Cooking has been a hobby of mine for decades now. I have gone through a lot of phases in cooking, especially early on.
I have used cast iron, carbon steel, stainless steel, and a dubious flirtation with all aluminum.
16 years on now and this is what I reach for 100% of the time:
Skillet/sautee: cladded stainless. Both standard side and high sided.
Dutch Oven: Enameled cast iron.
Pots Pans: Cladded stainless steel. For smaller 1qt to 2qt I like All Clads D5 for its heat retention. Larger than that I like the D3 for its lighter weight
Grill Pan: cast iron. Hate the excessive weight though
Non-stick: Ceramic coated aluminum. What ever Americas Test Kitchen recommends that year. I consider these disposable items. I stopped using TEFLON a long time ago.
I used cast iron skillets for several years. I found them to be finicky. Heat retention was stupidly high and that’s not always a good thing. Excessively heavy and god forbid you attempt any sort of tomato based sauce or anything acidic for that matter. Circumstances forced me to use stainless steel and I just found it matches my needs in a kitchen much better than cast iron. It gets used, it gets cleaned and I put it away. No having to have the vaginal juices of a thousand virgins on hand to make sure it doesn’t destroy the next egg I try to cook.
I consider cast iron skillets like safety razors. They had their day, but continue on because of a dedicated set of die hard users. Nothing wrong with that, just not my thing.
The above goes for carbon steel as well, although it usually isn’t nearly as heavy.
No wok? Also safety razors are great and I’m guessing the only reason cartridges won out is because of marketing, then the following generation forgot there was another option.
I have a carbon steel wok and even have a wok grate for my stove. While I do some Chinese cooking, I’ve found that on an American stove it doesn’t really have any advantages.
I’m sure if I cooked more Chinese cuisine it would be a different story.
I used flax oil to season my dutch oven, and finds it stands up to frequent tomato based pasta sauces for a bout a year, but it does eventually fail, an you know immediately when that happens, iron flavoured bolognese. Did that for a few years and finally got an enamelled set for that. As for the frying pans, mine are really old (1920s) and quite lightweight, nowhere near as heavy as newer Wagner 1898s and Lodges. I find the heat retention just perfect when making a carbonara, i turn the burner off when the pasta is three minutes from done and the heat is just perfect to make the carbonara sauce cook without turning into scrambled eggs. The other use, pan frying steaks, nothing does that better. They’re not for everything, I have one 7 inch teflon pan that i use for one purpose only, and that’s french omelets. I have zero interest in trying that in a cast pan.
I use cast iron for most of my stovetop cooking, but I’m sure it’s because my cooking style evolved around them, they were so cheap and absolutely the best pans I could afford. They become nearly nonstick, can go from stove to oven to grill, even fire. So for something like $5-20 each I accumulated a set over time, and I love them. We do wash with soap, dry right away, it doesn’t kill the surface. Now I have some money for pans, we do have one gorgeous stainless All-Clad skillet I call the “stick skillet”, my kids like it. But in terms of PRICE to quality, cast iron is where it’s at. That one All-Clad pan cost almost as much as all my cast iron put together.
Cooking has been a hobby of mine for decades now. I have gone through a lot of phases in cooking, especially early on.
I have used cast iron, carbon steel, stainless steel, and a dubious flirtation with all aluminum.
16 years on now and this is what I reach for 100% of the time:
Skillet/sautee: cladded stainless. Both standard side and high sided.
Dutch Oven: Enameled cast iron.
Pots Pans: Cladded stainless steel. For smaller 1qt to 2qt I like All Clads D5 for its heat retention. Larger than that I like the D3 for its lighter weight
Grill Pan: cast iron. Hate the excessive weight though
Non-stick: Ceramic coated aluminum. What ever Americas Test Kitchen recommends that year. I consider these disposable items. I stopped using TEFLON a long time ago.
I used cast iron skillets for several years. I found them to be finicky. Heat retention was stupidly high and that’s not always a good thing. Excessively heavy and god forbid you attempt any sort of tomato based sauce or anything acidic for that matter. Circumstances forced me to use stainless steel and I just found it matches my needs in a kitchen much better than cast iron. It gets used, it gets cleaned and I put it away. No having to have the vaginal juices of a thousand virgins on hand to make sure it doesn’t destroy the next egg I try to cook.
I consider cast iron skillets like safety razors. They had their day, but continue on because of a dedicated set of die hard users. Nothing wrong with that, just not my thing.
The above goes for carbon steel as well, although it usually isn’t nearly as heavy.
No wok? Also safety razors are great and I’m guessing the only reason cartridges won out is because of marketing, then the following generation forgot there was another option.
I have a carbon steel wok and even have a wok grate for my stove. While I do some Chinese cooking, I’ve found that on an American stove it doesn’t really have any advantages.
I’m sure if I cooked more Chinese cuisine it would be a different story.
I used flax oil to season my dutch oven, and finds it stands up to frequent tomato based pasta sauces for a bout a year, but it does eventually fail, an you know immediately when that happens, iron flavoured bolognese. Did that for a few years and finally got an enamelled set for that. As for the frying pans, mine are really old (1920s) and quite lightweight, nowhere near as heavy as newer Wagner 1898s and Lodges. I find the heat retention just perfect when making a carbonara, i turn the burner off when the pasta is three minutes from done and the heat is just perfect to make the carbonara sauce cook without turning into scrambled eggs. The other use, pan frying steaks, nothing does that better. They’re not for everything, I have one 7 inch teflon pan that i use for one purpose only, and that’s french omelets. I have zero interest in trying that in a cast pan.
I use cast iron for most of my stovetop cooking, but I’m sure it’s because my cooking style evolved around them, they were so cheap and absolutely the best pans I could afford. They become nearly nonstick, can go from stove to oven to grill, even fire. So for something like $5-20 each I accumulated a set over time, and I love them. We do wash with soap, dry right away, it doesn’t kill the surface. Now I have some money for pans, we do have one gorgeous stainless All-Clad skillet I call the “stick skillet”, my kids like it. But in terms of PRICE to quality, cast iron is where it’s at. That one All-Clad pan cost almost as much as all my cast iron put together.