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.
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
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
Exception: bacon