Perpetual stew vibes
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Yall need the The Food Lab better cooking with science book by J. Kenji Lopez-Alt. He has a whole section on proper cleaning and seasoning of a cast iron skillet.
Kenji could write an article on literally anything and I'd take it as gospel. Could tell me the best way to drive my car was with one eye closed, and I'd be pirating the next day.
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This post did not contain any content.wrote last edited by [email protected]
Clean it, don't clean it, oil it, salt it, water it, "season it", season it by not cleaning it so your french toast gets all that good hamburger flavor from the night before...
I've read so many different ways to treat cast iron that at this point I'm convinced that it's all just superstition.
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I had a roommate that did this. Except their reason for not cleaning it was that they thought all that stuff leftover was what is called seasoning. AND they wanted the cast iron seasoning to flavor their dishes.
I tried to gently explain the misconceptions, but they believed their grandma instead of me.
Fuck. This isn't true?
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Afer work, I once made dinner for my housemates. After the meal, one of the housemates was like: "if you cooked, you gotta wash the dishes!" ok, so I washed the dishes. After the dishes, the housemate was like: "If you used the cast-iron pan, you have to 'season' it with oil!" and I was like: wtf I worked all day, I cooked, I did the dishes, now I have to cook again just to make the pan happy?!? So I never used a cast-iron pan again.
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Clean it, don't clean it, oil it, salt it, water it, "season it", season it by not cleaning it so your french toast gets all that good hamburger flavor from the night before...
I've read so many different ways to treat cast iron that at this point I'm convinced that it's all just superstition.
wrote last edited by [email protected]I've always just been taught to use boiling/hot water and scrub it, dry it immediately after, and then put some oil on it so it doesn't get dry. Never had any issues.
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If you use regular dish soap (i.e. dawn), you most certainly can (and should) wash it. However, the trick is that you absolutely must dry it, put a light coat of oil, and then bake it to keep it from rusting. I preheat the oven to 450°F and then turn off the oven, and let the pan sit until it’s cool enough to the touch to put away.
I just wash with water and stove-dry it
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Afer work, I once made dinner for my housemates. After the meal, one of the housemates was like: "if you cooked, you gotta wash the dishes!" ok, so I washed the dishes. After the dishes, the housemate was like: "If you used the cast-iron pan, you have to 'season' it with oil!" and I was like: wtf I worked all day, I cooked, I did the dishes, now I have to cook again just to make the pan happy?!? So I never used a cast-iron pan again.
We use cast iron every day in this house. My wife is scrubbing a pan behind me right now. And no, we don't oil it either.
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Wait, how does an oven give migraines? Legitimately curious
Edit: I forgot Americans have inferior electricity and often use gas ovens at home lol
Actually, it's the smell that the oil/fat gives off as it cooks in the oven that does it. No issues whatsoever when doing normal operations, so it's not the oven or the ventilation.
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They probably don't have an exhaust vent in their kitchen
That's not it, we have no issues any other time cooking, just when doing cast iron.
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He needs a CO detector...
Does cast iron give off CO when you do that? If not, explain why we don't have issues any other time we use the oven.
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Not OP but mine is natural gas and definitely produces trace amounts of noticeable gases when run. It gives me a very mild headache
Electric, and it's the smell the oil gives off during the process.
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Actually, it's the smell that the oil/fat gives off as it cooks in the oven that does it. No issues whatsoever when doing normal operations, so it's not the oven or the ventilation.
Ah, I thought the oven in general does it for you. Yeah, that makes sense, I hear migraines can be triggered by a lot of things if you're prone to getting them.
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Just leave it on the stove on maximum heat for one hour after each use, then chip off the carbonized chunks of asphalt that you've just created. 100% sterilized, no washing required, and smells just like your big bad diesel pickup exhaust.
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I've always just been taught to use boiling/hot water and scrub it, dry it immediately after, and then put some oil on it so it doesn't get dry. Never had any issues.
NO. NO MORE INSTRUCTIONS.
I'm washing it with Himalayan salt, hanging it to dry in the sunshine, then storing it under my bed in a wicker box just like my great grandmother taught me!
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That’s fair. I have a Lodge, and I ground down the inner surface so it’s flat, so I had to re-season it.
~I guess I can probably stop re-seasoning it now.
~I have a lodge set of pans for the last 15 or so years and you can tell which ones are most used because they are flat and the less useful to me sizes are all still bumpy. I think over the years I've eaten a bumpy surface worth of cast iron off several pans
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We use cast iron every day in this house. My wife is scrubbing a pan behind me right now. And no, we don't oil it either.
I eventually learned that. tbh I think I just associate cast iron pans with that annoying former roommate.
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Afer work, I once made dinner for my housemates. After the meal, one of the housemates was like: "if you cooked, you gotta wash the dishes!" ok, so I washed the dishes. After the dishes, the housemate was like: "If you used the cast-iron pan, you have to 'season' it with oil!" and I was like: wtf I worked all day, I cooked, I did the dishes, now I have to cook again just to make the pan happy?!? So I never used a cast-iron pan again.
wrote last edited by [email protected]“if you cooked, you gotta wash the dishes!”
I'm sorry, what? That's how you ensure that nobody ever cooks for you again. If you cooked for you and your housemates, everyone else who ate your food has to wash the dishes, excluding whoever bought the food. What fucking backwards culture did this guy grow up in?
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We use cast iron every day in this house. My wife is scrubbing a pan behind me right now. And no, we don't oil it either.
I judge the need for oil based on the shine of the pan after cleaning.
Just fried chicken in a fair amount of oil? Dump the oil, wipe, rinse, dry, back to bed in the oven.
Did I cook something that left a residue? After hot water and maybe some salt to scrub if the finish looks flat, I'll rub on a little oil.
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“if you cooked, you gotta wash the dishes!”
I'm sorry, what? That's how you ensure that nobody ever cooks for you again. If you cooked for you and your housemates, everyone else who ate your food has to wash the dishes, excluding whoever bought the food. What fucking backwards culture did this guy grow up in?
Yeah I was confused by that as well, that's some entitled shit.
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This post did not contain any content.wrote last edited by [email protected]
99% of all the old "don't wash cast iron!" shit you hear is antiquated information from back in the day when they used lye for soap.
There is absolutely no reason today to not wash your cast iron today. That doesnt mean you always have to, though. Often just wiping it out with a damp rag is more than enough, and if you have a lot of really stuck on shit.. You can scrub it with a slurry made up of salt, water, and soap (Make sure you use little water so the salt doesnt dissolve into the water and disappear). The salt will provide some abrasive scrubbing without damaging the cure.
outside of that, again, if you choose to, you can absolutely wash it. Warm water and soap, dry it off, put it on a hot burner for a bit to dry off any remaining water.. and if you are using it again tomorrow, you're done. If you're not gonna use it for a while, then a very very light coat of oil would be wise until you use it next time.
and just in case anyone wants a good way to cure.. I cover my cast iron in a thin layer of lard, and put it on a rocket hot grill, and leave it until it stops smoking. then i take it off, let it sit until i can handle it again.. put another coat of lard on, and repeat. a couple coats should give you a great starting base to build your cure up from.. and its not something you have to do often unless you really abuse your cast iron.
