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Superiority of Cast Iron

I have a nice starter collection of Lodge cast iron, 3 skillets, 1 double griddle, 2 chicken fryers (3qt. and 5 qt.) and a 5 qt. dutch oven. One of the best additions that you can add is to purchase the cast iron covers to these pans. With the cast iron 8" lid, cornbread can become a stovetop item, cooked over a low heat for dinner for two. Your 12" lidded skillet becomes the perfect pan for searing meat and then braising covered with a little bit of liquid.

For extra heat, you can warm the cast iron lid on another burner or in the oven and heat from both top and bottom. There is nothing like cornbread, pan seared steaks or fish cooked in CI.
 
You have to get the Teknor-Apex cutting board first. :001_tt2:

I'm willing to wager that Jim will have one on him when I see him tonight. He did the last time I saw him (and so did Scotto!)


Search DeBuyer and you'll probably see some on the site.






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I have a black steel wok I'm pretty fond of. Takes a good cure and can tolerate the heat needed for stir-fry.
 
"Black" iron or steel pans are just made from ordinary mild steel and like a wok you need to go through a seasoning process to build up the burnt carbon layers to form a non-stick coating.

The cost difference between pans usually relates to gauge, cheap imports can be really thin, De buyer's range vary from their blue steel (~1.5 - 2 mm) to carbone (~3 - 4mm) but I've also found perfectly adequate pans from catering suppliers.

They are obviously lighter than cast iron so therefore heat up much more rapidly which makes them more practical in many ways, I do like my cast iron for certain tasks but I find myself reaching for my black iron pans much more frequently. If I'm just cooking for one or two persons a 10" black iron omlette pan is perfect and can be had for $15 - $20 as well as lasting a life time. After the last non stick pan gave up the ghost some years ago I just swore I'd never buy one again.
 
Cast iron is significantly softer than glass (particularly the tempered glass used on stovetops) and will not scratch it. Just make sure there aren't particles or anything between the pot/pan and the stove top. I use mine regularly without issue. You certainly could crack the glass though if you drop that heavy piece on it.

And I'll throw in more support for cast iron. I use my 12" skillet to fry, sauté, braise, bake, roast, and broil. Clean up is minimal, sticking is never an issue, and I can easily take it from the stovetop to the oven to the table. I have had it for nearly a decade now and it just keeps getting better with age.
 
I've got a couple of decades old cast iron frying pans that were handed down to me from my parents. Fantastic, basically non stick even heat distribution, and tough! These things will last forever.
 
Blix, you should check out used cast iron. Even if it looks rusty, you can give it a steel wool scrub and season it to work good as new.
 
I love my cast iron skillets to death. I own a Griswold #9 slant with a lid of the same logo as well as a griswold #14 both in MINT condition.. and early 1900s era.. The #9 i use exclusively for eggs in the morning!

Honestly Teflon is vastly inferior and the modern day versions of cast iron are incomparable!

Cast iron for life!!!
 
If your #14 is a skillet that thing is worth a fortune! And a original lid with a Griswold skillet also major bucks.

A Griswold slant/Erier was made 1906 - 1912 (I also have a #9 slant).

Just picked a #14 griddle bail handle. I like that I use just one burner to heat,,,,,
 
My only piece is a 10" Lodge Skillet with Lodge-branded glass cover, handle cover, and silicon scrapers. Its the only thing I have to cook with, and although my rommate has a bunch of non-stick pans of all sizes, why bother with anything else?

My only complaint about this is that its so heavy. 10" is waaaay too big for bachelor cooking. I'm looking at getting an 8" ... as soon as I can find a quality glass cover that fits snugly. Alas, Lodge doesn't make one.

If you go to their website ... www.lodgeusa.com ... they offer a lot of interesting accessories like wooden bases and cast iron trivets, a triangle dinner bell, and a lot of other things you don't seen in the normal retail chains.

I'm interested in their Pro-Logic and Signature lines, too ... but probably won't get one unless they come out with some smaller pieces.
 
my exwife got all my cast iron.
I really only used them on my Big Green Egg....which she got too. I kept my cast iron outside, in FL, and properly seasoned, it never went bad.
I had a grill pan and a giant cast iron skillet that I had the handle sawed off of. I could do everything from peppers and onions to chicago pizza in that skillet.
Not surprisingly, I lost 25lbs within 2 months of the separation!
 
my exwife got all my cast iron.
I really only used them on my Big Green Egg....which she got too. I kept my cast iron outside, in FL, and properly seasoned, it never went bad.
I had a grill pan and a giant cast iron skillet that I had the handle sawed off of. I could do everything from peppers and onions to chicago pizza in that skillet.
Not surprisingly, I lost 25lbs within 2 months of the separation!


Time for a new set of Cast-Irons! While you're hunting that old Griswold go to Target and get a Lodge cast-iron 12 inch skillet for $18.95! New cast-irons, new food, new WOMEN+
 
I love my cast iron skillets to death. I own a Griswold #9 slant with a lid of the same logo as well as a griswold #14 both in MINT condition.. and early 1900s era.. The #9 i use exclusively for eggs in the morning!

Honestly Teflon is vastly inferior and the modern day versions of cast iron are incomparable!

Cast iron for life!!!

yup yup it is a #14 skillet and quite right you are about its worth! but man totally worth it

Im hoping to pick up the cliff cornell breakfast skillet eventually
 
In my parents divorce, I got their yellow Le Crueuset cast iron stuff. A large skillet & medium skillet, a ceramic-coated cast-iron small egg pan, and two ducth ovens. They got them as wedding presents. NOTHING I've cooked with works better than those, period.
 
Begin bragsheet I suppose...

Inherited cast-iron pieces from my grand mother include a a dutch oven with lid, a cornbread pan, and a round pancake griddle. These are, in my opinion, MUCH nicer than the Lodge stuff you see now-a-days. Mostly because the pans seem, how should I put this..., denser. I guess they're heavier and all that but honestly they just feel like they are better made. Also, the cooking surface on all of them is mirror smooth, unlike the bumpy/ripply texture I've seen in Lodge pans. Not to mention the seasoning is *whoa* thick. Those things combine into a pan where sticking food isn't really a problem. It's as close as I've come to Teflon without it being Teflon.

I figure those pieces combined with a All-Clad fry pan I scored for a song, a carbon steel wok, and a very large and very medium stainless stock pots I can pretty much scratch off any cookware purchases for the next, oh, lifetime or so. Who needs non-stick that has to be replaced and treated with kid gloves? Anodized my butt....

I also purchases a rectangular cast-iron griddle n sale/clearance from Sears or JCPennys that turned out to be made by All-Clad. It has turned into a very handy surface for various items cooked out of doors on ye old charcoal grill. Grab one if you see it, it's a lifetime purchase as well, just don't drop it on your foot unless you're wanting to amputate some toes.
 
one thing about cooking with cast iron skillets daily, certainly makes you stronger / tougher! I picked up my old teflon pan recently and almost flung it across the room expecting the same weight i was used to from my griswold hahah :D
 
I have a couple cast Iron pieces. Love my enameled dutch oven (starting coq au vin tonight for company in fact). My skillets are OK, but not my favorites. They may not be seasoned right or something, but I do find they tend to stick for some tasks more than I would like. I do appreciate the amount of heat they hold though. Work great for steaks and such.

For most cooking, I use all clad, which I really like apart from the difficulty of keeping it clean (the skillet I use daily is really pretty nasty on the outside these days). I do use their non stick skillet frequently. I've found over the years, that cheap non-stick tends not to be very good (not very non stick, and not very durable). The all clad is different. I've probably been using the one skillet 3-4 times a week for the last 5 years, and it still works like a champ. With one exception (a no name skillet I bought at Dayton's (which really dates things) years ago), all of my budget non stick lost it's mojo quickly, and tended to nick, flake and peel pretty quickly. And this was all during the period where I didn't have a dishwasher.
 
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