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Cast iron cooking?


Valmet
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Yup, it's the only way to make blackened Salmon, chicken and catfish. I love the taste and its a really quick meal. I've had the same big skillet for a decade and I finally convinced my wife not to put it in the dishwasher so it is pretty well seasoned now.

 

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Absolutely.  

Cast iron cooking is how I grew up, it's a requirement in my household, and my kids know how to use it as well.

With just a few drops of oil, very few calories are added.  It adds iron to your diet.  Give me a sturdy, but flexible spatula, and I can do it in cast iron.

Breakfast is best out of a cast iron skillet, fried chicken, cornbread, gravy, burgers, steak, fresh caught fish, popcorn, hell, even reheated pizza!

If all I had for the rest of my life was a 12" cast iron skillet and a lid, I'd be perfectly fine and happy.

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10 minutes ago, jame said:

Absolutely.  

Cast iron cooking is how I grew up, it's a requirement in my household, and my kids know how to use it as well.

With just a few drops of oil, very few calories are added.  It adds iron to your diet.  Give me a sturdy, but flexible spatula, and I can do it in cast iron.

Breakfast is best out of a cast iron skillet, fried chicken, cornbread, gravy, burgers, steak, fresh caught fish, popcorn, hell, even reheated pizza!

If all I had for the rest of my life was a 12" cast iron skillet and a lid, I'd be perfectly fine and happy.

Amen!

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Love my cast iron. Ground down my Lodge stuff smooth with a power tool then seasoned with flax oil (about 5 cycles). Got a dutch oven with the little legs I use outside with charcoal briquettes for stews. Just saw my parents the other day and mom sent me home with a dutch oven with no legs I can use in my house oven.

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i`m going to volunteer my time and my services to judge which one of you is the best cast iron cook here.

just go ahead and cook your favorites and send them to me,i will pick the best.

i am willing to do this for all of you,no thanks are necessary...

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2 minutes ago, holyjohnson said:

i`m going to volunteer my time and my services to judge which one of you is the best cast iron cook here.

just go ahead and cook your favorites and send them to me,i will pick the best.

i am willing to do this for all of you,no thanks are necessary...

we split it i pay half of shipping  :tbo:

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I use mine everyday.....

 

I have everything from Dutch Ovens to corn stick pans.......those corn stick are perfect with soups and stews

 

But my favorite is cast iron pizza................Line a large skillet with pizza dough halfway up the sides.

 

Add a pound of browned sausage

Drip some pizza sauce over it

Cover with a pound of mozzarella  then top with toppings

Bake at 500 until crust is crisp

 

Extra good and healthy especially if you top with bacon 

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Bought my first cast iron Lodge skillet a few months ago and it has been a love-hate relationship.  I have not been able to get it to season properly.

Don't bother with advice; I have tried the most popular methods and tried to season it half a dozen times.  I'm now to the point that I have accepted that it will forever remain trying to cook on the sticky side of duct tape.  Yesterday morning, I put in four pieces of thick-sliced butcher shop bacon, cooked it to near completion with about an 1/8" of solid bacon grease in the pan, drop in two eggs, and immediately they are stuck to the bottom of the pan and break apart as soon as I try to flip them.

But I love the flavor and will actually bring mine camping.

I have tried seasoning the factory finish with different oils, tried just cooking in it every day to build up a seasoning, then used an orbital sander to smooth the bottom and start over.  I've tried the baking method in the oven with crisco, coconut oil, flax seed oil.  I've tried the stove top method.  I've talked to old timers, and even went to a web site devoted to cast iron cooking and followed the seasoning instructions exactly.  Nothing works. 

 

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28 minutes ago, XSIV4S said:

Well ****, somethings got to kill you. You might as well enjoy the ride.

 

Oh, I enjoyed the ride for 20+ years, in every aspect, until my health started paying the bills for my stupidity. Americans go in average through 29 years of chronic health issues before they die, thanks to very unhealthy lifestyle choices. The ride is only fun until you wake up in pain, daily, and with diagnoses that will shorten your life expectancy.

But hey, ignorance is bliss. :)

Edited by crockett
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7 hours ago, crockett said:

I walked away from cast iron a while ago. They don't stand up to constant cooking with acidic sauces and build rust. I now use seasoned copper pans made in France. They heat up much faster, store more heat, and can be adjusted faster as well.

https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00009Y34M/ref=oh_aui_search_detailpage?ie=UTF8&psc=1

 

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If using cast iron, enameled is the way to go for acidic foods.

I have had a full set of French copper/ss for almost 20 years, and use it daily.  It doesn't season like cast or carbon steel, but as long as it is hot before you add the fat, nothing sticks.  While it does heat and adjust faster than cast, it does not "store" more heat than cast iron.  The thermal mass of the cast iron is generally much greater than a copper/ss pan, and due to the nature of conductivity, the copper/ss gives its heat up more readily.

Most types of cookware have some benefit over others for specific reasons.  But, I don't generally have any use for tinned copper, aluminum,  or teflon, with one exception.  I have a teflon tamago pan.

 

 

 

 

7 hours ago, Batesmotel said:

I love cast but I'm switching to carbon steel. 

Carbon steel is great.  Range top, oven, pizza oven, grill, fire, coals....it doesn't care.

 

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1 hour ago, Al Czervik said:

While it does heat and adjust faster than cast, it does not "store" more heat than cast iron.  The thermal mass of the cast iron is generally much greater than a copper/ss pan, and due to the nature of conductivity, the copper/ss gives its heat up more readily.

 

It's not that clear cut. Iron and copper are very close in that aspect:

  • Copper: 24.47 Isochore molar heat capacity
  • Iron: 25.09 Isochore molar heat capacity

That accounts for iron, while cast iron is more brittle and less dense, hence has a lower heat capacity altogether.

BellaCopper has a good definition to this matter:

Relative metal mass and thermal capacity:

Copper is an excellent material for heat transfer, but can also hold more heat than ordinary cooking metals. This is called thermal mass. What this means is that a warm BellaCopper heat diffuser contains more heat than the same size aluminum or cast iron heat diffuser at the same temperature . More internal heat means no rapid cooling of the heat diffuser as it transfers heat to a cool pan. With the BellaCopper heat diffuser there are no transient hot or cold spots due to lack of thermal mass.

It's all about Entropy and Enthalpy (bet you never thought you would hear those words again after you got out of science class). Entropy is the property of heat transfer and conduction. Enthalpy is the property of how much heat something can hold. Copper is superb in both.

http://bellacopper.stores.yahoo.net/metheattrans.html

 

 

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I used to keep a pan on the stove for quick use on simple things like cooking up some meat or vegetables.

I've never been able to cook eggs without making a terrible mess.

My wife ended up with elevated iron levels so we stopped using the cast iron as one way to limit her intake.

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