Hot answers tagged cast-iron
44
First, there is no difference between seasoning and reseasoning, unless you need to do some extra work to remove rust (see instructions below). In fact, for new cast iron, scouring is also usually a good idea since you need to get off whatever wax or protective oil the manufacturer or seller may have put onto the cookware. (They don't use cooking oil for ...
27
Kosher salt and a small amount of vegetable oil. Scrub the pan with the salt on a rag or paper towel, if there are stubborn bits mix a couple drops of oil with the salt, wipe dry with clean towel. If you use a wet method to clean the pan re-heat it after cleaning to make sure it is completely dry before storing.
25
See this excellent article about the chemistry of seasoning. You want flaxseed oil (which incidentally has a low smoke point) but a high iodine value, allowing it to polymerize readily.
I read so many blogs about oil "impregnating the cast iron," but this doesn't make any sense chemically. What happens is that the oil polymerizes, and you want an oil that ...
21
Ideally it should be matte to just-slightly-shiny black and very smooth. This article has some terrific information on the ideal oil to use (flaxseed) and method for seasoning, with actual scientific grounding.
18
Besides what @Janelle said, for really stuck on stuff, use a similar process as you'd use to deglaze the pan --
While the pan's still hot (or heat it back up if you've let it cool), and then add some cold water. Some should instantly steam, and should hopefully be hot enough to boil a little. (don't add so much water that you cool down the pan).
Scrape ...
14
The right way is simple and straightforward: preheat the skillet for about 5-10 minutes on medium, add a few table spoons of oil to coat the bottom, and continue cooking at this temperature. Flip regularly, to allow the sides to cook evenly, and wait for the middle to become fully cooked.
Now I will tell you all the ways NOT to cook a hamburger with a ...
13
A metal pan will not crack simply from cold liquid. If you heat it up to a very high temperature and submerge it in cold water, that's not such a good idea. But deglazing is just a tiny amount of liquid.
Now, aluminum is another story - if it's hot enough and you pour cold water (or cold anything) on it, it can warp, even with a relatively small amount of ...
13
I believe that the "clichéd image" you refer to is popular (and cliché) because of chili con carne's long history of being cooked outdoors in big cauldrons or at least over an open flame. As any camper will tell you, iron is the traditional material of choice when cooking with fire.
As for what actually happens - cast iron is a porous material, unlike ...
13
There are two parts to this question, the stated part, and the unstated "are you really frying an egg if there is no oil?"
For the first part, most manufacturers of non-stick pans claim that their product makes oil unnecessary, and generally I've found that to be true. A little oil helps, but "necessary" might be a stretch.
To maximize your non-stickyness ...
13
Fire is typically a poor heat source for direct cooking. It fluctuates with every breeze so the heating is very erratic. It also produces a lot of soot which tastes terrible and is bad for you.
When cooking on a campfire much better results are had by cooking next to the coals than above the flame. Cooking with a gas flame is more reliable of course.
A ...
12
Purpose of Seasoning
protect bare cast iron from rust
make the pan surface non-stick
How often to season the pan?
You'll need to season it more when it's new.
Use it frequently and you'll need to season it less often.
Don't cook beans or tomatoes in it at first; if you do so later, you may want to re-season it.
Regarding adding butter, you're ...
11
Another alternative is to go to an East Asian grocery and pick up a wok cleaner, which looks like a tiny little broom made of stiff sticks. It does more-or-less the same thing as the coarse salt. I find it particularly useful for cast iron grill pans, as it's easier to get leverage on burnt-on material than when using salt. It'll cost you maybe two dollars ...
10
my 'nuclear option' for cast iron skillets is to put them in a basin of lye solution, and let the pan sit for a week or a month (depending on how fresh and how concentrated the lye solution is.) We keep a plastic basin out back for this. lye is bad stuff, so if you have kids or pets, do please be careful. The lye, however, will take off anything organic, ...
10
I thought that as it was cast iron you could just put the whole thing in a big fire and it would burn off whatever was burnt on and then you could scrub off the ashes, which should be fairly easy to do once the are realy just char..
The second comment here seems to think you can do this as well.
You might also be able to do this in a couple of other ...
10
The first rule to keeping food from sticking to cast-iron is to keep it well primed - it sounds like you're doing that already. Beyond that, read these tips for cooking with stainless steel - they'll also apply to cast iron.
To summarize:
Food sticks when chemical bonds form between the food molecules and the metal.
Very hot oil helps to reduce sticking ...
10
Can you get leached iron from cast iron? Yes
Is it consistent in the amount that you get? No
Is it dependent on the food in the pan? Yes
How much? It varies hugely dependent on the food. More liquid, acidic foods leach more. How long its in the pan also plays a role. 3 oz of spaghetti sauce could leach as much as 5mg - that's almost 1/3 of the ...
9
I'd like to refer you to my answer to the question about chili in cast iron, from which I'll summarize the relevant parts:
Typical cast iron corrodes at a pH lower than 4.3; pure white vinegar (5%) has a pH of 2.4 and wine is around 3.2 to 3.8. If you plan to use either of these in cast iron, you'd better make sure they are heavily diluted, otherwise you ...
9
I personally had never heard of it, but after doing some research online, I found another set of instructions that called for boiling potatoes in the pan before seasoning:
After boiling potato peelings for 15
minutes, the skillet had a nasty
slurry of grey looking sand in the
bottom Once the skillet was heated,
the pores were opened, and the
...
9
You're going to die horribly from cooking in a rusted pan!
Just kidding! A little iron in your food isn't going to hurt you, and can actually help prevent anemia. To quote On Food and Cooking (pg 790): "Excess iron is readily eliminated from the body, and most people can actually benefit from additional dietary iron."
Now, to back this up further:
...
9
This coating is not the same thing as a seasoning.
Iron rusts when exposed to air. For cooking purposes, you season it, and it prevents rusting. Some manufacturers sell their iron cookware pre-seasoned, but others use other types of coating to prevent rust. This other coating can consist of wax or petroleum products such as parafin. Its only purpose is to ...
8
According to Yahoo!7:
To season a pan, preheat your oven to 300°F (150°C). Preheat the pan on the stove top. When warm, coat the inside surfaces of the pan with vegetable oil or lard. Continue to heat just until you see ripples appear on the surface of the oil. At this point, pour off any excess oil, give it a quick wipe with a folded paper towel ...
8
I've never heard of milk being used to season a pan and so I am a little skeptical of it.
Pan seasoning is always done with fat that is heated until it polymerizes. This creates a very hard non-stick surface that makes cooking easier and protects the pan from rust.
See this question for more about how to season your pan:
What's the best way to season ...
8
AFAIK you need to heat the pan to let the oil oxidize and polymerize¹ so that it will form a chemically protective and non-sticking coating.
If you wash your cookware with soap you will have to do it every time. For that reason some people don't wash cast iron at all and wipe it with a clean cloth or paper towel after using. (Burned oil is apparently not ...
8
All my attempts to "clean and repair" a sticky-seasoning layer have ended badly as well. I know who already snickers in the background, but my opinion is: start clean. Give the pan a lye bath and a good scrub, then reseason with a better seasoning.
"The new hotness" of flaxseed oil goes back to the fact that it doesn't go rancid easily, without heat it ...
7
Hello Eric, it is perfectly safe to use stainless steel wool on a Vitreous enamel. I presume that the cast iron skillet has a Vitreous enamel finish.
The reason is simple:
Vitreous enamel is essentially a type of ceramic and has a hardness of around 5-6 on the Mohs scale. Steel has around 4-5 on the same scale. This means that generally, you can not damage ...
7
We use tap water + a cheap plastic-bristled kitchen scrub brush to get all of the food bits off. Then put it on medium heat on the stove until it's dry. The heat will sterilize for you. Why medium heat? Someone told me it's better for the pan than using high heat. It sounds logical but I have absolutely no real proof.
7
Personally, I'd just season the pan a couple times to cover the spot; it seems excessive to strip off all the other seasoning and start from scratch unless the pan is really deeply rusted.
Other people may feel differently, of course; there are as many opinions about caring for cast-iron as there are people that own it.
6
I also have a glass-top stove at home. So far, I really like it: the heat is very even and there is good heat transfer, provided the pan makes good contact with the surface (one skillet I have has a bit of a lip, which makes it heat more slowly).
I've slapped skillets and pots full of water around on mine, and have yet to break it. I'm probably more careful ...
6
That is just the seasoning - the nonstick carbon that is formed after years of use - coming off. If big pieces are dropping in your food or you are freaked out by it, simply give your pan a good scrubbing with some steel wool and soap then re-season it.
To season the pan:
Take a paper towel and soak a bit of oil into it
Coat the inside of the pan with oil
...
6
Do you need to remove a bunch of burnt-on stuff as well as the season? If the pan is clean but not rust-resistant or non-stick like you want, I'd suggest just treating it like you were doing it for the first time and just season over the old. It's not like you care about hurting the old season--you'll just be thickening it and filling in gaps.
If you need ...
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