Post
by Kugelfisch » Sun Apr 09, 2023 2:06 pm
I have been busy recently with improving on cooking and learning new dishes. Most importantly, I got a few things I have wanted for a while now.
While I moved away from Teflon pans, I still had two "ceramic" non-stick pans. I have no idea if there's some toxic shit in those coatings as well. So I figured it's time to switch to non-coated pans.
I got a middle class Tefal stainless steel pan first. Maybe I'll upgrade to an all-clad one later but it does its job just fine.
Let me tell you, it teaches you a thing or two about temperature control. I made smash burgers in it and running it too hot leads to a mess. But tuned right and getting used to it getting crazy hot real quick gets you amazing results. I'll mostly use it for acidic food and sauces.
This week I got a carbon steel pan. A De Buyer Mineral B Pro. The pro version because it has an oven-safe, cast stainless steel handle. Since I have an electric hob, it needs to be oven safe for burning it in. Plus, oven-safe is always better anyway.
I burned it in two times, figuring I'll skip the recommended three more times and just have general use do the rest.
Bacon immediately worked perfectly. No sticking whatsoever. Egg, however, stuck quite a bit. I then made a steak, which went really well. It'll initially stick but releases automatically when it's starting to get a sear and it seared amazingly well!
Yesterday, I went with the potato peel seasoning method. Just the peels, some fat and a large load of salt and frying that to absolute bits.
I boiled the peeled potatoes to let them cool off and later make fried potatoes with Schmalzfleisch, a German nuclear shelter classic.
Schmalzfleisch is a canned pork sausage with a lot of lard in the tin. It's a type of bomb shelter ration. Tastes great on bread as it is.
Of course, I used the lard to fry the potatoes, adding a finely chopped shallot a bit later and the diced sausage towards the end.
It worked like a dream. Nothing stuck to the pan whatsoever.
This morning I made fried eggs again and they barely stuck at all. A little encouragement with the spatula and they released and slid around freely. I'm sure that in a week or two the coating will have burned in well enough to give an omelette a try.
If you haven't thrown out your Teflon cancer pans yet, go ahead and make the jump. You'll be glad you did. Cooking is more fun with good old iron and steel.
Cannons bray, the mighty quake!
Centuries of blood becomes erased!
I am the white ghost!