/ck/ - Food & Cooking

Stainless for sauces and wok, cast iron for everything else

Gas or electric?

>>19390369
Cast iron is a meme. Is your stainless steel 15 moneys and light weight or 150 moneys and heavy weight? Otherwise boil your steak in Tefal if you want non-stick.

>>19390394
Gas.
>>19390398
40 moneys and heavy weight.

What about the stainless steel ones with non-stick coating? Are they a meme?

>>19390387
This, I use stainless to heat up pasta sauce and finish pasta in. You're specifically NOT supposed to do tomato based sauces in cast iron because the acid will eat away at it.

>>19390398
Cast iron is not a meme. If you want a good omelette where the egg is just cooked and not burned brown, you can't have the heat so god damn high that you're getting a fucking Leidenfrost effect. Cast iron all the way for that, you need gentle heat for that egg.

>>19390405
I have no experience with those but seriously though non-stick anything wears out in a few years and can't be used at a searing temperature. If your stainless steel is heavy then I don't see much advantage of cast iron unless the surface area of your ss sucks indeed.
Honestly there is not 1 pan that can do everything well. Is there any chance you can borrow and try some pans from friends or family to find out what suits you?

>>19390430
Cast iron is a meme because of false advertising like endless advice on how to season but in reality true seasoning comes from years of use. You see people cook baked beans and such acidic stews in cast iron but in reality a new cast iron pan will turn to rust if you do that. I could go on but I'm just tired of the delusional hype.

>>19390430
>gentle heat
Lmao just shut the fuck up with your meme pans

>>19390369
Just get used to your stainless steel.

>>19390454
I've never ever deliberately seasoned my cast iron pan. I just don't really clean it much, and presumably some of the left over grease from last time turns to carbon every time I heat it up before use.

>>19390477

>>19390493
OP sounds like the kind of person that'll blame the tool no matter what. If he switches to anything else he'll soon realize he can't just leave stuff in the pan for an hour and have it come out perfectly cooked, plated and ready to eat when he finally remembers it.

>>19390483
There's a huge meme about seed oils and pollutants causing disease and trannies, but don't you think that reheating used fat is unhealthy as well?

>>19390605
Maybe? I'm not particularly health-conscious. If I was, I'd probably boil or steam everything I ate which would be pretty lame.

I mostly use butter for frying, but occasionally cold pressed rapeseed oil because the taste works really well with many vegetables.

>>19390605
>implying I cook with seed oils
100% butter. Sometimes lard or tallow.

>>19390369
Its good for meats, sauteing and sauces. Just dont use it for staches like noodles, it will stick like shit no matter what you do unless you add a splash of water which isnt always what youre going for.

how retarded do you have to be to not know how to cook eggs on a stainless?

>>19390625
You got a point. I just seared a couple of store-bought burgers in a dry cast iron pan. A lot of stickiness and burned particles at the bottom but the burgers were browned without black bits. The stickiness is easy to clean with hot water, steel wool and soap. No problem. I can't see why OP's stainless steel doesn't work the same way. Of course if I wanted to make sauce out of the residual fat I would take a different approach like oiling the meat, scraping the bottom and less heat.

>>19390666
OP is retarded and doesn't realize temperature control is something you need to not burn your food no matter the pan, simple as.

>>19390502
Meats are better when everything is done right, but doing everything right day after day when I just want to get shit done gets annoying real quick. The threshold to fuck things up is too low for me, can't even throw food in straight out of the fridge because of how finicky heat management is, something that has never happened to me with the cheapest most shittiest non-sticks. I'll keep using steel for "serious" stuff but I just find it annoying for daily use.

>>19390678
That's why people use cast iron. Cast iron gives you that high margin for error without also giving you cancer and/or mantits from teflon.

>>19390678
Then keeping using your cheapest most shittiest non-sticks? Why do you even need us for?

>>19390678
I agree with you that cooking meat optimally requires more skill and effort than people let on, however what you're saying is not necessarily true. Stainless steel as heavy as cast iron can easily hold a sear on cold meat and vegetables if you don't overcrowd the pan. Searing cold steaks and burgers even helps with keeping 'm pink inside.
What can be the case though is that you're unlucky with the surface of the pan. A lot of people love searing meat in a Creuset for example but in my Creuset meat attaches like glue to the bottom unlike any other pan I've ever cooked with. Besides, when your stove is small it works better to use small pans.

>>19390457
Have you ever cooked eggs You can ruin them cooking over a candle with a tin pan, if you're not careful.

>>19390746
Flawless victory. FATALITY.

>>19390746
Butter and heat. I don't really see what's so hard about it.

>>19390369
cooking isn't for everyone and that includes you OP. go pay the cuck tax at a restaurant like a good goy.

>>19390369
1. HEAT UP PAN
2. ADD OIL OR CLARIFIED BUTTER WHEN THE PAN IS HOT

>>19391052
I use bacon fat.

>>19390369
Just get a non-stick and die in your 60s from cancer like a normal person

>>19391068
to cook what?

>>19390369
>I'm a shit cook who over thinks everything therefore everyone else is like me
Ask me how I know you're a narcissist.

>>19390369
Anon it's fairly easy, do nothing in the pan and heat it as fuck.

Then drop a few water drops in the pan. If they slide like marbles you know the pan is hot enough.

Now add some oil and let it touch the whole cooking area.

Then add food, it won't stick. Took me a while to figure this out.

>>19390398
>he got filtered by cast iron

How fucking retarded do you have to be to not be able to figure out a cast iron pan?

>>19390605
>seed oils

you mean the new buzzword - it's the new Gluten

>>19391973
The difference is that gluten was a snowflake allergy, but seed oils are damaging to EVERYONE.

>>19390387
/thread
Cast iron is the best and I rarely have to wash it

>>19390405
>Gas.
That explains it. I use it on electric and my life changed from how easier everything is.

>>19390369
Cum on man.

>cast iron
Make sure to season weekly for first couple months and only cook non acid food ever. My cast irons could fry anything without oil, and clean out without anything but one square of paper towel.

>stainless steel
Own for stock pot, sauces, boiling, etc etc

>rice cooker
Get this for your rice, don't read directions, wash rice, and cover with enough water to go about a inch or inch and a quarter (white rice), brown rice, buckwheat etc needs about two inches.

>wok
Fry everything you want but not acid things, season just like cast iron.

>season cast iron
450f oven one hour, rapeseed oil, repeat 10 times before first use. After this first seasoning season on med heat on stove top once a week (takes 20 minutes) turn our fan on high, and spread some rapeseed oil and smoke it off rotate heat around until all areas are smooth and dried.

>utensils
Only use stainless steel utensils on all od these products. Clean in sink

It's not rock science fellas.

>>19392863
Forgot to add

>for stainless steel pans, pots etc
De-glaze with cooking wine, bottles like 8 dollars and you only need a tablespoon if things are really stuck. Stock or even just water with stainless steel utensils should work anyways without de-glazing. But moat retards can't cook, so just de-glaze like restaurants do and even your stainless steel pans, pots etc will wipe clean with a light spray of water and soap.

>be me 80k in culinary debt. Enjoy the truth and knowledge, I paid and you get it for free.

>>19390369
I love these, easy to clean with steel wool, don't have to worry about coatings or anything. Just use lots of lube when cooking.

>>19390369
>he fell for the meme
Anon even Michelin chefs only use stainless steel for very specific purposes. Yeah they used them a lot 20-30 years ago but that's because nonstick was less common and the oldheads were being stubborn about it.

If you actually have a specific purpose in mind use it, otherwise don't bother. There is almost nothing the average home cook is cooking at temps that high. Woks are the same - unless you have those giant fucking burners you see in chinese restaurants, what in the fuck are you doing with a wok? You aren't getting wok hay at home, and if you are you need to put that fire out.

If you really want to use something that isn't just a typical non-stick, cast iron is the best thing for the average home cook since it has the most practical applications. Otherwise just focus more on technique than appliances, or invest in appliances that have niche but great uses, like a really nice pizza oven.

I'm going to try and hijack this thread instead of making a new one because whatever it's basically the same thing

Is there some pan that just "works" and is targeted at lazy/dumb motherfuckers. My friend showed me his pan and it was the most busted up thing I've seen in my life, a non stick pan that was just covered from side to side with deep scratches.
I know he's a lazy motherfucker so I know he won't bother with anything that requires you to like wipe it down with oil every time you cook or whatever. Lives alone so preferably something that just works for everything since he doesn't need 4 pans

Fuck stainless steel. Carbon steel for lyfe babeyyyy

>>19393973
Cast iron. Buy a retard-proof seasoning stick and follow the directions, which you'll have to do like once or twice a year tops. Don't bother with anything else special. You don't have to coat it in oil after every use or anything else reddit tells you.

I'm basically legally retarded according to the government and it took me 2-3 attempts to nail cooking with a stainless steel pan

>>19390678
Damn, >>19390502 read you like a map lol. Waste of a thread.

Let me tell you a couple of three things OP
1. Carbon
2. Steel

>>19394006
are there cast iron pans with handles that stay safe to the touch? He's fucking retarded so I could totally see him grabbing the handle otherwise lmao

>>19390394
Gas>flat panel electric>glass>raised open coil electric >induction

induction wins at being easy to clean.

>>19394371
They make silicone condoms you can slide on the handles.

>>19392239
Not him, but I grew up using gas, it's the easiest thing to operate for me. You just need to have the chefs instinct.

>>19390605
People have been using cast iron to cook for centuries. How much more "trad" you wanna get? Just eating raw mammoth off the bone?