ck/ this bad?

>>5077455
Jesus wept, are you always like this? because fuck me, i've seen some stupidity on /ck/ by day-um dude, you're setting a new standard.

If it is stuck to the pan, assuming you used enough oil, you tried to move the potatoes too soon.

>we had to stir it the whole time

You are doing it so fucking wrong. You need to let them form a crust before you try and move them.

>>5077504
>doesn't agree with my facts
>can't post valid counterpoints
>"OMG UR DUM"
You should stop shitposting in /ck/ and go back to /b/ if that's your level of discourse. :)

I wish this guy would go back to his home board. Why is he shitting up /ck/?

>>5077534
That's for the tripfag. As if it weren't obvious.

>>5077512
>Zed
>telling someone else to stop shitposting on /ck/

Do you have a job? Because it seems that shitposting on /ck/ IS your job.

>>5077512
>You should stop shitposting in /ck/
Let's see if we have this straight, you don't know how to fry on stainless without having the food stick, and yet you're accusing someone else of shitposting? O-k-a-y.

I fried tomatoes and eggs in a stainless skillet just yesterday, no stickage worth noting. I regularly cook hash browns and potato wedges in the same pan, only stuff left in the pan is a fond.

>>5077512
zed can you post a picture of yourself

more heat will unstick your food.

l

Did OP give up on his thread because of all the shitposting or what?

>>5077537
Aaaaand we're back to having no argument and just shitposting. Thank you for proving me right, Anon. :)

>>5077940
Oh no--- I KNOW how to cook on stainless and have things not stick. What I'm saying is that the amount of fat you have to add to your food combined with the extra effort it takes to do properly doesn't outweigh the light benefit in browning over, say, a well-seasoned cast iron.

Does it brown better than cast iron? Sure! Is it worth the extra effort? HAHA, oh hell no.

heat your pan for 5-10 minutes before adding oil and starting the cooking process

>>5080365
>Oh no--- I KNOW how to cook on stainless and have things not stick.
Then why didn't you just say that instead of your troll-level post?

But then the rest of your post puts the lie to this claim so never mind.

>What I'm saying is that the amount of fat you have to add to your food
What the hell are you talking about? It doesn't take vast amounts of oil. I fry 1 onion and 2 large potatoes in my stainless pan in about 1tbsp of oil, the amount is specifically for how oily I want the food to be, NOT a concession to the pan material. I use the same amount of oil doing them in one of my cast iron skillets.

>combined with the extra effort it takes to do properly
When I'm frying tomatoes they get turned exactly as often as they would be in a cast iron skillet, or a Teflon pan for that matter, i.e. every couple of minutes until the colour is right. Same with eggs, they don't get touched until the white is done and they're being served to the plate.

What extra effort FFS?

As shitty as some of the tripfags are here, they often provide sufficient trolling/stupidity to pull out actual good information to refute their ignorant bullshit.

Thanks for the tips, bro.

Out of curiosity, have any of you noticed any difference in sticking or browning using a preheated pan versus a cold pan brought up to temp?

>>5082694
>As shitty as some of the tripfags are here, they often provide sufficient trolling/stupidity to pull out actual good information to refute their ignorant bullshit.
True dat.

>Out of curiosity, have any of you noticed any difference in sticking or browning using a preheated pan versus a cold pan brought up to temp?
Not sure what you mean, are you referring to when the oil goes in — preheat then add oil to hot pan v. add oil then bringing up to temp?

Assuming that's it, not a lot of difference no. I have noticed some difference sometimes, which I put down the differences in how clean the pan is (always the same oil so that can't be it). IME stainless works best for frying when *not* scrupulously cleaned after the previous use.

You can take that up a level and nearly have a layer of seasoning on the surface, although it doesn't cling well and if you deglaze the pan, even with just water, it'll take most of it straight off.

>>5073663
Make sure the fucking pan is hot before you use it OP, and always let a little bit of cooking oil soak into the pain while hot, but not smoking.

And do the steel wool thing. Some people also use an oily salted rag, too (or am I mixing up wooden chopping blocks here....)

So, if we have this thread going anyway, would anyone enlighten me as for what you use either stainless steel pans or cast iron? To me it seems like both are basically good for high temperature frying/roasting - what should I get for my small kitchen to fry veggies and stuff like that?

>>5083763
Stainless steel for making sauces.

Cast iron for frying non-acidic food.

>>5083763
Not as simple as this guy makes it sound >>5085764 I cook sauces in my skillet all the time and use it to fry tomatoes. To a degree you can use them interchangeably.

You don't want to use cast iron for highly acidic foods, particularly if this is coupled with a long cooking time. But you CAN use it to slow-cook food in a tomato sauce, as in an example that's been used in arguments here a few times: baked beans, which are traditionally cooked in Dutch ovens or similar cast iron pans.

The real advantage of the cast iron, or carbon steel / iron fry pan, is that it's a surer non-stick surface. And if the pan is good and heavy it will have excellent heat retention (although some stainless has a very thick base and it would have this too).

The real advantages of the stainless fry pan would be where you want the fond, and it being impervious to foods that are highly acid (e.g. a citrus glaze), where you don't want to risk it having a metallic taint or picking up specks of the seasoning coat.