Advantages And Disadvantages Of Cookware

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Cookware is an integral part of the kitchen. Chefs invest time and money into buying the best possible cookware for their kitchens and restaurants. However, in the past, the specific choice of cookware material was not as important as it is today. This is because today, there is a lot of information readily available for all metals. Therefore, it is not only important for the chefs to make prudent choices to satisfy their interests, but the public also has an interest in the particular metals their food is prepared in.

Probably the most common metal used to make cooking equipment is stainless steel. Stainless steel is an alloy of iron and chromium and began to be developed in the early 1800s but was not synthesized for kitchen use until the …show more content…

The best cookware is that with the highest nickel content. The chromium – nickel concentrations will usually be labeled numerically such that the first number refers to the chromium content while the second number refers to the nickel content. Chromium content will usually be at ’18′. This means that between 18/8 and 18/10, the superior quality pan is the latter. These pans last longer, cook better and require even less effort to maintain and care for.

Disadvantages of Stainless Steel Cookware

Heat Conductivity

Probably owing to the fact that stainless steel is an alloy of different materials of varying characteristics, it does not conduct heat evenly along its surface. This implies that food does not cook evenly through in stainless steel pans. For most foods, this is not a vital concern, but for sensitive dishes such as foams and some sauces, stainless steel is not advisable. Modern stainless steel pots combat this by having a sheet of aluminum or copper in between two sheets of stainless steel, thereby improving conductivity.

Hot Spots

Stainless steel cookware is highly prone to hot spots on its surface causing food to cook faster on these spots and even burn. These hot spots also contribute to wearing of the pot due to frequent and rigorous

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