How To Cast Iron

Cooking:

1. Get it hot!

• To avoid sticking you want to preheat the pan. If you splash a few droplets of water onto the pan and they start dancing around (Leidenfrost-effect) the pan is usually hot enough.

2. Starchy or protein rich foods often stick initially and take some time to form a "crust", they release easily once they are ready. Think roasted potatoes.

Cleaning:

Cast Iron has been used material in the kitchen for much longer than 1000 years. You don't have to baby it! If there is burnt on stuff, you don't have to be afraid of grabbing some steel wool to clean. However there is one thing to avoid and this is rust. Moisture is your enemy, don't leave our pan in the sink.

-Clean it, wipe it dry and ideally heat it up on the stove again, to dry off any residual moisture. Do not put Cast Iron jn the dishwasher.

It doesn't look pretty after cleaning? No worries it doesn't have to. A cast iron pan is living tool that will change appearance over it's the course of it's life.

What to do if you find a rusty pan

1. If there is a little bit of surface rust, you can use some steel wool to remove it. Heat it up, take a paper towel and add a drop of oil and oil up your pan, take another paper towel and wipe out all excess oil. You just restored your seasoning.

2. If you find a truly rusty pan somewhere in the woods or in grandma's attic, congratulations you're in for a little project and maybe found a little gem. An electrolysis tank or some vinegar essence (with 20% acid or more) can help you to remove the built up rust.

Why Cast Iron? (and a bit of Trivia)

People develop a love for cast iron for various reasons.

Longevity

Your Cast Iron pan can easily outlive you. Basically it is a lump of metal and not more than that, it can break if you drop it, or expose it to extrem temperature shocks, but other than you'll have a hard time ruining it. If rusty, restoring it is not an issue. People used to melt lead in cast iron pots, afterwards they really shouldn't be used for food anymore. Traditionally people drilled holes through their pots to prevent others from poisoning themselves with lead, so in case you ever find one like that and wonder what happend to it, now you know.

Avoiding Teflon^TM/Polytetrafluoroethylene/PTFE:

People wanna avoid teflon for different reasons.:

1. It doesn't last, most classic non-stick pans are scratched and dead after 3 years max.

2. Environmental polution, the production of teflon uses PFAS also known as "forever chemicals", they stick around basically forever and do not degrade chemically or biochemically.

3. Some health stuff, idk how much is bullshit and idc