good point about reheating Hardy. I love to reheat dishes in the cast iron to give them extra crust such as mac n cheese, green bean casserole, stuffing (we eat thanksgiving sides year round).
Never, ever cook tomatoes in them.
Never, ever let your cleaning lady touch them as they will invariably pour copious amounts of soap in them.
Once itās really well seasoned just run hot water in it and scrub with a brush or a piece of SS chainmail to clean. Put it back in the oven/hot stove to dry so it wonāt rust.
My best/favorite cast iron is a 10 inch 1970ās era frying pan from IKEA. Made in Denmark and the grain is so fine and itās so well seasoned I can do a non-stick sunny side up egg in it.
this. changed my life.
Amagabeli 8"x6" Stainless Steel 316L Cast Iron Cleaner - Chainmail Scrubber for Cast Iron Pan Pre-Seasoned Pan Dutch Ovens Waffle Iron Lodge Pans Scraper Cast Iron Grill Scraper Skillet Scraper
by Amagabeli
Link: Amazon.com
If you donāt want to use soap in your CIS then by all means donāt, but I abided by this for several years before being told it didnāt matter, tried soap, and my life has been marginally better since then. Of course Iāve also been told ādonāt soak themā, but I find with my currently super-seasoned skillet, a 20 minute soak followed by soft sponge (with/without soap) gets about anything off no problem. Never tried the chain-mail, have heard good things but never needed it.
Love Cast Iron Skillet Cornbread!!
Do you guys strip it down to the iron before re-seasoning, or is there merit to just applying another layer of coconut or flax oil to an already-seasoned pan? I have just one cast iron pan, a circa 1906-1909 Griswold 12". I love it, use it for all kinds of things. Between that and an old Le Creuset enameled Dutch oven Iād say they make up 60% of my cookware usage.
Do you let it cool completely before cleaning?
Iāve got about a dozen cast iron pieces. All vintage Wagner Ware and Griswold except for two vintage unmarked pieces. A genuinely properly seasoned piece can take a little soap, but generally they donāt need it. You can also use a little kosher salt and a towel/dishrag on a still warm pan to clean. I find the sides of roasters after a long braise get the dirtiest. And then a quick wipe, on the stove to dry, then a little canola oil. Havenāt tried the chain but someone gave me one, might have to pull it out.
Do the Lodge pans ever get smooth? Never bought one. I canāt believe they get as smooth as the old pieces.
Thanks, I just ordered one.
Cooks Illustrated suggested that the ones with finer mesh work better.
FIFY
I also just throw the skillet after washing into a hot oven. With our high relative humidity it is the driest place in the house. Most of my stuff is Lodge except for a 100+ year old generic piece that my mom got from her mom. It is about 4 inches deep and what she used for frying chicken when we were growing up. It has a thinner bottom than the Lodges.
In addition to the regular range of 10, 12 and 14 inch. I also have a couple of 6 inch. I use them for brownies, corn bread, grilled cheese. For example I might make a batch of batter, pour half āplainā into one skillet and then make the other skillet Jalapeno Cheddar. I also use them like a panini press, get both hot and then put one on the other.
I usually use a little soap if there was a bunch of food cooked in it. If it was just cornbread or a grilled cheese, then hot water, a quick wipe dry then toss in the oven.
I took Grandmaās 8" CI skillet down to bare iron (it rusts QUICKLY) I donāt think Iād do it again as it took a couple of years to build back the surface. I used easy-off and then heavy duty sanding.
2011
flax seed oil process
http://sherylcanter.com/wordpress/2010/01/a-science-based-technique-for-seasoning-cast-iron/
Iāve got a skillet that has performed reasonably well for years now but in one spot (about an inch wide and about 3-4 inches long). I tried stipping all of it and starting over but that was a chore.
Since itās just that one spot that is screwed up, is it possible simply season that spot? UNderstanding it may never be perfectly smooth at the transition. Just trying to understand if itās possible to salvage or if I need to bite the bullet and strip the whole thing down and start over.
It could have overheated (or quickly cooled) in that spot and reforged itself incorrectly.
Just the opposite - I always try to clean while still hot from cooking. When hot, I can clean almost anything off in seconds. When cool, itās a lot more work. In fact, if I didnāt have a chance to clean it before it cooled down, I almost always heat the pan back up before cleaning.
Mel, if you get to disaster mode with your skilletā¦ take a 2L of Coke and pour half of it in. The rust will vanish immediately and what little is left will come off easily with steel wool. We had left ours in storage for several years and it was a disaster, until I used Coke to clean it. Of course, youāre never going to want to drink Coke again, but hey.
How do you clean it when it is hot?
I first remove anything heavy with a plastic scraper and then clean with a green plastic scrub pad under running water. If itās really hot, Iāll hold the scrub pad with a pair of tongs (which I was probably just using to cook with anyway). I will warn that when hot enough this process will aerosolize the oil that was in your pan as the water steams off the hot pan. It just means that I have to clean the hanging light fixtures above the sink more often that I otherwise would have to. The net time savings on quick cast iron clean up is worth it to me.
This doesnāt warp the pan?
+1 on the carbon steel pans being what I use more often. But occasionally you really need that thermal mass of the cast iron, so I like to have both in the kitchen.
My carbon pans are de Buyer, and Iām happy with all but one of them. That one has warped, probably someone mistreated it.