Ask Lemmy

Metal hot. Make food hot.

Think a bit deeper. How quickly is that heat transferred, and at what peak temperatures? Does the metal keep any heat of its own and impart that into the food, or does it just convey the heat from the burner to the food? And how quickly does it do that?

but my wife seems to think cast-iron is necessary for certain things (searing a prime rib roast, for example.).

Look at the thermal mechanics of this.

Take the cast iron pot. You can throw that on the stove and let it get ripping hot, like the metal itself is carrying a ton of heat energy. When you put the prime rib in it, the metal dumps its heat into the meat much faster than a flame alone would. This helps you get a strong sear on the outside, without dumping in too much total quantity of heat to cook the meat on the inside more than you want.

then I gotta figure out gas vs. electric vs. induction vs infrared…

Heat can be transferred 3 ways- conduction (flows between two touching objects), convection (hot object heats air, air blows against cold object, air heats cold object) and radiation (hot object radiates energy through space and it warms cold object).

Electric- coils get hot, the pan touching the coils transfers heat by conduction. Downside is uneven heating- neither the pan nor the coils is perfectly flat so you get hot spots.

Infrared- coils under the glass get hot and radiate heat through the glass. This works pretty well.

Induction- coils under the glass but they don't get hot. Instead they create a magnetic field modulated at low radio frequencies (15-150 KHz). This fluctuating magnetic field interacts with any ferrous metal close to it, creating small but powerful eddy currents inside the metal and thus heating the metal up. So the stove doesn't create any heat at all, it's the pan that actually gets hot. This by the way is neither conduction convection nor radiation, because heat isn't being transferred, it's created inside the pot.

Gas- flammable gas (usually propane or natural gas, which is mostly methane) burns creating high temperature exhaust gases that rise against the pot and thus heat the pot. Many chefs like this. Gas stoves should ideally be used with an overhead hood as gas stoves have been proven to drastically reduce indoor air quality.

Of the options- induction is usually the best these days, because it's the most efficient, cleanest, and also in many cases has the highest output (in terms of watts of heat pumped into the pot).

When cooking, you want a stove capable of very high output. The more output you have, the faster it will boil water for example.

Get a thick bottom stainless steel pan and don’t be afraid to use butter, it’ll take care of all your needs and doesn’t require special or gentle treatment.

This is a HUGE "Yes, but."

Entering adulthood, I got cheap run of the mill non stick pans, they work until they dont.

Then we tried cast iron. Gotta oil it, cure it, and don't use soap to wash it. Some extra work, but it worked great.

Now, I'm rocking stainless steel. Less work than the cast iron, but you need to preheat the pan before you put anything in it. If you do this, it's just as nonstick as the others, and it's a lot lighter and easier than the iron, and I think they are less expensive than cast iron, but I haven't compared in a very long time.

Metal hot. Makes food hot. Yes.

But!!

Cold food makes hot pan cold.

Cast iron has a lot of thermal mass, so when you put a cold piece of meat on it it doesn't immediately get cold and stop cooking for a bit. Thin pans without it don't keep hot, hot so they don't sear long enough and you don't get the maillard reaction and the tasty brown crust.

Your wife sounds smart, listen to heerrrrrr.

Also I don't know, but since hearing about non-stick pans leaking cancer into your food (if you scrape them with a fork, etc), I just like to use a normal pan.

For me, cast iron are by far my most used pans. You know how flannel starts out sort of awful but gets better and better as it gets older? That's cast iron. Starts out sticky PITA but over time becomes satisfying satiny nonstick surface. I've always used them a lot so that's how my cooking style evolved.

We also have one steel pan we call the Stick pan, sometimes you want food to stick so you can deglaze. My kids use it for potsticker dumplings, and they like it also because it's lighter, cast iron is heavy. And of course a rice and pasta pot, those are steel.

I don't buy "nonstick" pans, they don't last and I'm not convinced they are safe.

Non-stick is terrible for anything that needs real frying, because the non-stick coating breaks down at high temperatures (generally manufacturer recommendations are to keep the pan under 400f / 204c. I've had the coating start browning and changing at lower temperatures than that.

I have cast iron pans, but I can't be bothered to maintain them so they mostly sit in the cabinet. I need to sand and re-coat mine currently, as they've got some rust spots, and I don't really use them.

I swear by steel pans. They work great on any stove type (gas, electric, induction, doesn't matter), have enough heft but are lighter than cast iron, and they can handle high heat and even be baked so long as the handle is also steel. The trick to stainless is making sure it's hot enough for water to dance on, and nothing will stick. I tend to use a bit of oil and then a bit of butter when cooking in them and they're practically non-stick that way anyway, just give it a rinse and wash while it's still hot and everything comes right off.

Plus, there are some foods you actually want to stick a bit sometimes, like when you're searing meats and later using the glaze from the pan for a sauce.

If you're using steel and accidentally leave it and stuff is stuck to it, no need to panic, just put some water in the pan, heat it up (preferably with a lid on), and once it's hot, everything should come off easily.

Edit - one trick to cooking with a stainless steel pan that I've found specifically when cooking with oil (olive oil generally) - When the oil becomes thin and moves around the pan easily you're generally good, but if you leave it sit on medium heat until the oil makes a sort of sine wave pattern where the edges of the pan start to curve up, you're set, nothing will stick.

Some answers here are close.

It depends on what type of person you are.

If you're the kind of person who has a neat, clean kitchen who does all their dishes after every meal, go cast iron.

If you're the kind of person who has a messy kitchen and you really only do dishes once or twice a week, go primarily with stainless, a nonstick pan for eggs, and a 10-12 inch cast iron pan for occasional use, like that rib roast.

Reddit has a fucking hard-on for cast iron. I'm not really a fan.

I don't use teflon non-stick but have had good results with ceramic-based non-stick. My second choice would be carbon steel, which has a similar "seasoning" process as cast iron, but I find carbon steel easier to work with compared to cast iron.

Cast iron is vastly superior to non stick. You can get it hotter, it stays hot when you put food in it, you can use metal utensils, no horrible chemicals like pfas.

Cast iron is fairly cheap and reliably buy it for life. Non stick pans are so delicate that you can't even use metal tools with them and their handles are usually plastic so melt if you put them in the oven, and even then they won't last more than a few years.

All of my pans are cast iron. For saucepans I have stainless steel. Never really had a problem with cleanup, what are you doing?

Non stick usually implies teflon coating. Throw it out.

I have some cast iron cookware. Fun to use, the end result does feel different, heat disperses well and evenly and keeps warm for longer.

It can be used over nearly any heat source, with similar results, but I do prefer induction. More efficient and less prone no mishaps.

Yes

My family uses our cast iron skillets daily. We have one that is almost exclusively for eggs, and one for meat.

Cast iron wants to be used often and if you really like cooking, will eventually become your go-to. But not everyone gets there; for a lot of people it is counterintuitive to have a pan that you only scrub any bits off and rinse with plain water. Actually, our egg pan only gets wiped out with paper towels because its so slippery now. I don't think I've scrubbed it in months.

If you really want to use your pans:

1. Best: cast iron
2. Better: stainless steel or enameled
3. Good: high quality nonstick like HexClad
4. Never: cheap non-stick

We use the absolute hell out of our cast iron and our stainless steel. They all get scrubbed with a metal Chore-Boy scrubbee. Only the stainless gets soap.

Pan make food hot. But cold food make flimsy lightweight pan less hot too. Food just sort of simmers while sometimes you want scorching.

Cast iron, or heavy bottom stainless steel pan, stays hot while food touches the pan. More energy is stored in hot heavy bottom pan. Food gets scorched and this gives more roasty toasty flavour, which is better in my opinion. If you don't care for this, don't.

Also, heavy bottoms spread heat more evenly so everything is cooked at same speed (not the middle of the pan faster like most non-stick pans).

Cast iron is pretty good at almost everything, but isn't the best at anything.

For searing meat at high temps, I've settled on stainless steel. It's easy to clean and maintain, and the typical 3-ply or 5-ply cladding has much better heat transfer characteristics than cast iron (which is a mediocre heat conductor masked by the fact that it's so heavy and thick that it takes on a lot of thermal mass to aid in searing). You don't have to worry about metal utensils or harsh scrubbers scratching the surface. And you don't have to worry about acidic ingredients messing with the surface, either.

For things that need nonstick characteristics, like eggs, I cycle through nonstick on a short replacement cycle (once every 2 or 3 years). I might get a carbon steel one day but I'm not in a hurry.

I have Lodge cast-iron skillets, Le Creuset and Staub ceramic-coated cast-iron dutch ovens, Le Creuset stainless saucepans, and one non-stick frying pan (which I bought for my wife).

I use the skillets for pretty much everything that isn't going to be simmered in tomato. Had them for years and they are non-stick. I happily fry eggs in them with no worries whatsoever.

I personally cook with a mix of stainless, high carbon, and cast iron and have moved on from gas to induction, with loving my induction and steel pan combo.

I don't care for non-stick due to its short lifespan, not great a searing, and having to replace them every couple of years creating waste and chemicals.

I've found that cast iron with a properly done seasoning and just a little bit of oil, which come on almost no one is cooking without a little bit of oil, I've got a perfectly great non-stick surface that can do eggs, including omurice, and salmon without anything sticking and cleanup is fine, if I get some stuck bits, just take a plastic scraper and then just clean as normal with or without soap depending (yeah, keep it to yourself purists)

My two cents

Different tools for different jobs. There's a ton more variables at play. Oversimplifying does just that.

Play with it all. Try to do both. Then you will have a better idea. Or post on lemmy asking everybody and read a lot of incomplete and possibly misleading explanations that might help you find the detail(s) you lack to edge your mind into a wider hunger for deeper understanding.

Mine? Cast iron is just different. Like using a truck vs using a car.

In real life, nothing is clear. So, when people give you clear explanations, they may be making the decision to not invest a lot of energy trying to get you to understand or know more. Like right now, I know that spectrum people take a lot of explaining sometimes, and I am really tired and going to bed, so my best advice is to understand they're different. Learn by doing if you can, and learn from others if you can. But, if it means anything, I use two cast iron skillets, three types of stainless steel pans, some of them tri-ply, and an aluminum with a nonstick coating. I have my preferences not just for different things, but styles of certain things, and even times for different things (like just cooking for me, or one other person, or multiple other people).

Also, generally with non-stick, using high heat or metal utensils on it will ruin it and expose you to pretty bad chemicals basically immediately. But also so does any smoke in general.

Literally pick your poison.

Cast iron has a crap ton of mass compared to other pans you mentioned, so if you're searing a stake you're going to have a more consistent temp as the temperatures of the pan and the steak equilize. Enough to make a difference? No idea but it could possibly have something to it there

Everything has it's pros and cons. There is no 'better'. A stocked kitchen will have variety of different cookware types, a professional kitchen will have more than one heat type as well. most people for whatever reason, only use one cookware type and convince themselves it's the 'best', but that isn't true at all. i've taken professional cooking classes and they use every type of cookware and tell you to but certain types for certain styles/dishes.

choose your heat source first, then your cookware. non-ferrous cookware won't work on induction stoves.

personally i have non stick, stainless steel, cast iron, and ceramic. i don't bother with carbon steel because i don't do high heat cooking that works best with it. i have a couple of basic alloy stock pots too, because they are lighter.

I don't like non-stick anymore because the coating eventually gets all scratched up and doesn't work as good. Idk how it gets scratched up, I never used metal. My ex did, so maybe it was her.

Cast Iron, if maintained well (i.e just don't cook anything too acidic. You don't usually need to re-season), lasts forever. It's also great for when you want to sear something without the pan cooling down once you put your food on it. Because it's thick and stores a bunch of heat. Yet somehow it also gets hot pretty fast.

I don't get stainless steel personally. Apparently to get things to not stick, I should be using MORE heat? But I already use a lot of heat! On the up side, they get hot really fast.

Copper and carbon steel I've never used. I hear carbon steel is similar to cast iron in many ways, but easier to maintain?

If you're doing a new build, definitely go induction. Electric sucks because it's kinda slow-ish to get started, gas sucks because either you need to have a gas line built to your house if you don't already have one, or you change out the gas container every now and then (and that thing is heavy, mine's 17 KG of gas + whatever the huge chunk of metal weighs, which is definitely more than 17 KG). Plus the whole issue of, y'know, freshly burnt hydrocarbons (yay CO2 and potentially other gases). Oh and gas explosions aren't common, but they can happen!

Only downside of induction is that if you lose power, you can't cook. A wood-burning stove as a backup is excellent in this case, because depending on what your heating system is, you may also lose heating if power is gone.

Cast iron is great if you use it a lot. It does take a little more work to maintain because after you clean it it's best if you dry it and coat it with a thin layer of oil, but you don't have to if you use it all the time. Mine is non stick enough to fry an egg with no oil, so it's better than my old ass Teflon pans in that sense, but probably not as good as a new Teflon pan

I agree with the wife. Cast iron for steaks and searing red meats, non-stick for everything else.

At the end of the day, what you should care about most is the fact that you're lucky enough to have a wife who knows how to cook. In my house, I have to handle all the cooking and dishes. But at least she does the dusting and the laundry—both of which I hate doing—so it evens out I guess.

Yes. Cast iron is best. It and high carbon steel are the only real "non stick" because thyre the only ones you can season. Dont use "nonstick" pans they are just pollutants and give you cancer. Seasoning cast iron is easy (really... Do less! Stop reaming it and scrubbing it to death... just get it really hot and wipe it). Cast iron last forever... these other things become garbage in 1-5 yrs

Never buy non-stick unless it's labeled PFAS-free. PFAS, also called "forever chemicals", are persistent organic pollutants which are a great way to fuck up the whole ecosystem

Duck non-stick.

Treated myself to Le Creuset and will probably never have to buy something again lol.