Spice is not enough – this is the secret of the success of cast iron

We wrote in detail about cast iron pans at serious Eats, the topics such as How to choke themPresent How to clean themAnd how to revive them from the dead. There are endless debates about which oil is to be used, whether soap is a friend or enemy and how many rounds of the spice of a new pan really need. I have edited an entire cookbook on the subject and I know the discourse well. But to be honest, nothing is important if you are not use Your pan right.

And to use a correct with an often overlooked but uncomplicated step: thoroughly preheat. Spices are important, but it is not good for you if the pan is only half hot when you throw in your eggs or chicken legs. In my experience, almost any “cast iron failure” history (food, pale sear, uneven brown) can be attributed to a cold or unevenly heated pan.

You may not see that this step is written in every cast iron recipe for serious food (even some of our most popular), but consider this for your invitation to add it anyway. It is a fundamental habit, a small change that can achieve noticeably better results in the recipes that have already been cooked.

What cast iron is (and is not)

Gussisen cookware is incredibly dense and thick and it is excellent to hold heat. As soon as it is hot, it stays hot, and this is a big advantage if you want to bake a deep, even saw or consistent.

But it is a different story to make it evenly hot. Cast iron is a bad head of heat. This means that heat does not spread quickly or evenly over its surface. This slow heat flow is the price that you pay for the legendary heat storage of cast iron.

Like Dave Arnold in his piece on the Science of the kitchen cast ironThe thermal conductivity of cast iron is about a fifth of the aluminum. Place a 12-inch cast iron pan on a small burner and wait a minute or two. You have a blazing hot center with a cool outside edge. Add a steak to this pan, and the part that touches the hot center will brown beautifully while the rest sweats and dampens.

Why the preheating is important

The solution to ensure even browning is pretty simple: give your pan the time that you have to make correctly, and leave the entire cooking surface, not just the area directly above the flame, an even hot temperature. This means more even cooking and better browning, particularly important for techniques such as Pan programs, roast or flat fry.

It also makes the Pan more unclear. The spices only do its work when the food hits the pan, which is hot enough to set the surface proteins before it has the chance to connect to the cookware itself. If the pan is cold or uneven, proteins have a much higher probability of connecting to the surface and holding onto life. This can even happen in a well -seasoned pan.

How to preheat your pan

Preheat is not complicated, but requires a little patience and attention. The best approach is to heat the pan without oil. Adding oil too early can cause it to collapse or burn before the pan is fully heated. By heating the pan, the pan dry evenly and thoroughly and set the stage for a clean, well -controlled Sear.

• Preheat about a burner: Set your cast iron pan over medium heat, ideally to a burner that is approximately the same size or larger than the base of the pan. If your burner is smaller than the pan, turn the pan a few times when preheating to exploit the hotspots. Give it 3 to 5 minutes to get the temperature. Then and only then add the oil and let it heat until it shimmers or just start smoking. If you strive for a certain temperature, use an infrared thermometer to read the surface directly. With gentler cooking tasks such as roasting onions or roasting eggs, a surface temperature of around 400 ° F is usually sufficient. Let the pan reach a temperature closer to 500 ° F to achieve a steak or pork chop.
• Preheat in the oven: If you need a crack hot pan to make steaks or chops appropriate, I recommend using the oven that heats the pan evenly and at the same time becomes exceptionally hot. Place the empty cast iron pan in a cold oven and turn the oven to 500 ° F. As soon as it has reached the desired temperature, carefully remove the pan with oven gloves or a thick kitchen towel (it is blisterless. So make sure that the towel is not even the slightest piece of moist).

  Place the pan on the herd over strong heat, add oil and wait until it smokes (which should happen almost immediately). Then continue cooking. This ensures that the entire pan is evenly heated and is able to generate a proper saw as soon as the food hits the surface.

Frequent mistakes and how to avoid them

Even experienced cast iron users (Pun-Semi-Intended) can encounter problems if they do not pay attention to some important details. Here is what you should pay attention to:

1. Heating too fast: The burning of the heat of a burner seems to be like an abbreviation, but the blowing out of a cold cast iron pan can lead to uneven heaters and hot stains. The poor conductivity of the pan means that it does not distribute this sudden heat evenly, and you get a burned center and cool edges. Keep up on medium heat and give him time.

2. Add oil too early: Pouring the oil into a cold pan is one of the most common missteps. If the pan heats up, the oil can smoke prematurely before the entire surface is heated evenly or polymerize unevenly. Always get the pan dry and then add oil as soon as it is preheated.

3. Underestimation of the preheating: Three minutes may sound after a long time in which you are hungry, but skipping or crashing the pre -picking step is the fastest way to ruin a meal (your onions, steaks and eggs will thank you). A half -hot pan will not really tan, and it will certainly not prevent it from gluing.

4. Use the wrong burner: A large pan above a tiny burner means that you only heat a fraction of the cooking surface. If you can, use a burner that corresponds to the size of your pan. If not, turn the pan during preheating to promote a more uniform heat distribution.

Take away

People tend to treat the maintenance of cast iron like a holy ritual, but good cooking depends on good technology. A dozen layers of polymerized linseed oil does not matter whether your pan is cold and unequal. You have to give him time to get hot – like ,, Really Hot – before you start cooking.

Preheat is an important way to transform cast iron from a frustrating, sticky chaos into the power pack that it should be. It is the difference between pale chicken and a sharpening crispy skin, between scrambled eggs, the brackets, and fried eggs that slip out cleanly.

So definitely give your pan, wash it gently and oil it after every use. But just as important, heat it up properly.