Posted on 12/15/2008 6:26:19 AM PST by Alex Murphy
And the real beauty of Cast Iron is that if you find one at a garage sale all messed up or yours gets messed up you can throw it on a raging camp fire and let is burn. The fire will burn off all the old gunk and you can wipe it down and re season it again. Good as new.
Cast iron is great. To clean ‘em, you reef the tar out of ‘em with anything rough. I’ve been known to grab a handful of sand when out in the woods to clean out my dutch ovens. Wipe ‘em with oil and put ‘em away. If they get rusty, a few minutes with a sander will fix the problem, then re-season.
I love cooking on an open fire or a Coleman stove with cast iron.
Once I used the self-cleaner on the oven but forgot my wife had a cast iron pan in the oven. It got so hot the molecules in the pan got so excited the pan was vibrating violently. I unlocked the oven and removed the pan using several hotpads. I tossed it outside into the snow where it snk down several inches and boiled the snow. Didn’t hurt the pan at all. Try that with your hot shot hi-tech cookware!
I’m too impatient with bacon...lately I have been baking bacon in a foil lined tray...I cant stand hovering over bacon and messaging it to perfection. I can sit and have my first cup of coffee while it cooks in the oven.
My uncle, may his soul rest in peace, got home from Marine boot camp and decided to give my Grandmother, may her soul rest in peace also, some lip.
She proceeded to grab a hot cast iron frying pan from the stove and lay him out cold.
When he woke up she told him, "I don't care how big or bad you think you are. You don't give your mother lip."
My family still laughs at that story.
And my wife still threatens to break out the skillet once in a while. LOL
The second pan - 10” or so - is used exclusively for my wife's deep dish pizza. One pizza will serve four hungry adults and have left over slices. Yum!
It's -17F outside currently and the thought of deep dish pizza sounds good right now.
I've had the same pan for six years now... I must be doing something right!
My brother. He can’t stand even a molecule of yoke that hasn’t been fried to death. I love to pop a whole giggly yoke into my mouth in front of him. Makes him turn green.
Even eggs won’t stick if the pan is properly seasoned. DO NOT SOAK IT IN WATER EVEN AFTER EGGS!
What you should do is: prior to cooking coat the skillet again with crisco. NOT crisco oil, crisco shortening. Then, heat the skillet so the crisco melts and the skillet has a glistening; not smoking you twit!; surface. Put in the eggs. If you’re making scrambled eggs resist the urge to begin scrambling until the bottom eggs are “set.” Then, lightly scramble the eggs but keep it moving at a constant slow speed until the eggs are done. Don’t overcook. Transfer the eggs to a serving platter and immediately wipe out the skillet. It is now reseasoned and ready for the next use.
Use wooden utensils with the skillet.
I refuse to have a cast iron pan in the kitchen unless someone else washes it. They’re too heavy.
Ever since I was taught to cook eggs, it has been with a fork. What else would anyone use to cook eggs? :-)
I have cast iron of my own, but Mom showed me a piece that I’ll inherit from her. It’s about a hundred and thirty years old, has been in her family all that time. She cooks with it almost every day, and I’m almost scared to touch it.
Most cast iron lovers scream bloody murder when they see what I do to the cast iron the first time it comes into my house. However, after I’m finished with it, the simply love the finish.
Start with a drill, steel wire brush, a flex head sand paper attachment ..... [grin] In short, get off that factory so called treatment on the cooking surface. Then refinish with you own.
Cornbread recipe
Wipe 8 inch cast iron skillet free of oil residue. Turn oven to 425 deg; place pan in oven; preheat.
Mix 1 cup white corn flour, 1 cup yellow corn flour, 1 teaspoon baking soda, 1 tablespoon sugar, 1/2 teaspoon kosher salt. Stir in 1 cup buttermilk (or 1 cup milk soured with 1 tablespoon vinegar) and two eggs.
Remove hot skillet from oven; place on lit burner. Melt 1 to 2 tablespoons butter. Pour butter into batter, stir, pour batter back into skillet and bake for 20 minutes at 425.
Merry Christmas.
Wow. After reading all the responses on this thread, I didn’t know owning a cast iron pan was an art.
I had a few, and sold them at a garage sale because I didn’t know how to use them. Now I feel like a barbarian.
“Instead she takes it and throws it away, forcing me to start all over again with a new one.”
Throwing away a well seasoned cast iron pan is a shooting offense!
One of the reasons why I use cast iron, stainless steel and copper cookware is so that I don’t use tinfoil. I read some reports on tinfoil and it’s scary.
True... Buy whaddyagonna do?
These are pans I buy at the local hardware, so it is not like they are heirlooms, or anything. It also gives me an excuse to fry up some of my favorite foods! All in the name of proper pan maintenance, of course...
I’ll try it....Never heard of pouring butter into batter. I have always poured the butter into the pan, then batter.
Start with a smaller one and work your way up. Think of it as a new weight training regimen.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.