Every once in a while I start to pat myself on the back, thinking that I am turning into a well-seasoned cast iron cook. Not this week.
This week I learned:
1) If you fry an egg in butter, beautifully and perfectly over easy, at medium heat, then set the pan back on the burner and accidentally turn the burner to HIGH instead of OFF, the pan will set off the smoke alarm and fill the kitchen with smoke before you can finish eating the egg.
(Ask me how I know. No. Don't ask. Isn't it obvious?)
When you throw baking soda into it, the baking soda will bubble as if it is boiling from the hot vapor still rising from the burned butter. The seasoning on the pan will be ruined -- ugly dark matte gray instead of glossy black, with a crusty shiny little ring right in the middle where the egg rested in the pan -- and you will have to reseason it, which is especially annoying if it is the beautiful little #6 Griswold that your dad seasoned himself and gave to you.
And your entire family will complain about the smoke until they go to bed that night. In this case, the family is one teen-aged son, who very kindly did not mention the long-ago incident where a skillet actually burst into flames on my stove.
By the way, if you put out the flames in a skillet by clapping a lid onto it, don't try to peek again right away. Because it will burst into flames again as soon as you take the lid off.
2) A cast iron spider, prewarmed on medium heat for as long as it takes to roll a fresh, home-made sourdough tortilla, will be a little cool for the first tortilla, and just right by the third. However, if you then break two eggs into it to fry, it will be much too hot for the eggs. What is more, cooking dry tortillas on it will mess up the surface just enough to ruin its non-stick qualities, so the eggs will sit there bubbling and sticking and turning hard until you try to pry them loose and the yolks break. Your son will leave the last few bites of his breakfast quesadilla -- the bites with most of the eggs -- on his plate.
3) If you then try to clean the spider with a quick scrub under hot water and grease it really well to cook yourself some scrambled eggs and salsa, the scrambled eggs will stick even worse.
4) What you really need in the case of #2 is a second piece of cast-iron. Say, for instance, the pretty little Griswold sitting on the back of the stove waiting to be reseasoned.
5) Can you ever have too much cast-iron? Maybe what you really need is a comal....
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This post is entered in Simple Lives Thursday.
5 comments:
I'm currently experiencing some cast iron woes myself, of the enamel kind though. My cast iron dutch oven has taken to popping pieces of enamel off the bottom. Could be due to poor quality - could be due to overheating while empty. Probably a little of both. More than once it has happened with food in the pan! Not exactly the type of seasoning my family likes.
Hope you have better luck in the future.
♥ Rebecca Jean
Midnight Maniac
Rebecca - are you willing to share the brand name? I really want to add an enamel Dutch oven to my collection.
Of course, I would hate for someone else to go through the same trouble. It's from the Martha Stewart collection sold at Macy's. I have had it for two years now. The lid started chipping first, and then in the last year, pieces started popping off the bottom interior. Now last night enamel started falling off the exterior portion too. I'm so disappointed. I love cooking with cast iron.
This particular piece is the largest dutch oven in her signature blue color. I have also had the small dutch oven in yellow, but had to return it after the first use because of enamel falling off. I ended up exchanging that one for red since they were sold out of yellow. So far I have had no trouble with the red. It has been in service for nine months.
My other piece of enamel cast iron is a skillet from JCPenny's. The brand is Cooks. I love that thing! I've had it the longest of the three and never had a problem with it. It is very sturdy, cleans up beautifully, and can handle my abuse. I will be looking for a dutch oven from the same brand to replace my MS.
Good luck!
♥ Rebecca Jean
Midnight Maniac
Thanks for sharing -- my dad has a big enameled Le Creuset that he loves, but it is so expensive, and I don't know how heavily he uses it.
Wow - good lessons here! I have the enamel coated Lodgeware which is much less money than the La Creuset pans and I love it. It's so heavy that I leave it on the stove all the time though! Thanks for linking in to Simple Lives Thursday!
xo, Sustainble Eats
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