[cyberferret]

I bought a couple of cast iron skillets last year after decades of cooking on traditional non stick pans, and I must say I love them and regret not doing so much earlier.

It is amazing how, when well cared for they actually work better than most non stick pans I've used over the years. Sure there is a tiny bit more 'maintenance' required after use, but I actually enjoy the process (even if it was hard for me to deliberately NOT use soap during the cleaning process - a simple scrub out with a hot water & a stiff brush is all I do now before re-heating and re-coating with oil).

(The big secret for me was using high quality olive or flaxseed oils).

[stickfigure]

When you're ready for the next upgrade experience, try a clad pan (stainless on the outside, aluminum in the middle). You get the even heating of aluminum with the durability and ease of cleaning of stainless steel.

I cooked on cast iron for years before switching to clad. Cast iron's poor conductivity causes hot spots underneath the burner. With clad pans, you find yourself pushing the food around less to get even heat.

[Stratoscope]

Thank you, time for me to do some shopping!

I often hear people say that cast iron conducts heat well, but that is easy to disprove if you have a gas burner: put some water in the pan and turn the heat up. You will see the water boiling in a pattern that matches where the flame hits the pan.

I like to fry frozen chicken in the cast iron pan, but it is always a bit of a nuisance that the center of the pan gets much less hot than the perimeter. My gas range has a fairly large burner with no flame in the middle.

[stickfigure]

This site has a lot of IR camera shots of various pans, and you can clearly see the hotspots:

https://www.centurylife.org/how-to-choose-cookware/

It's what inspired me to try out clad, and I'm glad I did. My cast iron mostly sits unused now.

[Stratoscope]

That is a really informative and interesting article! Thanks for posting it.

[pfranz]

There are a bunch of techniques to see the heating pattern of a pan and to show how poor cast iron is in that regard. I remember someone using parchment paper (maybe Harold McGee?). In looking I found someone suggesting a light dusting of flour [1]. Of course, an IR camera is the most obvious. I've also noticed water boiling in unique patterns, like you mention.

[1] http://cookingissues.com/2010/02/16/heavy-metal-the-science-...

[qbasic_forever]

Be wary of clad cookware if you have a flat smoothtop electric range. In my experience clad cookware much more easily warps and refuses to sit flat, thus losing out on a lot of conductivity and efficiency. Clad is great with gas or induction though where sitting perfectly flat doesn't matter.

[ip26]

Or just stop using 7-10 on the dial (except for a boil). If there was a single thing that improved my cooking, it was learning to stop using Hi all the time.

[0xffff2]

Funny, if there was a single thing that improved my cooking, it was learning to use high all the time.

[bahmboo]

The flat bottom clad cookware is the best for me on our smooth top electric range (which I do not like at all). Everything else has some amount of cupping so it’s just hot spot management even with our fancy heavy copper French cookware. But yes I make dang sure I do not warp our clad pans. They must be flat!

[darkarmani]

> even if it was hard for me to deliberately NOT use soap during the cleaning process

Not using soap is just a myth. The hard surface is not oil anymore. You don't want to abrade it off, but it isn't going to come off with a little bit of soap. My big "ah moment" came when i realized why our teflon pan was ruined. It became "seasoned" after someone overheated it with some low-smoke point oil in it. The black layer that formed in it is the same "seasoned" layer you get from oil in a cast iron pan.

[jray]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Polytetrafluoroethylene#Ecotox...

[maddyboo]

I find my cast irons to be much lower maintenance than any other pan I’ve had. Cleaning is super easy, they are super durable and I’ve scrubbed them super hard with a bit of soap when necessary and the seasoning is still perfect.

[wombatmobile]

Olive oils? Aren't they not recommended for this because they have a low smoke point?

[KozmoNau7]

The wisps you see from olive oil on a frying pan is steam, unless of course the pan is crazy 10/10 hot, at which point any cooking oil will burn.

I fry most things in either extra virgin olive oil or butter. The olive oil stands up to the heat better than butter (the milk solids will burn).

https://youtu.be/l_aFHrzSBrM

[mikeg8]

Extra Virgin Olive oil is the one you definitely should NOT use as it does have a low smoke point. Pure olive oil has a higher smoke point and can be used, although other oils may be better.

[KozmoNau7]

Extra virgin olive oil is perfectly fine to fry in, unless you're seeing black smoke, you're not hitting the smoke point.

[mikeg8]

The smoke point of Extra virgin olive oil (374–405) is too close to the temp you need to fry (350-375) and EVO has a very distinct taste which is not welcomed in most fried foods. Find some recipes or chefs that recommend frying with it - you wont.

[KozmoNau7]

The majority of chefs from countries bordering the Mediterranean would laugh at your claim that extra virgin olive oil is not suitable for frying. Obviously you shouldn't go using your fancy $100 bottle for deep frying, but mostly because it would be a waste of money, and because frying dulls the flavor. You want to save the really flavorful and expensive oils for salads and as a finishing touch.

I've been pan frying eggs, onions, pork chops, chicken, potatoes, fish, basically anything interchangeably in extra virgin olive oil and butter/ghee for decades. There is certainly a flavor difference, but that's because the olive oil is much milder in flavor than butter, and the process of frying dulls the flavor of the olive oil, as mentioned.

I - along with millions of people in countries bordering the Mediterranean - enjoy the flavor of food cooked in olive oil.

Adam Ragusea did a great video on the topic, with cited sources. I highly recommend watching it:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l_aFHrzSBrM

Sources:

https://actascientific.com/ASNH/pdf/ASNH-02-0083.pdf

https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S02786...

https://www.mdpi.com/1420-3049/24/8/1555/htm

Including this famous chef using it for deep frying:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5ZSPDYAUn7E

Additional sources:

https://www.nutritionadvance.com/cooking-with-olive-oil-good...

https://www.bonappetit.com/story/can-you-fry-with-olive-oil

https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/24360472/

https://www.healthline.com/nutrition/healthiest-oil-for-deep...

The bottom line is that extra virgin olive oil is more heat stable than other cooking oils with higher smoke points. Just don't use it to sear steaks or something.

So much of the conventional wisdom around cooking is not based on scientific fact, but rather on unsubstantiated observations and gut feelings. The viability of extra virgin olive oil for cooking is one of those pieces of faulty conventional wisdom, the need to sear steaks to "seal in the juices" used to be another big one, until we finally got the record set straight.

[mikeg8]

Welp, I took your recommendation and owe you an apology. Adam’s video was eye opening. I was clearly wrong on this and I’m glad you took the time to share these sources. Thank you.

[cyberferret]

I believe the cheaper blended olive oils cause a lot of problems. I now use only pure, high quality olive oil (from Kalamata, Greece, where I visited a couple of years back and saw them make (and drink) the stuff) and have experienced far less oil burning issues in all my pans.

[gorgoiler]

When cooking, the omega content of flaxseed triggers all kinds of fish-smell revulsion in me. How are you not overwhelmed by this?