Cast Iron Pans Essay

Few pieces of kitchen gear improve after years of heavy use. In fact, we could think of only one: the cast-iron pan. As you cook in it, a cast-iron pan gradually takes on a natural, slick patina that releases food easily. Well-seasoned cast iron can rival, and certainly outlast, a nonstick pan. Cast-iron pans are virtually indestructible and easily restored if mistreated. Their special talent is heat retention, making them ideal for browning, searing, and shallow frying. Our longtime favorite has been the Lodge Classic Cast Iron Skillet ($33.31) for its low price, generous size, sturdiness, smooth factory pre-seasoning, and ability to get ripping hot.

Fortunately, cast iron is having a renaissance. Manufacturers have launched new versions of traditional cast-iron pans with innovative design tweaks to their handles and overall shapes in an attempt to rival the bare-bones pans. Perhaps more notably, there’s been a boom in the number of enameled cast-iron skillets. These pans cloak the rough surface inside and out with the same kind of porcelain coating found

One of cast iron’s selling points is that it holds heat well, producing excellent browning. But, for the same reason, it’s slow to heat up and can have hot spots. You must preheat thoroughly to give the heat time to spread. We found that the enamel coatings didn’t dramatically affect how quickly the pans heated or cooled down. Rather, the pan’s ability to retain heat, whether traditional or enameled, is related mainly to the thickness and overall mass of the cast iron. The pans in our lineup ranged in thickness from 4.1 to 5.6 millimeters. Pans on the thicker end of the range proved problematic. Two of the thickest pans, both enameled (plus another pan that was thinner but had an unusually large cooking surface), were more sluggish to heat, hung on to hot spots for longer, and finally became too hot, making it a challenge to brown food