askculinary

So I have a 6qt stainless steel saute pan that I may or may not have fucked.

With the plan of "preheating" it, so it would be ready after putting the baby to bed, I put it on the stove with a drizzle of olive oil on med/low heat.

30 minutes later I come downstairs and the pan (which had a lid on thank god) was full of smoke, completely scorched carbon, and some gooey polymerized oil all over the lid and around the scorched portion.

I've done two rounds of oven cleaner that sat for 20-30 minutes, which made mincemeat of the gooey oil, but didn't even touch the carbon.

I'm currently leaving it overnight with more oven cleaner, but if that fails, what are my next steps? Maybe something more abrasive to just mechanically remove it?

Thanks in advance, my wife is very displeased about one of our kitchen mainstays being on the bench right before Thanksgiving.