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Re: Cooking with Cast Iron
Posted: Tue Oct 03, 2017 6:14 am
by 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.
Re: Cooking with Cast Iron
Posted: Tue Oct 03, 2017 6:18 am
by Hanley
Manveer wrote: ↑Tue Oct 03, 2017 6:14 amthe food comes off and the seasoning remains.
Were you losing your seasoning previously?
Re: Cooking with Cast Iron
Posted: Tue Oct 03, 2017 6:19 am
by 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.
Re: Cooking with Cast Iron
Posted: Tue Oct 03, 2017 6:21 am
by Manveer
Hanley wrote: ↑Tue Oct 03, 2017 6:18 am
Manveer wrote: ↑Tue Oct 03, 2017 6:14 amthe 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.
Re: Re:
Posted: Tue Oct 03, 2017 6:31 am
by mgil
Hanley wrote: ↑Tue Oct 03, 2017 5:28 am
Allentown wrote: ↑Tue Oct 03, 2017 5:20 am
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.
Re: Re:
Posted: Tue Oct 03, 2017 6:33 am
by Hanley
mgil wrote: ↑Tue Oct 03, 2017 6:31 am
Hanley wrote: ↑Tue Oct 03, 2017 5:28 am
Allentown wrote: ↑Tue Oct 03, 2017 5:20 am
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.
Re: Re:
Posted: Tue Oct 03, 2017 6:37 am
by mgil
Hanley wrote: ↑Tue Oct 03, 2017 6:33 am
mgil wrote: ↑Tue Oct 03, 2017 6:31 am
Hanley wrote: ↑Tue Oct 03, 2017 5:28 am
Allentown wrote: ↑Tue Oct 03, 2017 5:20 am
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.
Posted: Tue Oct 03, 2017 6:50 am
by 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.
Re:
Posted: Tue Oct 03, 2017 6:53 am
by Root
Allentown wrote: ↑Tue Oct 03, 2017 6:50 am
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?
Posted: Tue Oct 03, 2017 7:20 am
by Allentown
Actually, I did rub it down with vegetable oil before using it the first two times.
Re: Re:
Posted: Tue Oct 03, 2017 7:34 am
by cgeorg
mgil wrote: ↑Tue Oct 03, 2017 6:37 amNo, but a detergent will remove the
young, fresh, supple oil that longs to become part of nature’s Teflon.
mmm, go on
Re: Cooking with Cast Iron
Posted: Tue Oct 03, 2017 7:42 am
by aurelius
What is this delicious egg concoction?
Re:
Posted: Tue Oct 03, 2017 7:56 am
by Root
Allentown wrote: ↑Tue Oct 03, 2017 7:20 am
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.
Re: Cooking with Cast Iron
Posted: Tue Oct 03, 2017 8:01 am
by Manveer
aurelius wrote: ↑Tue Oct 03, 2017 7:42 amWhat is this delicious egg concoction?
It's in the text you deleted above the photo.....
omaniphil wrote: ↑Mon Oct 02, 2017 7:07 pm
Shakshuka
Re: Cooking with Cast Iron
Posted: Tue Oct 03, 2017 8:44 am
by 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.
Re: Cooking with Cast Iron
Posted: Tue Oct 03, 2017 9:01 am
by 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.
Re: Cooking with Cast Iron
Posted: Tue Oct 03, 2017 9:08 am
by fishwife
iamsmu wrote: ↑Tue Oct 03, 2017 8:44 am
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.
Re: Re:
Posted: Tue Oct 03, 2017 9:51 am
by Allentown
fishwife wrote: ↑Tue Oct 03, 2017 9:01 am
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.
Root wrote: ↑Tue Oct 03, 2017 7:56 am
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?
Re: Cooking with Cast Iron
Posted: Tue Oct 03, 2017 9:56 am
by 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
Re: Cooking with Cast Iron
Posted: Tue Oct 03, 2017 10:06 am
by 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.
