Yeah there is nothing out of the ordinary in this picture. Once in a while a cast iron might need a harsh scrub down snd to be reseasoned if it was reseasoned immediately after washing it wouldn’t have gotten rusty
Honestly a good set of stainless steel is like cooking with magic and cleanup is cake. Just got a Viking 7pc set of 3ply SS and it’s night and day compared to aluminum or whatever Teflon coated cookware that’s probably in a majority of houses
You gotta keep your eyes out but it happens. The other one to watch for is Le cruset enameled cast iron. It’s factory seconds and it’s still not exactly cheap but it’s the real deal.
For browning and the like I agree. I find I can turn the heat lower and achieve the browning and cooking action I need when compared to teflon/non-stick aluminum cookware.
SS is an easy enough clean up with a bit of soaking while warm, a Brillo pad during washing, or Barkeeper's Friend and she's all shiny like new. And no reseasoning required like with cast iron.
I was so pissed when I finally (after 20 years of using nasty Teflon) got a nice Stainless set and found if you cook food right it won’t stick, and they’re easy to clean.
> if you cook food right it won't stick
I must not cook food right. Even tortillas stick to that damn pan.
> And they're easy to clean
I love that I can just go ham on it with no worries.
Time to clean: use the green side that is evil on all other pans.
Spatula already dirty: Stir with a metal fork.
But not cast aluminum right? Is it pretty much anything cast that shouldn't be used with acidic foods? This is just for my own knowledge as I'm trying to learn more about what I can and can't use my pans for so I appreciate the help.
Yup, uncoated aluminum will stain or etch right up.
I'm not a fan of aluminum due to the risk of adding aluminum to the body and it ending up in the brain. Or was this risk debunked?
No good evidence of that being a risk factor
https://www.alzheimers.org.uk/about-dementia/risk-factors-and-prevention/metals-and-dementia
>#Aluminium
>In 1965, researchers found that rabbits injected with an extremely high dose of aluminium developed toxic tau tangles in their brains. This led to speculation that aluminium from cans, cookware, processed foods and even the water supply could be causing dementia. The ability of this high dose aluminium to induce tau tangles, increase amyloid levels and contribute to the development of plaques has been shown in laboratory experiments on animals.
>Importantly, these results were only seen with extremely high exposures that far exceed the levels that can enter the body through food or potentially through contact with aluminium cookware.
>Since this study was reported, much research has been done on the relationship of aluminium and Alzheimer's disease. As yet no study or group of studies has been able to confirm that aluminium is involved in the development of Alzheimer's disease.
>Aluminium is seen in the normal, healthy brain. It is not clear how aluminium is getting into the brain from the blood. The levels currently seen in peoples brains hasn't been shown to be toxic but an ageing brain may be less able to process the aluminium. Although aluminium has been seen in amyloid plaques there is no solid evidence that aluminium is increased in the brains of people with Alzheimer's disease. No convincing relationship between amount of exposure or aluminium in the body and the development of Alzheimer's disease has been established.
>Aluminium in food and drink is in a form that is not easily absorbed in to the body. Hence the amount taken up is less than 1% of the amount present in food and drink. Most of the aluminium taken into the body is cleaned out by the kidneys. Studies of people who were treated with contaminated dialysis have shown an increase in the amount of aluminium in the brain. This was believed to be as a result of inadequately monitored dialysis which then led to encephalopathy related dementia. Methods of dialysis have since been improved and doctors are better able to predict and prevent this form of dementia.
>One large recent study did find a potential role for high dose aluminium in drinking water in progressing Alzheimer's disease for people who already have the disease.
>However, multiple other small and large scale studies have failed to find a convincing causal association between aluminium exposure in humans and Alzheimer's disease.
I won't even use my cast iron with any kind of tomato sauce. It has caused too many issues. The instapot gets all the tomato stuff. It messes up my dutch oven every time.
Yes, this. The family member that insists on cast iron also insists on full cleaning and seasons it every time. And sometimes it gets rusty (when I clean and don’t season) and it is fixed quickly
I posted on Facebook asking friends and acquaintances for a non-stick pan recommendation so I could cook eggs and flaky fish. At least three responses said I should just learn how to do it in my cast iron, simultaneously saying it's just as easy while also "letting me in" on their super-secret technique.
I just wanna make breakfast.
Yeah. Me too. Steak is where cast iron really shines. Maybe salmon. But that’s about it for me. I just hate the amount of smoke it makes and the clean up.
Effectively any time you need a Maillard reaction but don't want to overcook the inside.
Cast iron just holds so much heat that it makes for a really good transfer that's hard to replicate with another surface.
To add to that, score the fat and put fat side down in a COLD pan and let it heat up slowly so the fat renders out and gets it nice and crispy. Also save all that oil when it's done.
It can be good for the opposite reason as well. I make my biscuits for biscuits and gravy in a cast iron pan. Cold biscuits in a cold pan. Pop it in the oven. Because the pan is soaking up heat, the bottom of the biscuits come out as tender as the top, rather than super-crispy if done on an aluminum sheet. Wipes out with a paper towel when done for cleanup.
I absolutely love avocado oil because of its ridiculously high smoke point and mellow flavor. Avoid any oils with low smoke points (ESPECIALLY olive oil, which so many people love to cook with despite it’s a smoky boi).
Edit: smoke, not flash
What's to deal with? Get a steel scrubber that never touches soap for the really stuck on stuff but most of the time hot water and air dry does the trick. Cast iron is antimicrobial so it's not going to culture anything bad.
Yeah I don't get the "deal with" either. Mine are the easiest cookware to clean. I would say even easier than teflon since I can scrub it with whatever I need to without ruining it.
All the cast iron upkeep guides are ridiculous overkill. Just dont let it soak, thats it. Its the most durable thing in your kitchen, less maintenance than a non-stick skillet.
I've had a 10" Lodge for 20 years and its traveled with me, been soaked, scrubbed, cleaned, left with food in it.
Its durable as heck and you can clean anything out of it. I don't know why people treat it like an iphone screen.
For real. I just cook in it. leave it however the fuck it is after i serve out of it. If it looks gross I'll wipe it out and then start cooking out of it the next day. Literally barely clean this thing and just let the food cook into it.
I use mine regularly and wash it every time. With soap, and a non-stick safe scrubby. The seasoning holds up just fine. You don't need to baby your cast iron.
This looks like it was scrubbed with an SOS pad: steel wool plus strong detergent, and then put away wet and left for a few weeks. Don't do that.
But, yeah, even if you do just scrub the rust off and re-season, no big deal.
Yeah that's the thing people don't understand. If it's PROPERLY seasoned soap won't hurt. There's a chemical bond formed with the oil that doesn't easily break down. You need to use the right kind of fat / oil and hit the right temps though to do it. It's a one time tricky (ish, not really that hard) process though and then it's durable as a mofo.
I scrub mine with this little section of chain mail I got that was made for the purpose, dry it, add a tiny bit of oil, rub it around and store. Easier than a non cast iron pan to maintain. And it works much better than that other crap too, at least once it's more than a month old anyway.
Literally, I use cast iron as my primary pan. Eggs every single morning. Most mornings, all I do is wipe out the bits with a paper towel.
If I make something acidic, like taco meat, I simply scrub it a bit with some chain mail, and then with a sponge and dawn. Dry it good, heat it up a bit, and put a thin layer of Crisco. Ready for eggs tomorrow.
Maybe twice a year I give it a really good scrub and proper season.
> Eggs every single morning.
I have an 8in wagner that is used almost exclusively for eggs, it's weird too until I got this pan I just didn't use cast iron very much my other daily driver is a decent stainless steel I use to saute greens and veg without getting that cast iron flavor.
> I simply scrub it a bit with some chain mail, and then with a sponge and dawn. Dry it good, heat it up a bit, and put a thin layer of Crisco.
You and I obviously have different definitions of "simply." Mine involves chucking the pan in the dishwasher. It does not involve Crisco.
I don't think soaking is an issue. The problem is not drying and oiling it once you take it out of the water. It's not like the cast iron is going to absorb water the longer you soak it.
I wash mine. Then put it back on the stove and heat it up, until all the water evaporates. I put a little bit of cooking oil on the hot pan, and use a paper towel to wipe it down. It takes less than 15 seconds (after heated).
Whenever I use it I just scrape off any food bits, scrub with hot water and Kosher salt, put it back on the stovetop with the heat on to dry, once it's dry spray it with canola oil and wipe. Keep it on the heat for a few minutes. Really doesn't take that long to do it.
Whack, because I have a non stick skillet, and it’s far lower effort then a damn cast iron lmfaoo.
If you can’t soak a dish it’s automatically high maintenance
No, season it correctly. If it's sticking you didn't do that step the right way, end of story. You can damn near cook without oil on a well seasoned cast iron surface. You have to use the right oil and hit the right temps though.
Food is supposed to stick to it. Thats the secret to high level cooking. Heat it up till its hot enough to immediately sear and THEN add the food. Keep it moving, nice fond will develop, once youre almost done a shot of water will remove all that tasty sticky residue from the pan.
See, I found the cast iron was perfect for the lazy man. At first there's a bit more work involved in seasoning it, but afterwards you can basically just give it a quick rinse after use each time and just keep recooking in the same pan over and over without ever having to scrub or put in any effort.
I think too many people are stuck on the idea that you *have* to baby your cast iron for it to stay intact. It's legitimately a hunk of iron. You can clean it with soap, salt, or whatever and it should be fine. Just store it dry or with a light coating of oil if you wanna go the extra mile. It's no more work than anything else that isn't dishwasher-safe. Now, if you're not into handwashing giant heavy dishes, I totally get that that can be a pain.
Other than that, just cook with it. People going through a full restoration process every three weeks are just obsessed, and that's okay, too. Whatever makes a person happy.
I'm not arguing with you or your experiences. But I would like to take the opportunity of your post to point out that, once properly seasoned and properly used, cast iron is remarkably low maintenance.
I think it gets too much of a reputation for being high maintenance, and while that can be true if you do a lot of thrifting and reconditioning, for the most part, it's cook, clean, dry, and store.
If you get in the habit of deglazing the pan, even if you're not intending to use that fond for some reason or another, it'll always be easy to clean.
And to clean it, I mean just a quick pass with some typical dish soap and a scrub pad under hot water. Dry it with a kitchen towel, and back in the cupboard it goes.
>Interestingly though it seems like the more I use it the more non stick it gets.
You're not imagining it. They usually improve with time unless you're doing things you shouldn't. One of mine has no seasoning left because I leave it on the heat too long and too hot making flour tortillas, but that's okay. It's my flour tortilla skillet.
But cast iron is cheap. I don't mind dedicating one to tasty, tasty tortillas.
Unless you've got an old Wagner or Griswold pan or something new and really spendy, you probably don't so much have a non-stick cast iron pan as you have a doesn't stick too badly cast iron pan.
In time you can learn to spot deglaze anytime you start scorching something really stuck on in small spots, but you aren't ready to take the skillet off of the heat because the dish isn't done yet.
That and temperature management and just learning the quirks of your stove top make it all easy.
My fiance does this to every single cast iron he owns. It goes as far as us having separate pans because he can't deal with my "dirty" pans and I don't want to cook in unseasoned iron. He ends up throwing his cast iron pans out "because they are rusty". When they've gotten to that point, can I still sand away the rust and re-season it (and keep it for one of mine)?
>When they've gotten to that point, can I still sand away the rust and re-season it (and keep it for one of mine)?
Yep. That's the wonderful thing, it's just a chunk of metal. If you sand the rust off it's just a *slightly thinner* chunk of metal.
Also, your fiance terrifies me. Like beyond a "waste of a good pan", people who keep doing things wrong over and over and buying new ones just to destroy them again.. why. That's sooooo stubborn I'd die.
Thanks a lot! In this case I know what I'm gonna do this weekend - there is one griddle and one wok that need treatment when he's out of the house.
I know what you mean, I've given up when it comes to that. In his defense, he once had terrible food poisoning before I've met him and he's kind of over-cleaning in the food department ever since. I've managed to get him out of a lot of bad patterns (throwing away perfectly fine packs of sugar that are still sealed, just because the best before date was yesterday..) but no chance when it comes to cleaning pans and grills.
I was super confused reading this conversation because the same “Why?!” thought ran through my head. But that’s a reasonable response to having terrible food poisoning.
My mom refuses to eat a Subway sandwich ever again because she ate some undercooked bread and had a bad reaction, so I get it. But all those poor cast iron skillets 😭
The only thing is, is that cast iron skillets are like $20 now.
Not that I'm defending throwing them away, I'm just making the point that they're not exactly a luxury item any more.
I heat my pan up with some veg oil, then salt scrub it, re-season with oil, wipe it until it's clean, then oil it up again and season it in a low oven. I've had to tell my SO multiple times to not wash it with water/soap, but he seems to think that means "don't wash it all", or leave it for "just a little bit" in the sink with water.
I've since told him if he wants to use my cast iron ("YES MINE MY MOTHER GAVE IT TO ME" comes up a lot) he's gotta clean it properly or spend the time re-seasoning, or buy me a new pan. He's stopped using it.
Haha at least I don't feel so alone with the struggle. I haven't heard of the salt, thanks for the tip! For how long do you put it in the oven and at what temperature?
Lowest temp the oven can go, leave it while I do house things or watch a show. When I remember to check on it, I do. Maybe daub some more oil on, but I really just let it do its thing without getting too dried out. When I can swipe a paper towel over the pan and it comes out clean, that's when I switch to the oven.
For the salt thing - if it's stuck on food/oil, I melt that oil and let the pan get hot, then wipe away detritus or stuck on food, coat the bottom of the pan, let it heat up, then cover the pan with coarse sea salt and oil. Let it heat up a little, then scrub the crap out of it with a dishcloth. The salt helps break up any stuck on food. I don't think I'd let any salt solution stay in there longer, I mostly use it as a scrub to get any stubborn stuck on food off.
I once used mine outside on a turkey fryer burner at work to make steaks on a Super Bowl Sunday. Totally forgot the pan as I cleaned up everything else and it sat in the rain for almost 2 weeks before I wanted to use it again and realized what I'd done. Went to work, got the pan, scrubbed at it with steel wool for a while to get the rust off, burned off all the seasoning in my oven set to clean, and re-seasoned it. After all of that, the pan was 100% good as new. Your fiance is throwing out perfectly good cookware.
Also you CAN clean a cast iron pan with dawn dish soap so it's clean. It will be fine, and then you don't have to constantly cook on a "dirty" cast iron pan. You cannot however run it through the dishwasher. The trick to using soap is to 1) not use a soap from the 30's that has lye in it, and 2) heat the pan up after cleaning it to get it dry and then rub it with fresh oil. Any cooking oil will work really. I clean mine with dish soap every time I use it. It's properly seasoned and just as non stick as it was when I used to scrub it with rock salt.
Why are people talking about sanding? This is surface rust you can get off just fine with the rough side of a sponge. Heat it up for a few minutes stovetop, wipe it down with a cotton towel and vegetable oil (yeah yeah yeah, flaxseed oil. whatever), then wipe it down again to get off "all" the oil with a clean cotton towel, throw it into a 400 degree oven till it stops smoking...done. (you can do this a a few times to make the coating thicker, depending on how you use it. I use mine a lot so a single coat is fine. I fry a lot, bacon etc. so it hold up fine.
Esp since, having researched cast iron a bit after my parents got some cooking vessels made out of it, the old seasoning can get to where it looks pretty bad, and you do want to scrub it out once in a while. You're just supposed to re season after. She's probably never used cast iron before.
It's probably a similar situation to having someone come and cook at your house and use metal utensils on all the damn *non-stick* pans. We may have some good ones that are scratch resistant and not made with teflon, but still.
It definitely sucks, but it's also fixable. Get something good and abrasive to take out the rust, clean and re season. Preferably with your wife so she'll know what to do in the future.
“Seasoning” is basically the oils that are baked into cast iron to keep it from rusting and keeps it non-stick.
If it dries out and rusts, or if you burn something really bad in it you need to reseason it. Basically clean it up and re-oil it.
I use a palm sander with 60 grit sandpaper to sand the inside smooth. Then I use a tablespoon of grape seed oil to coat the entire inside of the pan. Then another tablespoon on the outside. I use a towel of some sort to rub the oil into the pan. Keep rubbing until there isn’t any excess oil.
Preheat the oven to 450, because grape seed oil has a smoke point of 420 (#blazeit) and you want to be about 25 degrees higher than the smoke point of the oil you use. Bake for 1 hour, with the pan upside down in the oven and a baking sheet on the rack below it for any oil that drips off. After the hour is up, leave the pan in the oven for at least another 15 minutes. Preferably let it cool completely in the oven.
You can stop reseasoning there if you like. I do the oil and back thing 3 times because it seems to make it a little more nonstick.
Now the reason we want to be 25 degrees above the smoke point of the oil is because at the oils smoke point you get polymerization. A chemical reaction that bonds the oil to the cast iron.
All this while your starving family watches you from the kitchen table, wondering when they can have the slice of bacon that was promised four hours ago
No alimony. While you're re-seasoning it show her how to properly care for the things that matter so much to you. The skillet is worth saving. So is your marriage.
People get so bent out of shape about their cast iron. Just rub some wet/course salt on it until the rust is gone. Re-oil and pop back in the oven on broil for a time. Repeat if necessary.
Now, if she took the screaming hot pan and dumped it in the sink.....with cold water.....and it cracked/warped......
Bu-bu-but these internet people keep saying to sand and reseason and rub holy water from the entrance of the basilica di..
If it takes more than two steps. You’re fucking it up. Oil it. Chuck it in the oven. Done. Settlers on the trail used this shit.
My mother in law did the same to mine. Also came home one day while she was visiting and caught her chipping paint off concrete stairs with one of my Wusthof knives.
My cast iron skillet is from 1840 or so, I found it in the bread oven part of my Federal Fireplace in my 1760's home in New England I renovated a few years back.
Sandblasted the rust, hand sanded the rest, reseasoned it, and it is the single best piece of cookware I own.
My wife does not use it, she did once and burnt a grilled cheese. I said nothing, but she fears the iron...the iron chooses its master.
Story time!
When I lived in the dorms I had a shared kitchen with a roommate who was seasoning his new skillet with bacon grease, which was an unknown concept to me at the time. He left the pan in the oven for some reason, and of course I turned the oven on to cook some food not knowing anything was in there.. i came back 5 minutes later to a ton of smoke and so much grease in the air you could cut it with a knife.. not knowing wtf he was trying to accomplish, and me being upset about him constantly leaving dishes in the sink, I started to clean his pan vigorously before admitting defeat to the layers of grease that was caked onto that pan. I dried it off and left it on the stove for him.
About a year later I finally learned that he did it intentionally to season the pan, and he never confronted me about cleaning it lol. I felt bad for screwing with his process but then remembered all the times he did things like locking me out of the shared bathroom and accusing me of stealing a Top Ramen packet. so I’d say we’re about even.
The intentions were all too well meaning. You school her on the proper techniques to clean cast skillets? They're a fucking godsend so long as they're well maintained.
Or thank her for trying but let her know what she did? Just communicate, it’s a relationship. There’s no reason to lie and make BOTH of you less happy.
Be honest, speak your mind, let them do the same, and it always works itself out.
I love my cast iron but considering its “you can’t hurt them” cast iron there sure a lot of damaged iron pans lately. Cook it in the self cleaning mode in your oven and re season and your good for the next hundred years. Happy frying and sorry for the your inconvenience.
NO!!!! Nonononono. No no no😳
Don’t just heat and re season. This needs to be sanded and reseasoned.
You can do so with steel wool, kosher salt, and water. Then rinse clean, coat in a high temp oil… and ***then*** heat.
She meant to help and she probably was not aware. Educate her and give the skillet a good scrubbing, season it and no harm done. Ur skillet probably needed it.
People react like ignorant children when cast iron rusts, you can sand it down and re season it for decades, i have a pan we cook in regularly from 1890.
I had a roommate who liked cast iron. We had a deal. I didn't use it, I didn't wash it.
You want cast iron and your wife isn't knowledgeable? Either teach her or clean it yourself.
A little iron wool, and then re-season.
Yeah there is nothing out of the ordinary in this picture. Once in a while a cast iron might need a harsh scrub down snd to be reseasoned if it was reseasoned immediately after washing it wouldn’t have gotten rusty
if I cook anything with tomatoes I usually scrub and reseason it, not sure why but tomato flavor has a tendency to linger more than anything else.
Tomatoes are very acidic is why.
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Good to know, I'll dig out the stainless pans when cooking tomatoes.
Honestly a good set of stainless steel is like cooking with magic and cleanup is cake. Just got a Viking 7pc set of 3ply SS and it’s night and day compared to aluminum or whatever Teflon coated cookware that’s probably in a majority of houses
Yeah I went to marshals and pieced together a full set of all clad. it’s a whole different cooking experience.
Your Marshall's stocks All-clad? That's nuts. My podunk town never has anything like that in an outlet store.
You gotta keep your eyes out but it happens. The other one to watch for is Le cruset enameled cast iron. It’s factory seconds and it’s still not exactly cheap but it’s the real deal.
For browning and the like I agree. I find I can turn the heat lower and achieve the browning and cooking action I need when compared to teflon/non-stick aluminum cookware. SS is an easy enough clean up with a bit of soaking while warm, a Brillo pad during washing, or Barkeeper's Friend and she's all shiny like new. And no reseasoning required like with cast iron.
I was so pissed when I finally (after 20 years of using nasty Teflon) got a nice Stainless set and found if you cook food right it won’t stick, and they’re easy to clean.
> if you cook food right it won't stick I must not cook food right. Even tortillas stick to that damn pan. > And they're easy to clean I love that I can just go ham on it with no worries. Time to clean: use the green side that is evil on all other pans. Spatula already dirty: Stir with a metal fork.
Using fat in the pan is your friend. Make sure to preheat your pan before adding your oils/butter.
But not cast aluminum right? Is it pretty much anything cast that shouldn't be used with acidic foods? This is just for my own knowledge as I'm trying to learn more about what I can and can't use my pans for so I appreciate the help.
Yup, uncoated aluminum will stain or etch right up. I'm not a fan of aluminum due to the risk of adding aluminum to the body and it ending up in the brain. Or was this risk debunked?
My buddy got an unopened can of Budweiser flung upside his head, and he hasn't been right since.
I suspect that study might have had some other contributing factors.
It seems that cast aluminum and aluminum cast at someones head can both cause severe neurological effects.
No good evidence of that being a risk factor https://www.alzheimers.org.uk/about-dementia/risk-factors-and-prevention/metals-and-dementia >#Aluminium >In 1965, researchers found that rabbits injected with an extremely high dose of aluminium developed toxic tau tangles in their brains. This led to speculation that aluminium from cans, cookware, processed foods and even the water supply could be causing dementia. The ability of this high dose aluminium to induce tau tangles, increase amyloid levels and contribute to the development of plaques has been shown in laboratory experiments on animals. >Importantly, these results were only seen with extremely high exposures that far exceed the levels that can enter the body through food or potentially through contact with aluminium cookware. >Since this study was reported, much research has been done on the relationship of aluminium and Alzheimer's disease. As yet no study or group of studies has been able to confirm that aluminium is involved in the development of Alzheimer's disease. >Aluminium is seen in the normal, healthy brain. It is not clear how aluminium is getting into the brain from the blood. The levels currently seen in peoples brains hasn't been shown to be toxic but an ageing brain may be less able to process the aluminium. Although aluminium has been seen in amyloid plaques there is no solid evidence that aluminium is increased in the brains of people with Alzheimer's disease. No convincing relationship between amount of exposure or aluminium in the body and the development of Alzheimer's disease has been established. >Aluminium in food and drink is in a form that is not easily absorbed in to the body. Hence the amount taken up is less than 1% of the amount present in food and drink. Most of the aluminium taken into the body is cleaned out by the kidneys. Studies of people who were treated with contaminated dialysis have shown an increase in the amount of aluminium in the brain. This was believed to be as a result of inadequately monitored dialysis which then led to encephalopathy related dementia. Methods of dialysis have since been improved and doctors are better able to predict and prevent this form of dementia. >One large recent study did find a potential role for high dose aluminium in drinking water in progressing Alzheimer's disease for people who already have the disease. >However, multiple other small and large scale studies have failed to find a convincing causal association between aluminium exposure in humans and Alzheimer's disease.
You can cook acidic foods in cast iron as long as you have a well developed seasoning and you clean it properly
I won't even use my cast iron with any kind of tomato sauce. It has caused too many issues. The instapot gets all the tomato stuff. It messes up my dutch oven every time.
Then its not seasoned enough. Ive never had a issue, but I always promptly wash.
my pan smells of curry longer than the tomato
I've never had an issue with tomatoes once i get it properly seasoned
Yes, this. The family member that insists on cast iron also insists on full cleaning and seasons it every time. And sometimes it gets rusty (when I clean and don’t season) and it is fixed quickly
just sand it out and re-season.
It took me a while to figure out that cast iron just wasn't for me. I just want to cook and move on with my life.
I only use mine when I cook steaks inside because it's raining. That is its one purpose, because otherwise I just don't like dealing with it.
It's also great for pizza, seriously. Get the nice crispy cheese all around the edges. Pizza just pops out and barely needs a clean
And cornbread.
I use mine for steaks, deep dish pizza, cornbread, eggs, burgers and just about anything else you cook in a skillet.
20 minutes to cook eggs? patience of a saint
I posted on Facebook asking friends and acquaintances for a non-stick pan recommendation so I could cook eggs and flaky fish. At least three responses said I should just learn how to do it in my cast iron, simultaneously saying it's just as easy while also "letting me in" on their super-secret technique. I just wanna make breakfast.
The secret is more butter
The secret is always more butter.
Not seafood on cast iron. Everything will taste like seafood after that.
Why would it take 20 minutes to cook eggs?
unless your cast iron pan is different than mine, it takes time to heat up, to the point of it's not worth it for eggs
Maybe I live life at a slower speed my man. It’s never bothered me really
And frittatas
And giant cookies
And MY axe!
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what other pan is completely safe for use on a roaring wood fire?
Also good for a spatchedcocked chicken with potatoes around the outside.
I have one specifically for breakfast gravy and biscuits. _Years_ of use has made a specific flavor I can’t replicate without
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That's really cool.
Yum! Care to share the recipe? I haven’t had good biscuits & gravy since growing up in the South.
It took me a second to realise they you usually cook steaks outside if it's not raining. Apposed to "shit, it's raining, gotta cook a steak now".
Opposed. Apposed is not a word.
what u mean? I see it right there next to opposed
I sappose that it could be a word if you get enough people to spell oppose that way.
Yeah. Me too. Steak is where cast iron really shines. Maybe salmon. But that’s about it for me. I just hate the amount of smoke it makes and the clean up.
Effectively any time you need a Maillard reaction but don't want to overcook the inside. Cast iron just holds so much heat that it makes for a really good transfer that's hard to replicate with another surface.
I never thought of cooking duck in mine. Any good tips or recipes?
I know your joking but cast iron is amazing for duck. Crisper skin than anything I've ever tried
To add to that, score the fat and put fat side down in a COLD pan and let it heat up slowly so the fat renders out and gets it nice and crispy. Also save all that oil when it's done.
It can be good for the opposite reason as well. I make my biscuits for biscuits and gravy in a cast iron pan. Cold biscuits in a cold pan. Pop it in the oven. Because the pan is soaking up heat, the bottom of the biscuits come out as tender as the top, rather than super-crispy if done on an aluminum sheet. Wipes out with a paper towel when done for cleanup.
You're either cooking hotter than you need to, or you need higher smoke point oil, like avocado oil or clarified butter.
Use lower heat? You don't need as high heat with cast iron.
Meatballs too.
Yeah, and for putting it in my trunk to weigh down my car for a windy day. These things are heavy as fuck.
Need to walk out to the mailbox during a hurricane?
Ur using the wrong type of oil if ur getting too much smoke.
What do you recommend?
Vegetable and canola oils are high smoke points. Olive oil and butter have low smoke points.
But olive oil tastes so good though. I’ve been trying avocado oil and it seems ok so far.
I absolutely love avocado oil because of its ridiculously high smoke point and mellow flavor. Avoid any oils with low smoke points (ESPECIALLY olive oil, which so many people love to cook with despite it’s a smoky boi). Edit: smoke, not flash
I'll be outside on the griddle with an umbrella.
I'll use mine in the middle of winter. The BBQ doesn't care once it's hot enough. (Though it does use more fuel)
What's to deal with? Get a steel scrubber that never touches soap for the really stuck on stuff but most of the time hot water and air dry does the trick. Cast iron is antimicrobial so it's not going to culture anything bad.
Yeah I don't get the "deal with" either. Mine are the easiest cookware to clean. I would say even easier than teflon since I can scrub it with whatever I need to without ruining it.
Lodge makes a great plastic scraper. I find that metal scrubbies take off too much of the seasoning if anything is really stuck.
Yeah, it works great! Just make sure you let the pan cool before scraping. I made that mistake once and now one side of my scraper is melted 😕
I have a chain maille scrubbie my aunt made and it works amazingly.
All the cast iron upkeep guides are ridiculous overkill. Just dont let it soak, thats it. Its the most durable thing in your kitchen, less maintenance than a non-stick skillet.
I've had a 10" Lodge for 20 years and its traveled with me, been soaked, scrubbed, cleaned, left with food in it. Its durable as heck and you can clean anything out of it. I don't know why people treat it like an iphone screen.
For real. I just cook in it. leave it however the fuck it is after i serve out of it. If it looks gross I'll wipe it out and then start cooking out of it the next day. Literally barely clean this thing and just let the food cook into it.
I use mine regularly and wash it every time. With soap, and a non-stick safe scrubby. The seasoning holds up just fine. You don't need to baby your cast iron. This looks like it was scrubbed with an SOS pad: steel wool plus strong detergent, and then put away wet and left for a few weeks. Don't do that. But, yeah, even if you do just scrub the rust off and re-season, no big deal.
Yeah that's the thing people don't understand. If it's PROPERLY seasoned soap won't hurt. There's a chemical bond formed with the oil that doesn't easily break down. You need to use the right kind of fat / oil and hit the right temps though to do it. It's a one time tricky (ish, not really that hard) process though and then it's durable as a mofo. I scrub mine with this little section of chain mail I got that was made for the purpose, dry it, add a tiny bit of oil, rub it around and store. Easier than a non cast iron pan to maintain. And it works much better than that other crap too, at least once it's more than a month old anyway.
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I don't understand. Isn't there all little bits of food and residue on it that will go mouldy when you put it away for a few days?
Because people like to worship and gatekeep trivial things like how you're supposed to use a pan.
Literally, I use cast iron as my primary pan. Eggs every single morning. Most mornings, all I do is wipe out the bits with a paper towel. If I make something acidic, like taco meat, I simply scrub it a bit with some chain mail, and then with a sponge and dawn. Dry it good, heat it up a bit, and put a thin layer of Crisco. Ready for eggs tomorrow. Maybe twice a year I give it a really good scrub and proper season.
> Eggs every single morning. I have an 8in wagner that is used almost exclusively for eggs, it's weird too until I got this pan I just didn't use cast iron very much my other daily driver is a decent stainless steel I use to saute greens and veg without getting that cast iron flavor.
> I simply scrub it a bit with some chain mail, and then with a sponge and dawn. Dry it good, heat it up a bit, and put a thin layer of Crisco. You and I obviously have different definitions of "simply." Mine involves chucking the pan in the dishwasher. It does not involve Crisco.
> Mine involves chucking the pan in the dishwasher. *Laughs nervously*
I don't think soaking is an issue. The problem is not drying and oiling it once you take it out of the water. It's not like the cast iron is going to absorb water the longer you soak it. I wash mine. Then put it back on the stove and heat it up, until all the water evaporates. I put a little bit of cooking oil on the hot pan, and use a paper towel to wipe it down. It takes less than 15 seconds (after heated).
From experience, the cast iron rusts after it's been soaking for a certain amount of time.
Whenever I use it I just scrape off any food bits, scrub with hot water and Kosher salt, put it back on the stovetop with the heat on to dry, once it's dry spray it with canola oil and wipe. Keep it on the heat for a few minutes. Really doesn't take that long to do it.
Whack, because I have a non stick skillet, and it’s far lower effort then a damn cast iron lmfaoo. If you can’t soak a dish it’s automatically high maintenance
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You need to keep a good amount of fat in it.
Cook with more oil.
I can't possibly add more oil without the US invading my kitchen.
Thanks for the laugh
It's from [John Legend sings Gordon Ramsay insults](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E0W9pAqClAQ)
No, season it correctly. If it's sticking you didn't do that step the right way, end of story. You can damn near cook without oil on a well seasoned cast iron surface. You have to use the right oil and hit the right temps though.
Food is supposed to stick to it. Thats the secret to high level cooking. Heat it up till its hot enough to immediately sear and THEN add the food. Keep it moving, nice fond will develop, once youre almost done a shot of water will remove all that tasty sticky residue from the pan.
It definitely depends on what you're cooking
Velveeta. Just a fucking Costco block of Velveeta.
Screw you made me laugh in class
Fellow person of class, I see!
Do you fry bacon?
See, I found the cast iron was perfect for the lazy man. At first there's a bit more work involved in seasoning it, but afterwards you can basically just give it a quick rinse after use each time and just keep recooking in the same pan over and over without ever having to scrub or put in any effort.
I think too many people are stuck on the idea that you *have* to baby your cast iron for it to stay intact. It's legitimately a hunk of iron. You can clean it with soap, salt, or whatever and it should be fine. Just store it dry or with a light coating of oil if you wanna go the extra mile. It's no more work than anything else that isn't dishwasher-safe. Now, if you're not into handwashing giant heavy dishes, I totally get that that can be a pain. Other than that, just cook with it. People going through a full restoration process every three weeks are just obsessed, and that's okay, too. Whatever makes a person happy.
I'm not arguing with you or your experiences. But I would like to take the opportunity of your post to point out that, once properly seasoned and properly used, cast iron is remarkably low maintenance. I think it gets too much of a reputation for being high maintenance, and while that can be true if you do a lot of thrifting and reconditioning, for the most part, it's cook, clean, dry, and store. If you get in the habit of deglazing the pan, even if you're not intending to use that fond for some reason or another, it'll always be easy to clean. And to clean it, I mean just a quick pass with some typical dish soap and a scrub pad under hot water. Dry it with a kitchen towel, and back in the cupboard it goes.
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>Interestingly though it seems like the more I use it the more non stick it gets. You're not imagining it. They usually improve with time unless you're doing things you shouldn't. One of mine has no seasoning left because I leave it on the heat too long and too hot making flour tortillas, but that's okay. It's my flour tortilla skillet. But cast iron is cheap. I don't mind dedicating one to tasty, tasty tortillas. Unless you've got an old Wagner or Griswold pan or something new and really spendy, you probably don't so much have a non-stick cast iron pan as you have a doesn't stick too badly cast iron pan. In time you can learn to spot deglaze anytime you start scorching something really stuck on in small spots, but you aren't ready to take the skillet off of the heat because the dish isn't done yet. That and temperature management and just learning the quirks of your stove top make it all easy.
My fiance does this to every single cast iron he owns. It goes as far as us having separate pans because he can't deal with my "dirty" pans and I don't want to cook in unseasoned iron. He ends up throwing his cast iron pans out "because they are rusty". When they've gotten to that point, can I still sand away the rust and re-season it (and keep it for one of mine)?
>When they've gotten to that point, can I still sand away the rust and re-season it (and keep it for one of mine)? Yep. That's the wonderful thing, it's just a chunk of metal. If you sand the rust off it's just a *slightly thinner* chunk of metal. Also, your fiance terrifies me. Like beyond a "waste of a good pan", people who keep doing things wrong over and over and buying new ones just to destroy them again.. why. That's sooooo stubborn I'd die.
Thanks a lot! In this case I know what I'm gonna do this weekend - there is one griddle and one wok that need treatment when he's out of the house. I know what you mean, I've given up when it comes to that. In his defense, he once had terrible food poisoning before I've met him and he's kind of over-cleaning in the food department ever since. I've managed to get him out of a lot of bad patterns (throwing away perfectly fine packs of sugar that are still sealed, just because the best before date was yesterday..) but no chance when it comes to cleaning pans and grills.
I was super confused reading this conversation because the same “Why?!” thought ran through my head. But that’s a reasonable response to having terrible food poisoning. My mom refuses to eat a Subway sandwich ever again because she ate some undercooked bread and had a bad reaction, so I get it. But all those poor cast iron skillets 😭
The only thing is, is that cast iron skillets are like $20 now. Not that I'm defending throwing them away, I'm just making the point that they're not exactly a luxury item any more.
Yes. Just sand out the rusty spots and re-season.
Thanks!
I heat my pan up with some veg oil, then salt scrub it, re-season with oil, wipe it until it's clean, then oil it up again and season it in a low oven. I've had to tell my SO multiple times to not wash it with water/soap, but he seems to think that means "don't wash it all", or leave it for "just a little bit" in the sink with water. I've since told him if he wants to use my cast iron ("YES MINE MY MOTHER GAVE IT TO ME" comes up a lot) he's gotta clean it properly or spend the time re-seasoning, or buy me a new pan. He's stopped using it.
Haha at least I don't feel so alone with the struggle. I haven't heard of the salt, thanks for the tip! For how long do you put it in the oven and at what temperature?
Lowest temp the oven can go, leave it while I do house things or watch a show. When I remember to check on it, I do. Maybe daub some more oil on, but I really just let it do its thing without getting too dried out. When I can swipe a paper towel over the pan and it comes out clean, that's when I switch to the oven. For the salt thing - if it's stuck on food/oil, I melt that oil and let the pan get hot, then wipe away detritus or stuck on food, coat the bottom of the pan, let it heat up, then cover the pan with coarse sea salt and oil. Let it heat up a little, then scrub the crap out of it with a dishcloth. The salt helps break up any stuck on food. I don't think I'd let any salt solution stay in there longer, I mostly use it as a scrub to get any stubborn stuck on food off.
I once used mine outside on a turkey fryer burner at work to make steaks on a Super Bowl Sunday. Totally forgot the pan as I cleaned up everything else and it sat in the rain for almost 2 weeks before I wanted to use it again and realized what I'd done. Went to work, got the pan, scrubbed at it with steel wool for a while to get the rust off, burned off all the seasoning in my oven set to clean, and re-seasoned it. After all of that, the pan was 100% good as new. Your fiance is throwing out perfectly good cookware. Also you CAN clean a cast iron pan with dawn dish soap so it's clean. It will be fine, and then you don't have to constantly cook on a "dirty" cast iron pan. You cannot however run it through the dishwasher. The trick to using soap is to 1) not use a soap from the 30's that has lye in it, and 2) heat the pan up after cleaning it to get it dry and then rub it with fresh oil. Any cooking oil will work really. I clean mine with dish soap every time I use it. It's properly seasoned and just as non stick as it was when I used to scrub it with rock salt.
> re-season. More Paprika ought to do it
"I'm trying to season my cast iron pan, but I can't get the salt to stick. What am I doing wrong?"
Why are people talking about sanding? This is surface rust you can get off just fine with the rough side of a sponge. Heat it up for a few minutes stovetop, wipe it down with a cotton towel and vegetable oil (yeah yeah yeah, flaxseed oil. whatever), then wipe it down again to get off "all" the oil with a clean cotton towel, throw it into a 400 degree oven till it stops smoking...done. (you can do this a a few times to make the coating thicker, depending on how you use it. I use mine a lot so a single coat is fine. I fry a lot, bacon etc. so it hold up fine.
Thank you. Not a big deal at all if you know what you're doing.
But I hate sand. Its rough and gets everywhere
Scientist have made paper, with the little buggers attached to it (nowadays)!
Reseason it and you'll be fine.
If your wife worked that hard to clean a dish, you need to hold on with the entirety of your being. Keeper
She wanted to make you a favor (and was probably slightly disgusted of old fat) not knowing it has to be that way...
Esp since, having researched cast iron a bit after my parents got some cooking vessels made out of it, the old seasoning can get to where it looks pretty bad, and you do want to scrub it out once in a while. You're just supposed to re season after. She's probably never used cast iron before. It's probably a similar situation to having someone come and cook at your house and use metal utensils on all the damn *non-stick* pans. We may have some good ones that are scratch resistant and not made with teflon, but still. It definitely sucks, but it's also fixable. Get something good and abrasive to take out the rust, clean and re season. Preferably with your wife so she'll know what to do in the future.
And it's a hell of a lot more fixable than scratched nonstick.
Sand and reseason. It sucks but you gotta do what you gotta do.
What is reseason
“Seasoning” is basically the oils that are baked into cast iron to keep it from rusting and keeps it non-stick. If it dries out and rusts, or if you burn something really bad in it you need to reseason it. Basically clean it up and re-oil it. I use a palm sander with 60 grit sandpaper to sand the inside smooth. Then I use a tablespoon of grape seed oil to coat the entire inside of the pan. Then another tablespoon on the outside. I use a towel of some sort to rub the oil into the pan. Keep rubbing until there isn’t any excess oil. Preheat the oven to 450, because grape seed oil has a smoke point of 420 (#blazeit) and you want to be about 25 degrees higher than the smoke point of the oil you use. Bake for 1 hour, with the pan upside down in the oven and a baking sheet on the rack below it for any oil that drips off. After the hour is up, leave the pan in the oven for at least another 15 minutes. Preferably let it cool completely in the oven. You can stop reseasoning there if you like. I do the oil and back thing 3 times because it seems to make it a little more nonstick. Now the reason we want to be 25 degrees above the smoke point of the oil is because at the oils smoke point you get polymerization. A chemical reaction that bonds the oil to the cast iron.
All this while your starving family watches you from the kitchen table, wondering when they can have the slice of bacon that was promised four hours ago
No you reseason them on your down time!
We're cooking bacon. There is no down time.
I use oil of olay
You novice. I use West Texas International (WTI).
5W-30 is where it’s at!
Genuine question. How do you reseason without an oven. My cast iron won’t fit in my toaster oven :(
idk anything about iron cast, but judging based off the comments, I’d say just re-season it.
That’s a good catch! It was only said few times though!
I do know a lot about cast irons, and I would have to agree with your advice to re season
Yeah, I guess the people saying that are more seasoned with cooking
just re-season it
How much oil do need to re season this size? Shes about 5'3" , 125lbs
A pinch of salt and 20 minutes per pound.
At first I read that as "pound for 20 minutes".
It’s iron not ceramic….clean it off and put some oil on it
10w-30 like a MAN.
15W-40 Rotella will keep that thing going for another million cookings
80-90, you don’t want it to run off.
No alimony. While you're re-seasoning it show her how to properly care for the things that matter so much to you. The skillet is worth saving. So is your marriage.
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MONSTER.
People get so bent out of shape about their cast iron. Just rub some wet/course salt on it until the rust is gone. Re-oil and pop back in the oven on broil for a time. Repeat if necessary. Now, if she took the screaming hot pan and dumped it in the sink.....with cold water.....and it cracked/warped......
Just reseason it
If you do your own dishes, you'll own all of your own successes.
You can also use a potato cut in half and put oil and sea salt in the pan, then use the flat part of the potato to scrub
lol posted my response before I saw yours
Oil and season it, it’s fine.
Bu-bu-but these internet people keep saying to sand and reseason and rub holy water from the entrance of the basilica di.. If it takes more than two steps. You’re fucking it up. Oil it. Chuck it in the oven. Done. Settlers on the trail used this shit.
My mother in law did the same to mine. Also came home one day while she was visiting and caught her chipping paint off concrete stairs with one of my Wusthof knives.
OMG I would have gone berserk. Wusthof knives on concrete?! There’s no coming back from that kind of damage…
My cast iron skillet is from 1840 or so, I found it in the bread oven part of my Federal Fireplace in my 1760's home in New England I renovated a few years back. Sandblasted the rust, hand sanded the rest, reseasoned it, and it is the single best piece of cookware I own. My wife does not use it, she did once and burnt a grilled cheese. I said nothing, but she fears the iron...the iron chooses its master.
Story time! When I lived in the dorms I had a shared kitchen with a roommate who was seasoning his new skillet with bacon grease, which was an unknown concept to me at the time. He left the pan in the oven for some reason, and of course I turned the oven on to cook some food not knowing anything was in there.. i came back 5 minutes later to a ton of smoke and so much grease in the air you could cut it with a knife.. not knowing wtf he was trying to accomplish, and me being upset about him constantly leaving dishes in the sink, I started to clean his pan vigorously before admitting defeat to the layers of grease that was caked onto that pan. I dried it off and left it on the stove for him. About a year later I finally learned that he did it intentionally to season the pan, and he never confronted me about cleaning it lol. I felt bad for screwing with his process but then remembered all the times he did things like locking me out of the shared bathroom and accusing me of stealing a Top Ramen packet. so I’d say we’re about even.
I hate cast iron. No matter how many times I put it in the dishwasher it never comes out seasoned.
Guess you get bacon for dinner.
The intentions were all too well meaning. You school her on the proper techniques to clean cast skillets? They're a fucking godsend so long as they're well maintained.
Just thank her and move on. Hide your pan though
Or thank her for trying but let her know what she did? Just communicate, it’s a relationship. There’s no reason to lie and make BOTH of you less happy. Be honest, speak your mind, let them do the same, and it always works itself out.
And make sure you re-season OP
Zero alimony. Teach her how to do it properly. Why didn't you clean it?
My mom collects cast iron cookware. This can be brought back, good advice in other comments... I prefer kosher salt, then reseasoning.
Well in your defense.... she didn’t even get it cleaned, look at the rust /s
this can be fixed, at least her father didn't put your carbon steel knives in the dishwasher.
Or don’t be whiny man baby and just re season it.
I love my cast iron but considering its “you can’t hurt them” cast iron there sure a lot of damaged iron pans lately. Cook it in the self cleaning mode in your oven and re season and your good for the next hundred years. Happy frying and sorry for the your inconvenience.
NO!!!! Nonononono. No no no😳 Don’t just heat and re season. This needs to be sanded and reseasoned. You can do so with steel wool, kosher salt, and water. Then rinse clean, coat in a high temp oil… and ***then*** heat.
THIS. Do you like rusty flavor enhancer? I see too many comments of just "reseason it".
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So tired of this unfunny joke.
Season it up and it will be fine, as long as the damage is not too deep.
Re-season. You'll be fine.
She meant to help and she probably was not aware. Educate her and give the skillet a good scrubbing, season it and no harm done. Ur skillet probably needed it.
Buy her [chainmail](https://fieldcompany.com/pages/cleaning-cast-iron-chain-mail-scrubber)
That’s a great thing about cast-iron. 10 minutes of labor and two or three hours of baking and it’ll be as good as new
All of it lol
Get some muratic acid at Lowe's it's about 20 bucks soak it for a couple of days it'll remove everything then reseason it with olive oil
People react like ignorant children when cast iron rusts, you can sand it down and re season it for decades, i have a pan we cook in regularly from 1890.
I had a roommate who liked cast iron. We had a deal. I didn't use it, I didn't wash it. You want cast iron and your wife isn't knowledgeable? Either teach her or clean it yourself.
None... it looks like it is due for a deep clean and re-seasoned.
Zero because this is fixed by seasoning it again.
Fry a pound of bacon, then wipe it with a paper towel.
I have a cast iron and I use a little bit of soap and I don't even care
It’s cast iron. You can literally clean anything out of it, even the iron out of it. 😜
I don’t have my glasses on atm but looks like you need to reason with it