Caring For Cast Iron



This will be a bit of a different post from usual, as it is my first non-recipe Gryphood entry. It's still food-related and instructional however, as it is about taking care of cast iron cookware.

As far as my understanding, there are three mainstream cookware options: cast iron, stainless steel, and nonstick.

Stainless steel is good because it heats up fast but some foods are vulnerable to sticking to its surface and it can warp over time. 

Nonstick is good because it's resistant to sticking, but the material used to make it this way invariably leaches off over time before it gets the chance to warp and you can't use metal utensils on it for fear of quickening this process. The leaching also creates some health concerns. 

Cast iron is good because of its durability, ability to hold heat which is useful for cooking on uneven surfaces like a fire, and it's relative nonstick surface without the associated issues concerning health and durability, but it takes a longer time to heat up than the previous two options, it will never be quite as nonstick as an expressly nonstick pan in its prime, and there are some limitations in its use, such as it can be damaging to cook highly acidic foods like tomato sauces which is not a concern for stainless steel.

Lee-Anne likes to use these pans that are just called "the rock". They seem to be a fancied-up nonstick that looks like cast iron. They seem functional but I'm skeptical of them.

Generally speaking, people who know their cookware are not fans of nonstick and the debate is between stainless steel and cast iron. Both have their applications, but I personally have a fondness for cast iron.

The longevity and durability of cast iron is such that if properly taken care of, you can pass your pans on through generations. There is a romance to being able to rely on a pan for the rest of your life, and that it generally gets stronger with use.

To properly care for your cast iron, you must undergo a process called "seasoning". It seems like every resource I look at has contradictory information on what this process should entail. Even the booklet that came with my wok seems like it was written by three different people with three different opinions.

So after going through the process a few times, I've kind of found my way of doing it which seems to work. So I'm going to write my steps on here so I don't have to delve into this more contradictory information.

Initial Seasoning:

You might have gotten a pre-seasoned pan, but usually the initial seasoning process is a bit more intensive than following applications. The goal is to add three layers of oil and to bake them into the surface.

  1. Preheat oven to 350 F
  2. Scour pan with a scrub brush or steel wool and clean with dish soap, making sure to get the bottom of the pan, handle, and every bit of surface you can get to. You shouldn't generally use this material on cast iron because it can scrape off the polymerized surface, but for the first application it doesn't have that yet, so scraping it makes it more receptive to the oil
  3. Make sure pan is fully dry, then rub it down with oil using paper towel, making sure to fully coat every part of it. Some people use fat or lard. Apparently flaxseed oil is presently considered the gold standard, but any neutral oil should do the trick. I've used vegetable oil and peanut oil in the past, which seems to have worked well. I'd use flaxseed if it was available but I generally just have olive oil and peanut oil on hand and I'm not going to buy a bottle just for seasoning. Maybe I should
  4. Bake the coated pan upside-down in the oven for two hours. Remove and allow to cool
  5. Once cooled, coat the pan again, and repeat the process two more times for a total of three layers
6 Month Maintenance Seasoning/Rescuing Rusted Cast Iron:

After the initial seasoning, barring any event that damages the cookware requiring earlier intervention, you should season the pan once every six months. Both of my pans were Christmas gifts so it makes it really easy, as I just season in January and June.

  1. Preheat oven to its highest temperature, generally 450-500 F. We're only doing one layer this time so we're going to make it count
  2. If your cast iron has rusted over, make sure to scrub it down with a scouring pad or steel wool to get down to the base layer and wash with soap, fully drying before adding a layer of oil. Skip this step if your pan is in relatively good condition
  3. Coat the pan fully with your choice of oil or fat. I mentioned above that flaxseed is the gold standard but you can use fat, lard, or any neutral oil
  4. Bake for 1 hour upside down

Washing:
  • The main key is to not leave food or standing water in it overnight. Clean it relatively promptly after use to avoid food merging with the pan or rusting
  • Wash it by hand, don't put it in the dishwasher
  • Supposedly you shouldn't use dish soap. An alternative is to use salt and hot water, scrubbing with the abrasive side of a sponge
  • Avoid steel wool and wire when scrubbing, as this could scrape off the polymerized surface
  • If needed you can burn off food that has stuck to the pan by baking it at a high heat and brushing it off afterwards. If you do this you should re-season following the 6 month maintenance process detailed above
Additional Tips:
  • Avoid highly acidic foods like tomato sauces. A brief interaction with it is probably fine, but you don't want to be simmering or marinating acidic stuff in your cast iron
  • Don't scrape with metal utensils like forks, you could damage the polymerized surface by doing so. It's not as delicate as nonstick though, so you can use these so long as you're conscientious about not scraping

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