Cooking with Cast Iron

[Manveer]

I used to use soap to clean.

Now I make a salt paste and scrub it a bit while the pan is still warm... the food comes off and the seasoning remains.

[Hanley]

the food comes off and the seasoning remains.

Were you losing your seasoning previously?

[Root]

I find that if I keep cooking any stuck food bits, they eventually just scrape off with a spatula.

The best way, of course, is to never get anything stuck to it.

[Manveer]

the food comes off and the seasoning remains.

Were you losing your seasoning previously?

I don't know that my cast iron has ever been seasoned well, but it seems better now than before. Maybe I'll just go back to soap and water.

[mgil]

Big pools of hamburger fat.

Without fear, I use...brace yourself...soap and the rough surface of a sponge.

Disregard everything this person has ever posted.

[Hanley]

Big pools of hamburger fat.

Without fear, I use...brace yourself...soap and the rough surface of a sponge.

Disregard everything this person has ever posted.

Yes. Soap will just tear apart a hard polymerized-oil surface.

[mgil]

Big pools of hamburger fat.

Without fear, I use...brace yourself...soap and the rough surface of a sponge.

Disregard everything this person has ever posted.

Yes. Soap will just tear apart a hard polymerized-oil surface.

No, but a detergent will remove the young, fresh, supple oil that longs to become part of nature’s Teflon.

[Allentown]

I bought griddle, brought home, put on grill over lump coal, cooked bacon and burgers in bacon grease. I wiped as much grease off it with paper towel that I could, after it had cooled down a bit. I've done that twice more, without the bacon part. That's the extent of what I have done to/with this thing.

[Root]

I bought griddle, brought home, put on grill over lump coal, cooked bacon and burgers in bacon grease. I wiped as much grease off it with paper towel that I could, after it had cooled down a bit. I've done that twice more, without the bacon part. That's the extent of what I have done to/with this thing.

y u no season?

[Allentown]

Actually, I did rub it down with vegetable oil before using it the first two times.

[cgeorg]

No, but a detergent will remove the young, fresh, supple oil that longs to become part of nature’s Teflon.

mmm, go on

[aurelius]

What is this delicious egg concoction?

[Root]

Actually, I did rub it down with vegetable oil before using it the first two times.

To season, you'd need to rub it with oil (lard! lard! lard!) and then bake it for an hour upside down. Preferably a few times.

[Manveer]

What is this delicious egg concoction?

It's in the text you deleted above the photo.....

Shakshuka

[iamsmu]

I had a cast iron dutch oven that I got rid of. It was too reactive to warrant the space it took up. It ruined an important dinner once. . . My 7 quart Le Creuset is beat to shit, but does what we need it to do.

The cast iron skillet is much more useful than the dutch oven, but I wouldn't go near it with anything acidic. Tomatoes would be a problem. We use ours mainly for making hash.

[fishwife]

If the pan is seasoned properly, dish detergent won't harm it.

But for hamburger grease, if you don't want to use soap, let the pan cool, then wipe out the half-solid cooled fat well with a paper towel. Discard.

Then run the pan under very warm water while you "scrub" it gently with a sponge. Dry it on heat, then give it a final wipe-down with a paper towel and do whatever maintenance rituals you like to do with it afterward. That will remove enough for the pan to be clean enough.

[fishwife]

I had a cast iron dutch oven that I got rid of. It was too reactive to warrant the space it took up. It ruined an important dinner once. . . My 7 quart Le Creuset is beat to shit, but does what we need it to do.

Le Creusets are family heirlooms.

No point in having a cast-iron-only Dutch oven if you have an enameled cast-iron one.

EDIT: unless you plan to cook with a Dutch oven over a fire/charcoal grill/etc. I guess cast iron comes in handy for that.

[Allentown]

If the pan is seasoned properly, dish detergent won't harm it.

But for hamburger grease, if you don't want to use soap, let the pan cool, then wipe out the half-solid cooled fat well with a paper towel. Discard.

Then run the pan under very warm water while you "scrub" it gently with a sponge. Dry it on heat, then give it a final wipe-down with a paper towel and do whatever maintenance rituals you like to do with it afterward. That will remove enough for the pan to be clean enough.

OK.

To season, you'd need to rub it with oil (lard! lard! lard!) and then bake it for an hour upside down. Preferably a few times.

OK. I think I have some lard, actually. What temp?

[Root]

Oh, I dunno. 350? It's on the Googles I'm sure. Just make sure it's a very thin coating and put it business-side-down and lay down some foil to catch drippings if your oven isn't already a disaster like mine is

[omaniphil]

If anybody is going to be re-seasoning your cast iron pans, do it right and polish the cast iron pan before you season.

I originally wrote this back at the other place in the Low Iron level thread in Rips Q&A earlier this year:

Lodge stopped polishing their cast iron cookware before preseasoning some years back. This results in suboptimal non-stick performance due to the increased surface area. I have a cast iron skillet that certainly worked well for searing, but was decidedly less useful for eggs due to the stickiness of the surface. Today, I used an orbital sander and 80 grit sandpaper to remove the seasoning and smooth out the surface of the skillet, and finished off with 140 grit sandpaper. I then re-seasoned the skillet by rubbing a thin coat of oil onto the surface and baking at 500 degrees F for an hour. I repeated that 3 times, and the surface of my skillet is like black glass. I can turn the pan sideways and eggs slide off now. I can't do that with any of my non stick pans.