this post was submitted on 13 Apr 2024
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And this post will be exhibit A in the divorce proceedings
I knew nothing about cast iron pan care when I met my SO and I did his dishes for him one day and washed it with soap and water. I still hate the damn things and think they're filthy and nasty.
It's fine to wash them with modern dish soaps. The reason people say not to is because dish soaps used to have lye in them, which would destroy the seasoning. Just make sure you wipe the water off instead of letting it air dry or it can rust.
I just put it back on the stove on full heat for a minute to dry off the water.
Spray a little high smoke point oil on it and wipe it down with a towel while it's hot
Don't do this if you have hard water.
Oh shit I didn’t know that!
I keep reading the word seasoning, and for non native speakers this is hard. What are you all meaning? You put some garlic, salt and pepper on the pan and let it be?
English is dumb. We got the term "seasoned" to mean like a veteran fighter, something aging properly and using salt and spice from the French "assaisoner" which means "to ripen / to improve with time" which we expanded upon by being like "when things become tastier" which is how we started applying it to using spices and salt...
In this case it means sort of speed running getting the oil sheen a cast iron cooking implement used to naturally get by just using it over and over when cooking over wood or peat hence "ripening" the pan. Way back in the day in England and France they didn't really use soap for dishes. You washed them with water and left them outside in UV light to sterilize them so all iron cooking things tended to naturally develop that nice carbon coat. Time and use made them better hence "seasoned".
Seasoning in this specific context means the residue of the food oil which forms a surface coating when heated up to a certain temperature. It protects the surface from rusting.
It does protect from rust somewhat(water can still cause rust if left on it) but the big deal is it makes the cookware non-stick without Teflon.
It's more like like a seasoned veteran, not cooking seasoning.
You aren't throwing garlic on the pan and then putting it in the cupboard. You build up layers of polymerized oil on the pan as you cook on it.
Oil is placed on the pan and then it is heated to form a non-stick coating. This layer can have small holes in it, so the process is repeated many times. The holes do not line up, which makes the path for water to get through much longer or blocks it. This means water can not easily make it through all of the layers. That also means any water that gets in can't easily get out, and it can cause rust to form if it makes it through the coating and is left on there.
In this context, it means to coat the cast iron with oil and/or fat and heat it until the oils polymerize as a thin film stuck to the surface of the pan. This prevents the cast iron from rusting and presents a non-stick surface. It's honestly more like varnishing the pan than "seasoning" it.
What if you have a new cast iron and accidentally let a wet dish sit on it in a drawer and it rusted? Hypothetically of course...
Steel wool to take off the rust and re-season
Thank you. Do you have any seasoning tips or recommendations?
Not OP, but the Lodge seasoning guide is a pretty good starting point. Cast iron being used forever is proof of how resilient it can be, there’s not too many things you can do that are irreparable.
Also, you don’t really need to baby it as much as most people say. Just keep using it and it’ll keep getting better.
Avocado oil is really good, and it's important to have a super thin layer of oil. Just put a little in the pan and then evenly coat it with a papertowel and wipe out as much oil as possible.... and then wipe it out some more. It will look like there's nothing there and thats how you want it. Place in the oven on its highest setting like 450+ for 45min, let it cool a bit and then do it again. You should do this 3-4 times for a nice seasoning.
That's the cool part- no matter what happens to your cast iron pans, it can be fixed. You scratch or chip a non-stick coating and the pan is pretty much ruined.
There's this old cowboy on YouTube that has a good video on restoring cast irons I forget his name though
Cowboy Kent Rollins? I like that guy.
He makes some tasty dishes!
I too watched the MinuteFood video on this yesterday! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w0R1jVN3LaY
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