/ck/ - Food & Cooking

[Anonymous No.13972822]

Using all this extra free time to try and finally improve my cooking. I Impulsively bought a cast iron skillet for the first time with no real ideas in mind.

What the hell do I do with this thing that I can’t do with a non stick pan?

[Anonymous No.13972835]

I also just got one of those lodge preseasoned pan top+dutch oven things and wondering what's the first low risk thing I should make to break it in.
I'm thinking oniony beans

[Anonymous No.13972910]

>>13972822
You can stick it in the oven, or on the barbecue/fire. They're pretty solid for baking, and If it's thick enough, a cast-iron pan should allow you to finish cooking off of the heat, to the point where you can remove a steak or two, turn off the burner, and use the heat of the pan to get a wine or beer reduction (make a sauce, or at least put some water in there and pre-clean the pan).

They're not nearly as delicate as ck memes would have you believe. Once you've got a relatively non-stick veneer of seasoning happening, not much should harm it, unless you can't be trusted with metal cooking implements, or if you absolutely must make chicken cacciatore in it twice a week. It'll handle soap no problem. If you do like simmering acidic sauces in it, or leaving it alone for long periods of time during the rainy season, give it a bit of oil periodically.

[Anonymous No.13972913]

>>13972822
Literally anything you can do with a non-stick you can do with a cast iron. Also you can put it in the oven and if you fuck up the coating (which considering you're a retard that doesnt know how to cook is very likely) you can just re-season it. Cast irons are cheap and will last your entire life. There is literally no reason to buy a non stick lmfao

[Anonymous No.13972943]

>>13972822
Simple, leave enough fatty residue in the pan to continually season each time you cook in it. Forewarning though, baked goods in it will soak up what you got building up, like cornbread soaking up the coating of bacon fat you've got on it.

Mine has gone through duck fat, bacon fat, beef tallow, lamb fat, fish fat, and every other vegetable and crisped spice I've ever cooked going on.

[Anonymous No.13972946]

>>13972822
You can use it for just about anything as previous anons said in the thread.
I don't own or have never used a non stick pan because my cast iron skillet will get the job done.

[Anonymous No.13972969]

>>13972913
Eggs. Fried eggs are one of the only things a nonstick pan will do better than a stainless and a cast iron.

[Anonymous No.13973008]

>>13972969
I've found a few applications that cast iron is not good at. non stick doesn't seem to be affected by these things.

Boiling water: its weird to do in a pan but it has a tendency to strip material from the seasoning layer on cast iron
Acidic foods like tomato sauce: it absolutely WILL strip material from your seasoning layer

I keep a teflon pan around for eggs but cast iron does a pretty good job with eggs if its worn in and well greased. It just takes a long time to warm the pan up.
The key to cooking with cast iron is to get the pan up to temperature before you put anything in it. No food touches my cast iron without the pan getting up to ~350 degrees F, a bit of cooking oil is also a must for most foods. The only food I put in my pan without oil is tortillas

Please don't fall for the meme about not using soap to clean your cast iron, its just a meme. Using soap will not strip a polymerized oil coating (seasoning). Cleaning your pans without soap is gross regardless of how sterile it may be. I've got a neighbor who NEVER cleans his cast iron grill pan, and he insists its fine because he gets it hot enough to kill bacteria before he cooks on it again. its literally disgusting and I will never eat his food

[Anonymous No.13973037]

>>13973008
If the food doesnt stick, why bother? Isnt wiping it with a paper towel enough?

[Anonymous No.13973121]

>>13972822
- Get the pan nice and hot and use a liberal amount of oil before trying to cook in it. Oil distributes itself really easily in a cast iron pan unlike nonstick, where the oil beads up.
- If your pan isn't seasoned or you accidentally burned it off, use the oven method of getting the first layer of seasoning on it. The seasoning is tough, kind of like the gunk that forms in a stainless steel pan, and won't come off easily unless you use steel wool or chemical cleaners. So feel free to wash your cast iron pan with soap and water, just don't use anything more abrasive than the scrubby side of a sponge.
- If you're not using the pan for a while, it might be worth it to leave some of the leftover fat/grease from your last use in the bottom to ward off moisture, but be careful if you leave that stuff on for months, because there's a possibility it will leave a rancid taste on whatever you cook in it next unless you get the pan hot enough to sear things in.
- Don't try to cook eggs in it until you've got a really good layer of seasoning.

[Anonymous No.13973138]

>>13973037
because its greasy. Its not a seasoning layer either, if it didn't polymerize under heat than its just grease waiting to go rancid. Especially something like a grill pan that has so many nooks and crannies for gunk to build up. Its just nasty

You wouldn't just *not clean* any other pot and pan but for some reason people think this is the only proper way to do their cast iron. I cringe at the thought of all the nasty greasy cast iron pans in people have stored with all the other pots and pans in the world. Americans especially love doing this shit its so gross. We also like to clean out shit covered asses with dry paper. We're not exactly the model citizens of hygiene

[Anonymous No.13973145]

you can set off your smoke alarm heating it up for a steak

[Anonymous No.13973206]

how acidic is too acidic for cast iron? can i cook something like peach cobbler? can i out a couple tomatoes in a stew?
>>13972969
this, no matter how non-stick your cast iron is, I only have the big cat iron and I'm not heating up (and cleaning afterwards) all that material just to fry up one or two eggs

[Anonymous No.13973227]

>>13973206
peach cobbler and a couple tomatoes in a stew would be fine.

I've only had the acidity issue with tomato sauce. It seemed like a good idea to brown the Italian sausage in the pan then just add the tomato sauce to deglaze the pan but it took up a lot more than the burned on bits of sausage... I definitely would refrain from making the sauce itself in a cast iron pot.

[Anonymous No.13973332]

>>13972822
I've had mine for a year and it's pretty much the only thing I use.
I use it for mainly for salmon fillets (3 minutes one side, 2 minutes the other), steak and pizza. I also use it for burgers (though I've started steaming and boiling my burgers because of all the oil spatter) and toasting my burger buns.

[Anonymous No.13973635]

carbon steel > cast iron

[Anonymous No.13973739]

Use it over fire/coals
Heat it to 500 degrees
Scrape it with metal utensils
Put it in the oven

that's really it senpai. They're pretty overrated and loved by reddit hipsters but a teflon pan is still better for most things other than searing.

Most people are probably better off with a good stainless pan and a cheap teflon pan for eggs and fish.

[Anonymous No.13973759]

Do I have to do actual seasoning? Can't I just cook meat and potatoes on it so it builds up naturally?

[Anonymous No.13973976]

>>13972822
I wash mine after every use and it's fine. Fuck the seasoning/not washing bullshit. Just make sure it's hot enough and well piled before use and it won't stick. Advantage of them is you can get a nice char better than a regular pan, also put them in the oven, use on bbq, bake bread/deep pan pizza in them.

[Anonymous No.13974148]

sausage onions peppers and mushrooms
and when got good at that
ground sausage, obions, peppers, mushrooms and cheese

i just made pizza over a wood fire,bitch

[Anonymous No.13974154]

>>13973759
probably

[Anonymous No.13974157]

>>13973008
The reason why you don't use soap is because it ruins the flavour, cause everything will have a soapy taste afterwards

[Anonymous No.13974548]

>>13973008
>he insists its fine because he gets it hot enough to kill bacteria before he cooks on it again
that's true tho, no microbes can survive hot pan heat

[Anonymous No.13974565]

>>13973332
>boiled burger
In my country you would be shot for such an offense

[Anonymous No.13974824]

>>13972969
I fry eggs in my cast iron all the time. As long as you use enough oil and get the pan hot enough there is no mess left behind

[Anonymous No.13974853]

>>13973759
You really only have to season it when you first buy it. As long as you use enough oil when you cook, don't let acidic food sit in it overnight/multiple days, and don't scour it when you wash it you'll notice the non-stick build right away

[Anonymous No.13975157]

I've been cooking with cast iron for a while now and no matter what you will never find a single answer on anything about cast iron.
Eggs still stick pretty bad to my cast iron, even with butter. I make sure to clean the skillet with hot water, no soap, and put it back on the range to dry before applying a coat of olive oil on.

Today I'm trying to season it yet again (I've attempted this a ton of times before). Usually the skillet comes out sticky or nothing changes. I am careful about what I put in the skillet as I know more acidic foods can strip seasoning. I've done everything I can think of to get a good seasoning and I still cannot seem to obtain it.

So tell me, what should I do?
I am using canola oil today.
I tried applying a thin coat and letting it go for 30 minutes in a 350 degree oven like four or five times now and it just comes out sticky and patchy.
So now I tossed it in a 500 degree oven with the same amount of canola oil, I just hope it doesn't smoke my house up too bad.

What do you guys do to get a good seasoning on your skillets? Some people seem to put their skillets in a very cool oven and claim to have no problems, while others say that you have to go past your oil's smoke point in order for it to polymerize.

[Anonymous No.13975166]

>>13972910
>wine or beer reduction (make a sauce, or at least put some water in there and pre-clean the pan
Why would you do this that removes the coating. I use cold water and a paper towel to clean mine.

[Anonymous No.13975189]

>>13973008
>Please don't fall for the meme about not using soap to clean your cast iron
Pleb.
You use salt to clean it like people have done for hundreds of years. Salt is also a disinfectant. A liberal amount of salt and a copper/steel scouring pad then wipe out with a paper towel and re oil.

[Anonymous No.13975246]

>>13975189
I've found that the green scouring pads in pic related along with one of the plastic scrapers lodge sells will get pretty much anything unstuck. I don't use soap anymore, the scouring pad works well enough. Hot water is enough to get whatever you need off. I'm not based enough to leave bacon grease in my skillet as seasoning though.

[Anonymous No.13975508]

>>13975157
I've done it a bunch of times and I find it best to pull it out of the oven a few times during the heating process to wipe it again with a dry cloth or paper towel, as it heats the oil tends to pool up again in droplets, wiping it thinner and thinner each time achieves a more even and thin seasoning layer.
you really don't want any thick chunks of polymerized oil, as thin as possible for each new layer and this is achieved by thinning out multiple times during the heating process.

My best seasoning sessions went as follows
350f oven, oil up the pan with canola oil and wipe it as thin as I can, put in oven
after about ten minutes pull it out and wipe it thin again
maybe 20 more minutes in the oven and I pull it again and wipe it.
I'll cook it at 350 for about an hour total then turn off the oven with the pan still inside and let it cool down slowly. its a huge waste of time and energy but it works. if you're really obsessed you can do this multiple times but its important to let it cool down between applications. too much oil application in one heating session WILL lead to cracking and flaking off seasoning layer.

[Anonymous No.13975525]

>>13975508
also, when it comes to the smoke point. if its smoking at 350 I'll back it down 5 or 10 degrees until its just under the smoke point. I think smoking is bad but as close as you can get it to that point and still be under the better.

[Anonymous No.13975554]

>>13974548
What if the microbes produce/leave behind toxins that can survive the heat?

[Anonymous No.13975573]

>>13972822
get it hot and then put in a bunch of stirfry sized meat. It should power through and keep searing, while your non stick pan would have gone cold and the meat would be sitting in it's juices

[Anonymous No.13975665]

>>13973635
Both have their uses unlike teflon pans

[Anonymous No.13975732]

>>13972822
>What the hell do I do with this thing that I can’t do with a non stick pan?

A) Higher temperatures.
B) Metal utensils.
C) Start/finish things in the oven.
D) Retain a lot of heat so you can dump in cold ingredients and keep warm

NB: Carbon steel will also do A, B and C but not D. In return, carbon steel is less fragile.

[Anonymous No.13976949]

>>13974824
agreed. If the eggs are sticking, you haven't heated the pan.
If it is necessary to be low heat, which I do sometimes for delicate eggs, just deglaze with some cold water.

[Anonymous No.13976967]

>>13975246
Salt won't remove the grease.

[Anonymous No.13977105]

>>13975246
DONT USE GREEN PADS those have metal in them. blue pads will clean off anything they're plastic. buy a nylon grout brush for anything really stuck on. if you rust the thing go ahead and use oil and a green pad and you can take it down to bare metal with a bit of elbow grease

[Anonymous No.13977487]

>>13977105
The green pads have metal in them? I haven't heard that.
I'll consider the blue non-scratch ones, the grout brush is a good idea too.

[Anonymous No.13977536]

>>13976967
Carbonizing it will.

[Anonymous No.13977566]

>>13977487
yeah they're plastic fibers coated in aluminum oxide and titanium oxide. it will strip seasoning off very easily and can cut through iron. take some oil and a green pad and you can easily wear a spot down to silver metal in like 30 seconds. don't use them on anything unless you intend to be using an abrasive. the second you touch one of your nice pieces of stainless with a green scrubber you will haze it and make it dull. I fucked up one of my pans a while back and ended up doing the whole thing so it was evenly dull since I hated seeing the nice brushed surface against the dull parts I had fucked up

[Anonymous No.13977572]

>>13977487
yeah they're plastic fibers coated in aluminum oxide and titanium oxide. it will strip seasoning off very easily and can cut through stainless steel and even glass. take some oil and a green pad and you can easily wear a spot down to silver metal in like 30 seconds. don't use them on anything unless you intend to be using an abrasive. the second you touch one of your nice pieces of stainless with a green scrubber you will haze it and make it dull. I fucked up one of my pans a while back and ended up doing the whole thing so it was evenly dull since I hated seeing the nice brushed surface against the dull parts I had fucked up. don't use them on anything you don't intend on wearing down, even a glass cooktop. just use plastic cleaners. a sturdy plastic grout brush and hot water will take anything off, and if it doesn't work you likely ruined the seasoning and need to take it down and redo it at that point

[Anonymous No.13977584]

>>13975166
It's not about the quantity of polymerized fat and oil on the pan, it's about the quality. If it's full of food chunks, and half-converted fat, it's not going to do much of what you want it to do. If you can keep it thick enough to protect the pan, and reasonably smooth, it will basically be lipid-based teflon. You really shouldn't need to baby your seasoning on an older or heavily used pan, as long as you're not consistently scraping it off, overheating it, or giving it prolonged acid baths - thinning the herd from time to time will ensure a healthy, smooth, properly hydrophobic, satiny black patina that will resist flaking. If your top few microns get stripped by a particularly sour oud bruin, your re-oiling and pre-heating on the next round of use should be more than enough to recover from it, and any spots of semi-charred protein will be a strong point in your sauce and not a weak link in your pan's surface.

[Anonymous No.13977604]

>>13977584
quantity is actually pretty important. if you don't preheat the pan when you're seasoning and wipe off excess oil, you might end up with a shitty layer that doesn't adhere to future seasoning well, and also might have bubbles in it. lodge pans often have drips near the far rim from the handle where there was extra oil. I've chipped it off with my fingernail right on the store shelf. it's annoying to have to redo the seasoning on a "factory seasoned" pan but I suppose they don't give a shit about the drips.

I agree with what you say though if you cook with a pan regularly and use metal utensils and don't leave food particles in it between cooks it will get a really nice seasoning. I specifically bought very stiff flat spatulas so I can scrape the hell out of my pans while I'm cooking and while the scrapes do show up in the seasoning, it doesn't make a difference at all. I can still see my reflection in the surface of the pan. the scrapes never overcome the new seasoning that is always forming as I cook

[Anonymous No.13977642]

>>13975554
They never do.

[Anonymous No.13977661]

>>13973008
the soap thing is an old wives tale at this point, which is sort of a meme. soap used to contain lye and lye will absolutely strip seasoning. nowadays you only find lye in products like comet. modern dish soaps are just surfactants and any shit they manage to remove wasn't seasoning to begin with. CLR seems to be acidic. if the product doesn't tell you to use gloves while using it, you don't need to worry about cast iron being fucked up. I've been using cast iron for over a decade now and learned from southern families how to maintain it and they used to just make a salt/oil paste and scrub as an abrasive to remove food. I did that for a couple of years with my pans until I learned better. the salt oil method works but it's a bitch to clean out all of the salt and it doesn't result in any better seasoning. just clean with soap and oil your pans you'll be fine. if you plan to not use a pan for a while oil it then bring it up to temp so it smokes and it won't get rancid and sticky over the months of non-use. I have like 80+ pieces of cast iron so I know about long term storage. don't leave any of those rubber grips on the handle for storage because they trap moisture and rust the handles and reseasoning the handles is fucking annoying

>>13974157
no because that would be true for any dish you clean with soap

[Anonymous No.13978494]

>>13977105
>>13977572

>tfw my gf used a green pad to clean a mirror polished knife

i sanded it down with 200, 400 then 1000 grit sandpaper and now have a satin finished knife

[Anonymous No.13978505]

>>13976967
>Salt won't remove the grease.
Salt literally absorbs the grease. Pour off excess grease then add salt and scrub.

[Anonymous No.13978511]

ok guys, let's settle this:

teflon/non stick: everything egg related, fish
cast iron: pizzas, searing, pan frying
carbon steel: searing, pan frying
stainless steel: searing with use of the fond, sauces

[Anonymous No.13978829]

>>13977604
You... disagreed to agree, and then seemed to go on about quality of the seasoning while talking about quantity (or using quantity to mean "too much"?)

[Anonymous No.13978846]

>>13978511
yarp... there's obviously going to be some crossover (Stainless can obviously be used for pan frying, etc.), but yarp.

[Anonymous No.13979308]

>>13978829
confirmed retard

[Anonymous No.13979311]

>>13978511
stainless and cast iron work fine for fish just cook it until it releases from the pan. quit touching the food so much. french cooking always uses stainless for eggs. cast iron for eggs is american tradition

[Anonymous No.13979356]

>>13977661
you have 80+ pieces of cast iron?

[Anonymous No.13979373]

>>13979356
You don't?

[Anonymous No.13979375]

>>13972822
>What the hell do I do with this thing that I can’t do with a non stick pan?
use metal utensils, make reductions, actually get fond from cooking. Note that you can also do this with stainless steel, which is a perfectly acceptable alternative unless you plan to do dutch oven stuff.

[Anonymous No.13979378]

>>13979356
somewhere about that if you count the lids yeah. have some cornbread pans

[Anonymous No.13979388]

>>13979378
Wow, those are in terrible condition. Take care of your cookware fucking useless faggot.

[Anonymous No.13979399]

>>13979388
the person who owned them before me didn't season them after oiling for storage and they put paper towels between them which made a whole mess when the oil dried out and got sticky. I only ever use the corn stick pans out of those.

[Anonymous No.13979404]

>>13972822
turn up the heat to higher than 300* without ruining it.

[Anonymous No.13980471]

>>13975246
There's chainmail cast iron cleaners for $10-$20 online. I bought one impulsively a year ago and it's so much better than scrapers and scouring pads. Plus I'm still on the first one, and it shows no signs of wear.

Also if you're going to leave bacon grease / lard in the skillet as seasoning make sure to keep a nice heavy lid on the pan too. Keeps anything you don't want in the bacon grease out of the bacon grease.

[Anonymous No.13980489]

>>13977661
>no because that would be true for any dish you clean with soap

>different materials can't react differently to soap

[Anonymous No.13980562]

>>13979399
Nice dubs on behalf of cast iron, but are you worried out scratching the seasoning storing them that way?

[Anonymous No.13981100]

>>13975157
>olive oil
There's your problem. That burns at quite a low heat for an oil. Try using canola oil instead: it's not nearly so nice, but it takes the heat far better.

[Anonymous No.13981840]

>>13980562
no you really can't scratch seasoning that way. if they were enameled pieces I wouldn't stack them but cast iron won't have any issues unless some water gets in there

[Anonymous No.13981870]

>>13975157
>sticky
dont listen to anyone else but me here op those idiots dont know what theyre talking about

so to start off with, you probably want to use flax seed oil for the best result, but your problem doesnt have exactly much to do with that. the problem is you're being impatient. you actually have way too much oil on your seasoning when you dump it into the oven, you probably also dont apply the oil whe its hot.

chose an oil, I recommend flax but ymmv. but whatever you do, preheat the oven to 200 and let your pan get hot, then take your oil and cover the whole pan, then take another sturdy towel that wont leave linen scraps or paper towel. and use it to remove all the oil. you want to remove all of the oil on the pan yes.

what you actually want for the first 3-6 layers, the more the better, is to get into all those poores and cracks you opened up with the heat. layer after layer will fill them up and create the pan you want. keeping it thin and taking the process slow (only leaving the pan with the oven on for the time needed but then letting it slowly come back down to room temperature) will both make sure the coating is more even and also prevent you from putting too much oil on the pan and causing some of the oil on your pan to not polymerise.

be a good girl and make sure you take each coat slow. you want as little sheen on the pan as possible going into the oven, that will build up over time. I've restored rusted over junk this way with just 3 sheets out of similar feelings to yourself but you'd really do better with 6 layers.

[Anonymous No.13981877]

[Anonymous No.13981884]

>>13981870
grapeseed oil

[Anonymous No.13981907]

>>13981870
Just using the damn pan does a better job. Overthinking brainlet

[Anonymous No.13981928]

>>13981907
does this idiot cook food on the bottom of the pan to season it?

[Anonymous No.13983246]

>>13972910
what's the problem with chicken cacciatore? too much acidity?

[Anonymous No.13983294]

>>13975732
Anything you need to do D in is usually a fucking pot.

There is no reason to purchase cast iron instead of carbon steel except for memes and uh deep pan pizza? Which you can completely recreate in a casserole dish except for aesthetics.