I can’t wait to see her face. She honestly deserves it after all she’s done.
My cast iron cooks better eggs than a nonstick. It’s that iron, man, nothing else even comes close for frying.
As long as you’ve gone this far, keep going. Hit it with finer and finer grit polishing wax until it has a mirror finish.
I’ve always wanted to do that.
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My COVID splurge was a 12" milled cast iron pan that’s smooth as hell. Eggs slide on this baby. I would carry it up a mountain if I knew someone at the top had butter.
Hell, I’ve got some butter and eggs if you’ve got that pan. Does that bad boy fry up bacon? We can have a real good time.
Hell yeah it do
My dad’s is like that it actually cooks surprisingly well and doesn’t stick.
Electroplate it with chrome and nickel.
I think I see where you’re going with this and I love it. Adding some nice badges as a finishing touch:
My Grandma’s 90 year old cast iron looks like that and I have no idea how to season it.
get the grill ripping hot outside (500 degrees)
put cooking oil on a paper towel and swab the whole cast iron pan
Throw it on the grill until it stops smoking
pull it off, let it cool a little and swab it again (super thin layer)
Throw it on the grill until it stops smoking
repeat until you’re happy with the color
Most surefire way I know is preheat your oven to 450, put a tiny but of canola, rapeseed, or another neutral oil on it, wipe off as much as you can with a paper towel and toss it in the oven for half an hour, the nrepeat 3 or 4 times. When I say remove as much oil as much as you can, I mean the towel should come away juat about dry. Then to cook with it, let it get hot first, add some form of fat, butter, oil, bacon grease, etc. and then add your food. Waiting for it to get hot first is the key.
Isn’t canola or rapeseed essentially the same oil? I mean not all rapeseed oil is canola, but most food-grade rapeseed oil is canola I think? As canola refers to a particular cultivar of rape that is better for human consumption.
Just nitpicking/wondering.
Anyway, do you have suggestions on how to clean it after use and also when do I need to re-season it?1
I got my first ever cast iron pan as a birthday present and I’ve been scared of it so far, haven’t seasoned it yet, because the instructions vary quite a bit in different places and honestly I haven’t had a lot of time either. But I hear cast iron pans are the best for making a good steak or burger indoors2. And apparently great for frying other things too, just not great for simmering sauces for several hours because sometimes sauces are acidic because tomato?
1 I know, I know, I can just google or chatgpt or local-deepseek it. But I like talking to strangers online, and I like getting people to share their advice, particularly on the fediverse so that maybe it’ll show up on someone’s search results a decade from now on a non-commercial search-engine that favors non-commercial websites. One can only hope.
2 I’m a grill guy, but in Estonia the weather between the beautiful -20C and snow and the beautiful 20C and sunshine, is disgustingly wet, smoggy3 overcast where you not only don’t want to be outside, you don’t even want to live in the country anymore. And there’s max 6 hours of daylight. If you can see the light behind the clouds. It’s fine grilling in the spring, summer and proper winter when it’s frozen over and snowy. But much of autumn and winter, I don’t want to even step out of the house when I have to, let alone voluntarily.
3 Outside of soviet-built commie blocks districts or new developments, a lot of houses are older and have wood furnaces. It’s being reduced slowly through grants for people who convert their heating systems to less smoky ones (newer furnace, chimney reconstruction, heat pumps, or joining a remote central heating network), but that takes time, many many more millions of euros than are currently being pumped into it by the government, and it doesn’t stop my neighbour from burning construction leftovers in his sauna furnace that’s entirely separate from his house. He owns a construction company and us Estonians love our wood-burning saunas over the newer electric ones.
Rapeseed the pc term is struggle snuggle seed oil
Rapeseed oil has rebranded as Trumpseed oil.
Canola oil.
Canola is a modified version of rapeseed developed in Canada. I might see a bottle or two of rapeseed oil next to the 4L jugs of canola from 3 different brands in stores here but that’s apparently not the kind of ratios you’ll see in other countries across the pond.
I’m not actually sure how popular it is but my mom used it for a time, but overall sunflower oil won out and was the default cooking oil in South Africa
saseed
Waiting for it to get hot first is the key.
Exception: bacon
Seconding Pissman’s advice. The only other tip that I know of is to encrust it with salt as well as oil, but that seems to be expensive and unnecessary. Honestly just cooking several pounds of bacon in it will do the same thing.
we do the salt to help clean, not with original seasoning
Preheat the oven to ~450-500, throw the pans in for five minutes to drive out any moisture.
Pull the pans out, and apply a very thin coat of oil using a paper towel or lint-free cloth. Flax oil is best, low-temperature oils in general are better than frying oils here. Put the coated pans back in the oven for ~45-60 minutes, then remove. Repeated coats will significantly increase the strength of the coating
Watched a video years ago of someone doing this before re-seasoning and baking the pan in the oven.
The end result was actually pretty fabulous.
Yeah, this is the first step in properly refurbishing cast iron.
I thought the first step was lead testing it
based
It’s actually better if you do this on new pan you bought, it strip away the pre-season and smoothen the surface a bit before you apply the seasoning of your choice.
I like salt, pepper, cayenne, maybe some garlic salt and fresh basil.
She will be disappointed
At least it wasent a non stick.
A well seasoned cast iron IS non stick
Uncoated stainless steel can be non-stick if you use it right.
That’s the moment you learned she’s a sorcerer, she Cast Iron on you.
Sorceress ;)
That dang masculine -er
This is why people get hit with a frypan.
I got hit with a frying pan when we were trying to replace my wife’s mother’s non-stick pans that were starting to flake. My mother-in-law is legally blind, and after we gave her the new pans she showed me the old one, saying, “look at it, it’s perfect!” My response of, “it’s even worse than she said!” was the wrong thing to say to an elderly woman holding a pan.
Yeah, right, haha! I can’t wait to see her face after such a stressful trip!
seeing this will almost certainly top whatever stress she thought she had before.
Thanks! I hope you’re right and that this takes her mind off all that other nonsense! ❤️
The only path left is combat. Tonight, her iron shall be re-seasoned…in blood.
MY EMOTIONAL SUPPORT CRUFT!!!
Please someone explain!
Cast iron is “seasoned” to make it nonstick. That means many layers of oil build up as a sort of polymer. The point is to keep it “dirty” in this way. Cleaning it down to bare metal means she’d be forced to re-season it, which can take considerable time/effort depending on frequency of use. A true disservice.
Yes, but missing the nuance that seasoned cast iron that has been cleaned by dish soap has the black polymerized layer while a bunch of morons are opposed to actually cleaning and think burnt on food other than the polymerized oils is ‘seasoning’ and recommend just wiping it out with a towel.
My cast iron isn’t anything special but it sheds more water than my non-stick ceramic when turned sideways while cleaning and wiping doesn’t leave any black stains on a paper towel.
Cast iron is non stick without the shenanigans if you follow the hot pan, cold oil protocol. Most people don’t get the pan up to temp before using it and the put in the oil or butter too soon.
Yup. All of my early issues with flaking or a rough surface was due to putting oil on cold and putting too much after to trying to repair it with too much seasoning.
Eventually saw directions that explained the right way to season as adding lots of thin layers like spray paint, not a coating like house paint. Also explained adding oil after heating kept it from humming ip and causing the same issues. Doesn’t even have to be at a high temp either, just wait till it is radiating some heat before adding the oil.
Huh, mine always sticks unless the oil is hot too.
I never figured out how this is reconciled - it just sounds dirty AF (and I’m no clean freak at all!)
you’re supposed to wash cast iron with water, then soap then water again. then you dry, put it on a hot stove, and once all the water evaporates away, you rub it down with some oil on a cloth/paper towel, and get that real hot. then you can turn off the heat, and wipe off excess oil before putting it away. It’s not as straightforward as just tossing it into the dishwasher, but it’s not as complicated as some would have you believe. also, you can wash cast iron. soap doesn’t hurt it.
When it is new or if it was necessary to strip and start over, sure.
Once it has been cooked on a half dozen times it can just be washed with dish soap, dried, and put away. No more work than any other handwashing of a pan.
Isn’t the “seasoning” PFAS?
Edit: I admit, I was wrong.
No, and nor is the teflon in the pans you’re thinking if. PFAS is a chemical used in the manufacture of Teflon (or was, I thought they’d stopped now) not teflon itself. The problem with PFAS is accidental release and dumping.
PFAS is a chemical
PFAS is the term for the whole group of the stuffs called “forever chemicals” (for a reason). There’s not just a single one, but multiple, and as the specific ones and groups get banned, the industries move to use different ones, basically. It’s important to buy “PFAS free” stuff, any other labels like “PFOA free” can still mean there’s PFASs there, there’s just not ones from the specific variation
Damn, you’re right, I was thinking of PFOA not PFAS.
However, I think blanket avoiding an entire class of chemicals without evidence is an overreaction.
How is it an overreaction if it can be done without losing anything in life? I retired all my pans with non-stick coating years ago and haven’t missed them a single time and appreciate that it makes it easier to minimize the number of plastic cooking utensils my kitchen has, too.
- there is nothing as non-stick as non-stick coatings; some alternatives come close, but you are still losing something
- what about other applications of PTFE? PTFE tape for sealing pipes, PTFE feet on computer mice, PTFE-based lubricant, electrical insulation, … the uses are many.
But we do have evidence that a lot of chemicals in the PFAS family stick around for a long time, and we have evidence that they’re harmful. That’s enough for me to be wary of anything in that group, especially when there are easy alternatives.
I think in the case of PFAS it’s very reasonable. There’s no real harm done in avoiding them except possibly making less money and having to figure out other ways to do certain things - which cannot even be compared to the the potential danger they pose to the whole ecosphere
That kind of thinking applies to any chemical though, surely
There is evidence, and there’s been conspiracies around it.
That’s the stuff on standard non-stick pans (teflon). You don’t make PFAS by burning in some oil at home.
Seasoning is just oil baked onto cast iron through a process called polymerization. It gives your cookware that classic black patina. Seasoning forms a natural, easy-release cooking surface and helps prevent your pan from rusting.
- Lodge (as I understand it, they’re the gold standard for cast iron cookware)
In the case of non-stick stuff, it’s less that they’re seasoned with PFAS and more that they don’t need seasoning because they have PFAS (at least in theory).
The seasoning is plastic. That’s what polymerized means. The F in PFAS stands for flourine which I don’t think you’ll have in your seasoning
Plastics made from petroleum aren’t the same thing as heated up vegetable oil.
Did they say it was?
No, that’s the opposite
You can season nearly anything with oil. Except aluminum, which needs a Teflon coating or it gets nasty very fast. Except Teflon is non reactive to nearly everything
Except pfas. You can dissolve Teflon in pfas and spray it onto aluminum
? Teflon is a PFAS
Yes, but not spiritually
Teflon doesn’t react with basically anything. It won’t stick to anything but itself, which makes manufacturing difficult, initially we could only make pure Teflon pieces
Every other kind of PFAS is super toxic. Some part of the molecule is reactive, usually very reactive so it sticks to things, and the rest won’t react to anything. That causes nasty problems in biology
Teflon itself isn’t that much of a problem because even if it’s around forever, it doesn’t react with anything… The byproducts of working with it are what are poisoning people and causing all the problems
Anything coated in Teflon are going to have the nasty shit under the Teflon so I’d generally avoid it, but the real take away is that chemical companies are just dumping this shit into water sources knowing it causes super cancer
PFAS vs PFOS
Cast iron pans have to be burned in with oil to create a non-stick patina. If you use aggressive cleaning agents or steel wool, this patina gets stripped, and the process has to be repeated
Could do with that on mine tbh, seasoning starting to flake in patches. Shame as it was getting pretty good.
Youre dead is im…
