No, this isn’t a cast iron thing. Using stainless pans, you can get nonstick effects that, in my experience, far outperform Teflon anyway. The process is called “spot seasoning.” I have cooked crispy, cheesy rice noodles with eggs with zero sticking.
I love my cast iron pans, but stainless is my daily go-to. Added bonus: use 100% copper wool to clean your stainless pan. The copper-coated wool at most grocery stores is problematic; you might get a few uses out of the coated garbage and then it starts shedding metal bits.
I think it’s a bit disingenuous to say that any other cookware material outperforms Teflon nonstick, and actually harms the conversation when trying to convince people to switch to an alternative. Nothing is going to beat the nonstick performance a fresh nonstick pan, and that’s perfectly fine. I don’t need a pan so nonstick that I could start an egg in a cold pan with no oil. Well-meaning people run the risk of frustrating less experienced cooks when they assert that they’ll get the exact same or better results from a stainless steel pan, which just isn’t true, especially right from the start. Stainless has plenty of other benefits that make it more than worth the learning curve to use. Sometimes you want some stick, to build fond for a pan sauce. Or you need a pan that can go from stovetop to oven to finish cooking.
This post wasn’t aimed at you specifically, I just wanted to vent at what I feel like has been an uptick in cookware bros flexing their ability to reduce sticking on stainless steel (“I’m so smart I name dropped this little-known thing called the Leidenfrost effect”). I quite like your video and post because they show an alternative way to reduce sticking on stainless that is definitely more forgiving for a beginner than trying to hit a specific temperature range.
World is a better place when we dont buy pans that are designed to give you cancer and fail in a few years… Teflon is reserved for the 1-2 dishes that require non stick at a low temperature. The few dishes that I cant think of right now but i’m sure they’re out there.
You won’t find any disagreement from me there. I just think that when you set the expectation too high (stainless steel can actually be more nonstick than Teflon), people will give up and just go back to nonstick pans when they can’t achieve those results.
Regarding dishes that are solely the domain of Teflon, I think it definitely has a place for dishes that already have a high bar for execution. A perfect French omelette is hard enough on a nonstick that adding another layer of heat management puts it out of reach for most people. But like you said, there’s not much that I’d use Teflon for, so I just don’t have one after switching to induction.
I’m glad I am reading your comments. I am that kitchen novice. And so is my husband. We’ve been trying to move away from Teflon since we had a baby, and are struggling to make stainless steel worth the extra time it takes to clean. I’ve been feeling very frustrated that despite trying to do the heat it up and use oil thing, it’s still awful, and I figured either we’re dumb and bad or everyone online is just lying. We just went back to Teflon, because people online say it should be perfectly non stick and then also that you can only clean the stainless steel with a soft cloth. It’s hell.
First of all, congratulations on the baby! :) If you don’t mind me asking, what sorts of dishes are you struggling to make on stainless steel?
I’m going to be presumptuous here and make a few suggestions, so feel free to push back if you’ve tried some of these things and they haven’t worked or aren’t as easy as I’m presenting. If you do still want to transition to stainless, it’ll be easiest to start by only doing it bit by bit, rather than all at once. Dishes that naturally contain some acidic element (like tomatoes, citrus juice, vinegars, or wine) will be easiest to cook without a bunch of sticking. I’d recommend starting with a tomato-based pasta sauce. If, as it reduces, you notice bits sticking to the sides, it’s easy enough to loosen up just by stirring a bit of the sauce onto it. Once you’re more comfortable with this, you can try sauteing vegetables in the pan. Even with preheating, it’ll might result in some stuck on bits, but adding a splash of lemon juice or champagne vinegar at the very end and agitating all of the ingredients should both brighten up the overall dish a bit as well as lift most (if not all) of those browned spots you saw. When it comes to searing meats, you might also have to adjust how often you’re flipping. If it feels stuck when trying to flip it for the first and second time, waiting a bit longer will eventually lead to the meat releasing from the pan. After the initial release on both sides, it won’t be anywhere near as sticky and you can flip as often as you’re used to. I wouldn’t worry about any browned spots either. While resting the meat, you can toss a bit of wine along with some stock in, turn up the heat, and stir continuously to loosen those bits up as well as flavor your pan sauce. Once it’s reduced to about your desired consistency, you can throw a slice or two of cold butter in and stir for a relatively low effort but still tasty pan sauce. Plus, you make washing the pan much easier. I think this tends to be easier than trying to achieve a nonstick effect with stainless, and sort of demonstrates that there’s ways to work around the issues some people have that aren’t strictly heat management.
My cat really wanted to press the submit button halfway through and force me to edit it to complete the thought as quickly as possible. Sorry if it isn’t quite helpful, and I’d be happy to follow up on any of it.
As a wonderful cook, I resent just about every piece of cooking advice. They’re just oft-repeated, poorly-understood concepts.
For example, I love cast iron. It’s my go-to for nearly all my cooking. I cannot stand cast iron people. They think their lump of iron is a baby that needs to be spit polished and pampered like a Fabergé egg. No, you beat the ever-loving hell out of it, abuse it, soak it in water, leave it to rust, abuse it with scouring pads… then you rub a 1/16th tsp of oil on it and get on with life/cooking.
I agree with both your original comment and the edit, but especially the bit about cast iron. Neglecting mine for an extended period led to uneven patches of seasoning, but when I got round to giving it a proper scrub, it was like hitting a reset button. I’m going to try to be better at basic seasoning/maintenance this time, but the joy of cast iron is knowing that it’s super forgiving if you do mess it up.
Tangential to your edit: I enjoy being able to sharpen knives, but that’s mostly because I’m a nerd who has other tools I need to sharpen anyway, so I already have the stones. Something that I found striking though is that when I was learning how to sharpen knives, I asked if I could practice on various friends’ kitchen knives. Most of them were poor students, so I sharpened many cheap knives, and I was impressed by how well some of the cheaper ones performed compared once they were sharp. They held their edge for surprisingly long too.
I’m quite fond of my Wusthof chef’s knife, which was a bit of an indulgent treat for myself, but I am utterly baffled by the gear acquisition syndrome that so many seem to fall into. It’s not just that prospect of someone who barely cooks buying a $300 knife that perplexes me, but that so many of these people keep acquiring more knives. If they said that collecting knives was just their hobby, and that they were never intending to actually use them, then I’d shrug and say fair enough. That’s pretty rare though — the underlying implication that these people seem to operate under is that the fancy knives make you a better cook (and that the perfect knife will make good cooking into an effortless, joyful endeavour). It’s an odd culture that’s developed.
You’re making some great points
I like that you like sharpening, my grandfather taught me how as well and it’s a pleasure to know how. I have also been surprised how some “bargain basement” cheap ones are higher quality steel than the expensive Henkels, just as one random example
Maybe it’s my fault, but I don’t think so, I think it just revealed a deeper truth to me…
I was given professional chef knives by someone who dropped out of cooking school. I mean, you could just hold the chef knife in your hand for a second and tell you are dealing with a completely “next level” tool
I think I had that knife for all of 5 days before something took a massive chip out of the edge. I suppose a person could argue it was my fault. I really don’t think it was, I think it was just a freak incident. But the timing of it revealed to me that I’m just going to stick with my cheapos. There is too much going on with cooking to have to stress about if my little delicate knife can handle a tap against a pan edge
That chipping incident disabused me of many false notions. I can absolutely acknowledge it made prep quicker, but I did the mental math and realized I’m not going to pamper and baby knives my whole life. I need to be able to have tools that if they break, they go straight in the trash and I just get another one. In the forensic analysis, it’s much cheaper and easier to go that way.
This is for me as a home cook - I can acknowledge if I worked in a professional environment I would need pro tools that I would baby and pamper, but my home kitchen is not the place
There’s a joy with high crafted tools that you can’t really get with an average equivalent. It usually comes down to comfort and looks. Is it worth it? Depends, I suppose.
I’ve cooked every meal from scratch for 5 years
There’s one tool that was worth the $50 and that was a garlic press, the rest was money wasted
It’s much better to understand your tools and buy appropriately, instead of just assuming that lots of money is the answer
That’s my opinion and experience
I went for a cheapish knife, like £20 or so each for a few knives. My thinking was I don’t want the 20 knives in a set for £19.99 that are probably made of stamped aluminium and hollow plastic handles, but by £20 you are getting something good without spending a silly amount of money.
As for the cast iron I won’t deliberately leave mine to rust, but happily use it over a fire and then just wipe off the worst of the soot/ash. But it’s black anyway so no one is going to notice spot buildup. Just remove anything that would easily brush off on other things.
I agree with your approach
I think knife sets are a bit of a con job because a good cook really just uses one or two. I’m looking at my knife block and I’m seeing 9 different knives in there, two of them get used. Two… The $5 el-cheapo chef knife and a $1 paring knife. I haven’t used the serrated bread knife in 10 years, because my chef knife is sharp enough to shave my beard
I’m also kind of exaggerating a bit on my prices. Yes I’ve paid $5 or 6 but I time the purchases to be right after Christmas when they’re on clearance. I’d say in “real money” and with recent inflation I’m using about a $35 CAD knife
I also find the pricing of them to be completely arbitrary. I have been gifted knives that should be extraordinarily high quality based on retail price… And found the handles/plugs were falling off, or they were degrading within weeks!
I don’t understand why we live in a world where someone can sell a $500 knife that in terms of manufacture and material cost, is almost indistinguishable from a no-frills budget one. And in many cases, conspicuously worse in every measurement!
Been looking at sharpening stones a bit today, genuinely wonder if I could instead get 2 slate roof tiles and grind them against each other until the surface is flat enough to use to sharpen a knife. Would cost almost nothing.
Or bits of slate for making walls, would have more thickness to it but otherwise more irregular sizing. Could chip it to the right kind of size first and then grind the stones smooth though.
I love the wild, devil may care, DIY approach!
It’s the type of lunacy that I would try just to see how it works hahahah
I’ve said in many other threads in regards to cooking, and my knives, that I admit and confess, in full, that I am a complete rebel and sinner
I use a dual wheel Rada quick sharp to blast the correctly angled edge, knowing full-well that it shears off material, and then I quickly use my 14-in hone. I am completely aware that I am gradually eroding my knife, but I don’t care, it’s sharp enough to shave a buffalo and it takes me 8 seconds
I know by official standards and reckoning… I am abusing my knives and doing it “wrong”
But I cook every day, and it takes me 5 years to go through a knife. I completely gave up on sharpening with a stone a decade ago. My attitude is “fuck it, I’ll just get another knife in 5 years, this is a primary tool for me and I’m not going to baby them”
I would love to know how this works out for you though!!! I can absolutely envision a scenario where you angle these pieces of slate and you make yourself your own version of a quick sharp!! This is madness though, which is why I love it LOL
Knife hipsters: You must spend £200 on these whetstones!
Me: Haha, £1.50 roof tile.
Shame I don’t live near anywhere to get slate or another suitable rock type, would be a few hundred miles away. The rock here is rather crumbly sedimentary rock from what I have seen. Slate coasters could be dual purpose.
Now you’ve got me wondering what kind of materials are cheap as hell, come flat out of the production line, and are still more durable than the steel you’re sharpening.
This whole convo has got me thinking!
Got 2 cast iron pans, one probably needs a good reseasoning sometime but the other is really good right now. Possibly not as good as brand new Teflon, but how long does Teflon remain good as new? Mine has long passed the age at which Teflon should be disposed of too, so how much less pan waste am I making by using cast iron?
I can also use it over a firepit, just brush the ash off the base when I bring it back in.
I’d posit that your well-loved cast iron looks even better than new. For me, moving off nonstick pans was about sustainability (and money waste, who wants to buy a 2 year subscription to cooking?), but I can’t get over how beautiful some cookware gets just from being used. The patinas on cast iron/carbon steel pans reflect the dedication of their owners to a craft, which I’ll take any day over a colorful pan whose surface flakes just from looking at it.
Pointing out inaccuracies and giving countrary opinions are fine, but calling OP disingenuous is calling them dishonest - and I don’t think you’re even using it correctly - the term usually implies that they’re playing dumb or innocent.
And this comment genuinely isn’t aimed at you, I’m just venting about people presuming to magically know somebody’s state of mind.
In addition to the tips in this thread: Parchment paper rounds that fit inside the pan and work great for really really sticky stuff
My cast iron pans tend to get sticky, the sides, the handle, I’m not sure what to do about it. Any ideas? What am I doing wrong?
are you washing it? Like with soap, hot water? and scrubbing it with something like a scrubbing sponge?
Have to ask, due to the prevalence of people buying into the whole “you cant wash cast iron!” myth.
Cause, with the sides and even the handle being sticky and nasty, it sounds ALOT like just spattered grease never getting cleaned off.
Definitely this, but also if you are washing it and re-seasoning it after if you use too much oil it can cause it to get sticky.
Thats not really “re-seasoning” when you oil it after washing, its just rust prevention if you don’t have a good cure on the entire pan… I would only oil a pan down if I’m putting it into storage for a good long while… and that oil gets washed off before I use it, cause even the best cured pan always seems to develop some rust in long storage otherwise, and that oil will have inevitably collected dust and other unpleasantness.
My regular everyday cast iron pan just get washed, then put on a burner for a couple minutes to dry off any of the remaining water (after i towel it off), then pushed to the back of the rangetop for tomorrow.
Obviously don’t take your hot pan, immediately wash it in cold water, and put it back on a hot burner, cause… you know… thermal shock will turn it into a fragmentation grenade*
*(comedic hyperbole, for those that will inevitably take this too seriously)
edit
and on the topic of seasoning the pan… I prefer doing it on a grill, I give my pan a good, thin coating of lard, throw it on a scorching hot grill, and basically just leave it until it stops smoking. Then I’ll take it out, let it sit to cool off a bit (just a bit, don’t want it getting cold, just want it to not burn through your oven mitt and flash off the reapplied lard) before adding another layer of lard, and throwing it back on the grill, again, until it stops smoking.
Depending on the pan, if its old one I’ve had to go at with sandpaper/steel wool, I will do more coats to build up a good base… for an established pan that I’m just laying down a fresh coat on, I may only do it once, or maybe twice.
Don’t need to put 100+ coats on it and make it a mirror finish, lol.
You’re right, wrong choice of wording on my part.
Isn’t teflon a cancer-causing “forever chemical”?
They are used to produce teflon and will be released if the coating is damaged.
Hey, did you hear veritasium made a video?
No I didn’t, you have a url for me? /s
Veritasium just made a great video about the history of Teflon and related chemicals. I got claude to help me put here:
Teflon and PFAS Health Concerns
Teflon (polytetrafluoroethylene or PTFE) and related compounds have several health concerns:
Teflon itself
- The intact, long-chain PTFE polymer generally passes through the body without being absorbed, as you noted
- Not considered directly toxic when ingested in its stable form
Related harmful compounds
PFOA (C8) and PFOS:
- Used historically in Teflon manufacturing (not present in final product)
- Extremely persistent “forever chemicals” that bioaccumulate
- Associated with:
- Various cancers (kidney, testicular)
- Immune system impairment
- Thyroid disruption
- Reproductive issues
- Developmental problems
Shorter-chain PFAS (including C6):
- Introduced as “safer” replacements for C8 compounds
- Still very persistent in environment and bodies
- Growing evidence suggests similar health concerns to longer chains
- May be more mobile in environment
Heating concerns
Teflon breakdown:
- At normal cooking temperatures (below 500°F/260°C): minimal risk
- At high temperatures (above 500°F/260°C): Teflon begins to degrade
- At very high temperatures (above 660°F/350°C): releases toxic gases including:
- Fluorinated compounds
- Particulate matter
- Can cause “polymer fume fever” in humans (flu-like symptoms)
- Fatal to birds due to sensitive respiratory systems
Recommendations:
- Don’t preheat empty pans
- Avoid high-heat cooking with Teflon
- Replace scratched or damaged Teflon cookware
- Consider alternatives like cast iron, stainless steel, or ceramic
I have never has success with stainless steel but I will definitely try the heat/wipe/fresh technique if I get a chance.
Veritasium just released a video about teflon and it’s impacts yesterday https://youtu.be/SC2eSujzrUY tldw they say that it’s fine for non-stick pans at lower temperatures but the smoke it creates at high temperatures is where the danger is. Especially for pet birds.
Teflon itself is perfectly safe. It’s far too large for your body to absorb.
But many of the byproducts involved in the production of teflon are much less safe.
In other words, if you already own a teflon pan, you’re fine. Keep using it. But if you’re considering buying a new pan, there are good reasons to avoid teflon.
It’s also important to note that Teflon (PTFE) is used in a multitude of stuff, and there’s no easy replacement. Got a 3D printer? The tube connecting the extruder motor to the hotend is probably PTFE.
The PTFE industry isn’t going to collapse just because we all switch to different cooking pans.
I have heard that coats are often covered with PTFE as well, as it makes the rain roll off rather than soak in
Lots of food machinery is Teflon coated, for example mozzarella machines
Yes
oooohhh I was just in Nosy Be, I ordered a ravitoto once, unfortunately they didn’t have the ingredients on that day. It’s still a mystery to me. Mais j’adore le nom il me fait rigoler, j’imagine un mélange de Toto et du Ravi de la crèche
ah et je vois
1 ginger
je suis plutôt châtain j’espère que ça fout pas la recette en l’air
Haha oui, en malgache ça se prononce presque comme raftoute !
Tu peux customiser la recette comme tu veux, l’important c’est le saka saka, je suis même en train de réfléchir à l’adapter en version vegan pour les gens qui ne mangent pas de viande!
Saka saka c’est le feliki ? le manioc ?
Oui c’est ça, feuilles de manioc pilées, ça se trouve sous forme de boule surgelée
https://lemmy.world/post/29654949
Something like that.
Veritasium did a video on this topic a few days ago. I highly recommend it. There’s a bit of nuance here, from what I understand, regarding PTFE which is the chemical composition that Chemours markets as Teflon. The video talks about PTFE being rather inert, passing through our bodies if we ingest it. The real issue is heating the substance above 350° C (662° in freedom units).
I’m not an expert but I think it’s worth reading up on the subject. If there’s anyone else more read up on the subject please let me know if I’m wrong here.
Veritasium made an interesting video about this. The teflon on pans shouldn’t be dangerous (unless heated above 350°C), but in the process of making teflon dangerous “forever chemicals” do get released
I keep seeing people urging to go back to cast iron or stainless steel, but when I left the nest 5 years ago, I picked up ceramic pans, and you can use them the same way as teflons and I have yet to lose the nonstick.
Don’t use bar keepers friend to clean them. That fucked up ours.
Could be cheaper enamel. Le Cruset specifically mentions it in their cleaning instructions
Bar Keeper’s Friend, or a paste of baking soda and water, also comes in handy for cleaning tough stains, oil residue and marks on your Dutch oven as well
I use it on my enameled dutch oven all the time and I’ve never had an issue.
Le Creuset enameled cast iron isn’t the same kind of thing as the ceramic nonstick the person upthread was talking about.
Don’t those use very similar coatings as Teflon?
It’s the simplest thing in the world with a stainless pan. Bring up the heat, add in some oil, wait for it to smoke, wipe it out with a cloth, in with cold oil, add in your food. It won’t stick.
I add oil, just enough to barely coat the pan, and then tap a teeny drop of tap water from my finger onto the pan. Once the drop pops (if it got touched by the oil) or simply boils away, I can start cooking.
Additionally: butter. Butter somehow doesn’t stick for whatever reason, even if the pan isn’t fully heated up yet.
Same here, but with a different order.
- Turn the heat on.
- Wait.
- Test with water. If it doesn’t sizzle, wait and test again. If it does sizzle…
- Add oil
mmmm… butter
Does this work with cast irons too?
Update: just made eggs sunny side up this way on my moderately unwell seasoned cast iron pan. Worked amazingly well. Who knew I was putting too much oil… I brought the temp down a little after cracking the eggs in.
Hell yeah buddy
belive it or not with enough heat you can cook eggs in a cast iron skillet without any oil ~(Some char may remain in the pan, restrictions apply. Please see your local pedantry department for all complaints about this advice.)~.
Thanks for giving a simple summary so I didn’t have to click and watch.
Been using the same set of pans for about 30 years. Just cold oil and a hot pan, get my food in immediately and same thing. I can slap pork chops in there no problem. I just have a feeling if I tried this instead of your method on a new pan, I’d be screwed.
I’m pretty sure the pan is just seasoned after that amount of time and they definitely get used daily, if not multiple times a day.
A stainless or carbon steel pan will take to the cold oil method first time. Cast iron will depend on the quality; some come preseasoned, but the quality of that varies a lot too.
I got my first nice CI skillet about five years ago and daily driving it. I talk a good game about steel pans but I just don’t enjoy them as much. You build their seasoning, it works perfectly once, then it’s gone. There’s no relationship, no satisfaction in getting a fried egg to slide freely about the pan.
“wipe it out with a cloth” I’m curious about the cloth you use and what you do it? Sounds really messy an oil soaked cloth… But you do say it’s the simplest thing…
Sometimes I forget others haven’t accepted tea towels into their heart. I’ve got a dozen or more cloth towels around the house for mopping up. It all comes out in the wash. Cotton ones won’t burn readily, so they’ll dry out a hot oily pan no problem.
Paper towels work fine. Just make sure they’re pure paper and not mixed with synthetics or weird scents or whatever.
I just let it go until leidenfrost, add oil and roll oil around and its good to go. If you are making eggs, reduce the heat and wait a bit. Only difference vs teflon is that you put the pan on heat while you are prepping to ensure thorough preheat. Havent used teflon in years. Havent missed it either, I make pancakes (local ones are thin, not quite crepe like but thin) with only one knob of butter at the beginning just fine. No oil in pancake batter either.
No oil in your batter? I wanna know more. Doesn’t that make the pancakes too chewy?
eggs, flour, milk, baking soda, bit of salt, bit of sugar. Thats the common batter. Ratios were like 1-2-3 or something for the main ingredients. Idunno, nobody has ever told me the recepie.
Thanks for this but I will stay say teflon is simpler (not better!)
If you’re lazy just say that
Extremely weird thing to be elitist and off-putting about.
i am lazy but i’m not even saying doing less steps is worth the cancer it gets you. I’m just pointing out that simplicity isn’t really a strong side of stainless steel when comparing it to teflon since simplicity is basically the only thing teflon has going for it.
Afaik Teflon isn’t carcinogenic. Veritasium recently made a video about teflon and more importantly PFOA used to produce teflon.
Here if interested https://youtu.be/SC2eSujzrUY
Fresh teflon is. Then you start throwing it away in a year or two since your teflon coating has FLAKED off despite using only wood-plastic-silicone and handwashing it carefully.
And then you read TEFLON FLAKES cause cancer.
And then you start putting two and two together.
The most annoying thing for me with Teflon was that in two years or so it is no longer nonstick, so your pans have essentially an expiration date.
Not to mention that it will be scratched and danger to you and all around you long before that.
I preach the gospel of our lord and savior stainless steel pans!
A soft (e.g. silicone) spatula is all you really need to avoid damaging a non-stick pan. And they are incredibly useful for other uses (a rubber flipper is awesome if you are perpetually impatient when it comes to flipping meat and don’t want to damage the skin).
But yeah. They are inherently a consumable which is why nobody should ever spend more than 20-ish (pre-trump) USD on one. It is up to an individual to decide if they would use it enough to justify that.
Sometimes the food can do it too – I scratched my last nonstick pan with a silicone spatula because I ground black pepper on my eggs and caught a craggy piece just right while flipping. After being super careful for months! So irritated.
Id recommend going for carbon steel instead of teflon if all clad or stainless steel is too much work.
For like $40-100, they heat up insanely well, are very light and will last your lifetime. They form an excellent non stick coating after several uses just like cast iron.
+1 on the carbon steel pan. Eggs slide right off mine.
I bought two a couple of months ago and I am never going back to anything else.
right? six steps and having to deal with hot oil every time or use teflon and have a slightly higher risk of cancer and zero extra steps to cooking. I’ll stick with teflon and hope for a global war to wipe us all out before I have to worry about cancer.
I want to shun you but it seems like you’re struggling enough 😑
I have so many uses for this sentence in my life.
Except the easiest thing in the world is just as the youtube guy said. If you use a cast iron or carbon steel, the seasoning doesnt really wash off as much, so you don’t have to re-season the thing every time you want to use it. My cast iron pans stay seasoned, even if I wash them with soap. SS doesn’t really have any benefit over carbon steel, and only a benefit over cast iron in that it’s lighter. If you want a lighter pan/wok, there’s little benefit over getting carbon steel.
I didn’t know about this technique, thanks!
You can also season the whole pan once and the nonstick effect will last a very long time.
I need my pans that need to be treated like a princess and then fail anyway in a few years and need to be thrown and replaced. I need to keep doing it cause those poor people at teflon plants cant have a job creating one of the most polluting chemicals out there
Does he actually show the spot seasoning process in this video? Or is it in a different vid?
Bought a carbon steel pan - never looked back, it is excellent and lasts forever!
I have a well seasoned good quality one that makes eggs as well as a nonstick pan. Took time to get to that point though. Sugary American bacon is the surest way to end up having to reseason it though.
Got one too, searing steacks is wonderful but I sure can’t make eggs without garbling them!
Can someone link to the actual fucking article describing how to do the spot seasoning method?
Don’t know who needs to hear this but you don’t need to season stainless steel. You just need to pre-heat it correctly for it to gain non-stick properties.
You have to pre-heat to around 400 degrees Fahrenheit before you put anything in the pan - including oil. You know its good when you drop some water in and it immediately beads up and glides across the entire surface. If it boils and evaporates, the pan is still too cold. If it beads up and starts to glide but freaks out in a certain spot, you have a cold spot in your pan. You’re trying to achieve the leidenfrost effect
Keep in mind that in a lot of dishes you actually want some of the food to stick to the pan and become [frond].(https://www.thespruceeats.com/all-about-fond-995681) Then you deglaze it later with some kind of wine or stock.
Stainless steel is perfect for this kind of cooking. I’ve been using it exclusively for years. Its versatility and low maintenance is why all the best kitchens in the world use it.
Fond. Fronds are parts of a tree.
Thanks for the tip about preheating! I bought a set of Allclad mostly so I could go from stove to oven to finish, but haven’t bothered to learn how to correctly cook eggs in them (have a carbon steel crepe pan that is the designated egg pan, highly recommend). The rest of the reason for them is that they are nigh on unfuck-up-able.
For the majority of cooking? Yes, you don’t need a non-stick pan. A properly used steel (or even aluminum) pan will work. Cast Iron is obviously loved but Carbon Steel is actually what most people want and has almost all of the same properties. But properly oiling your pan (and I actually love cooking sprays for dishes where I am using a neutral oil. Glug of “real” oil, get it up to temp, and then give a quick spritz just to make sure EVERYTHING is coated) and cooking at a high enough heat that your proteins can properly react and not “stick” to the pan will get you almost the entire way.
That said? Eggs and fish. Eggs very much are in that “nobody ever complained about too much butter” category but there is a lot to be said about a quick egg without any additional fats. And if you are cooking eggs these days, you can afford a 20 dollar specialty pan… And fish in particular is the kind of food where it is very easy to overcook it while waiting for all the appropriate reactions to occur so you can cleanly flip it.
If I were to downsize my kitchen (which I hopefully will be doing in a few months…)? That shit goes in the appropriate bin. But if you have the space? A 20-ish dollar restaurant supply store non-stick pan is AMAZING. And cheap enough that you can afford to get rid of it the moment you see any scratching.
You seem to be experienced with pans of different materials and you opened a topic I have no-one to ask about, so I’ll try here. I don’t use much oil and I like cooking on lower heat to avoid the carcinogens that are created when oil and other substances get too hot. Is it possible to do that with non-teflon pans? What material and technique?
Different oils have different temperature ranges with the “smoke point” what is commonly considered. As long as you are under that temperature, you are fine according to everyone that isn’t facebook.
Yep, I’m trying to use lower heat to not go over the smoke point. Canola oil has pretty good properties, so I use it. It is possible to overheat not just the oil, but also the other ingredients, so it’s good to limit the heat. That’s why I’m interested in the lower heat use possibilities of pans different materials.
Quick google puts Canola Oil’s smoke point at 450-ish Fahrenheit. You can do the real good stir frying with that. Even the “get a pan ridiculously hot to sear some meat” is in the 300s and MAYBE capping around 500 which isn’t great with canola but is still doable since the food will lower the pan temperature pretty quick anyway.
So if your pan is getting that hot then you are doing it wrong or are specifically trying to do restaraunt style sous vide and don’t realize they use (char)broilers for that.
I’m not doing that. As I said, I use lower temperatures.
ive been doing low fat eggs and frying fish just fine on a stainlless pan. Once throughoutly preheated, you can lower the heat and let the pan cool down a bit. Rolling oil around the pan in every direction ensures all the pores have been properly hit with oil.
My eggs stick less to my stainless than to my 3 year old very expensive teflon plan that has been treated properly and still fails cause teflon a shit.
I never used teflon because I read somewhere that you mustn’t heat it up to a certain point. I just used stainless steel all my life until I got a cast iron skillet.
Still use the stainless steel pan for 97% of cooking
Even easier, heat the stainless steel pan until water balls up and skitters/rolls across it instead of evaporating.
Add oil and you can fry an egg on that pan
