cast iron pan

15 years ago

I usually don't like to complain but someting really ticked me off. I went to two store here in Jersey. Linens and things, and khols. All I wanted was a genuine cast iron skillet or frying pan and all I saw was that silly ass thirty minute meal

diva Rachel Ray. Can't stand her " EVOO" followed by her stupid laugh and Emril wear, BAMM! This junk is other than Cast Iron and is way over priced! Is that what the marketing ploy is these days. Oh! online I checked out KMart and they have a Martha Stewart cast iron one. Don't like her either.

Won't do walmart cause who knows what kind of metal that China would probably substitue for cast iron, probably lead! What's going on???

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Comments (21)

dbaguy
15 years ago
Same thoughts ocurred to me - although Rachels show is more palatable (no pun intended). I searched all over the place for a basic cast iron skillet and gave up. Then a KB designer acquaintance suggested a large non-chain hardware store. Sure enough, picked up a Lodge skillet there.
mangotoo
Original Author
15 years ago
Good idea dbaguy. Gonna look into that.
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I have both some Le Creuset items and some less expensive competitors' items as well (Lodge, some other Chinese stuff). They all seem to work well. LC is great stuff, as is Staub, but you do pay a premium for those brand names. I don't know if in the long run the less expensive stuff will last as long, but right now I don't see much of a difference in the performance. Cooks Illustrated compared some of these a while back, and found they liked a $40 enameled cast iron pot from Target just about as much as a $200 LC item. All enameled cast iron (ECI) items are good at long, slow cooking. The cast iron holds heat well and isn't super fast at changing temperatures; that's why they're so good for unfussy slow braises. One of my favorite cold weather dishes (I've posted this several times, frequent readers please forgive the repetition) is a great application for your new ECI. This is a perfect dish for a day when you have a lot of laundry or housework to do. You have to be in the house anyway, so you may as well have a no-stress supper cooking while you're doing other work. You put it in the oven at lunchtime, and after seven hours you have some juicy and scrumptious lamb. Gigot de sept heures (Seven hour leg of lamb) 1 leg of lamb, about 6# 4 garlic cloves, sliced, plus 20 whole garlic cloves 1/4 cup olive oil salt & pepper 2 small onions, thinly sliced 4 carrots, peeled 1 bouquet garni 1 cup dry white wine 1 cup flour, 1 cup water Preheat oven to 300ÃÂ F. (If necessary, trim most of the external fat off the lamb. Some legs of lamb will come with a heavy fatty connective tissue, called the "fell", covering a lot of its surface. Remove as much of it as practical--leaving it on will make the dish gamier because a lot of the gamy flavor is in the fat and connective tissues.) Make many small stab incisions in lamb and place slivers of garlic in each incision. Rub lamb well with olive oil, season with salt & pepper. Place it in Dutch oven and add onions, carrots, bouquet garni, garlic, wine. Put lid on Dutch oven. Combine flour and water, make a 'caulk' and use it to seal the lid to the dutch oven. (Note: That's not necessary if you have a casserole or Dutch oven with a fairly snug-fitting lid.) Place it in the 300ÃÂoven and cook for 7 hours. Yes, 7 hours. NO PEEKING--leave it alone. A half hour before it's done, fix some noodles or rice or couscous to soak up the juices. Remove the Dutch oven and break the seal. You don't eat the cooked flour paste. That's it. About a half hour to an hour of prep, then you leave it the heck alone for 7 hours. It's nearly foolproof. Serve it with whatever else you want, and a medium bodied red wine goes quite well with this (say, a nice Zinfandel) but a dry white (such as the remainder of the bottle you opened to get the cup of wine in the recipe) is fine as well if that's your preference.
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Scratching, chipping, etc of smootop surfaces? Lots of prior discussions of this here including this one which, for anyone interested, has links to many other earlier postings on the subject. http://ths.gardenweb.com/discussions/2346300/causing-scratches-breakages-on-induction-cooktop >>>"the air between the pan and the glass can get very hot . . . accidents and burns when it escapes . . . cracking of the glass"<<< I don't mean the following as an attack on plllog. I, too, have seen some of the alarmist warnings that plllog describes where folks tell you what you are "supposed" to do or not do and what are the risks with induction. First, on the casting rings maybe causing problems with the pan-recognition sensors, that does not seem to be the case with skillets. Those rings are just not thick enough to elevate the pans enough to cause any problems. Where I've seen reports of problems has been with some cooktops and those reversible griddle-grill pans. (You know what I'm talking about -- the pans with smooth pancake griddle on one face and a ridged/rippled grill surface on the other?) Some brands of those reversible pans apparently had or have a very high lip on the "grill" side and the lip was high enough that when the griddle side was up (and the grill side was down) the lift was high enough to have confused the pan sensors on some induction cooktop a number of years ago. Last time I recall seeing a report of this problem was maybe four years ago. (Actually, IIRC, it might have been plllog who found that report.) Anyway, that grill-pan's lips were much taller than the casting rings on the skillets the OP was concerned about. Beyond that, I put the other kinds of warnings in the same category as other earnestly fearful but uninformed posts about induction. Fr'instance, I've seen any number of posters insisting that some European commission has determined that induction actually uses non-ionizing radiation to heat the foods and it is heating the food that heats the pans, destroys nutrients and adversely affects health. Other earnestly fearful posters have insisted that you must only use wooden spoons and such with induction because using steel utensils will somehow electrocute you. As for cracking, you obviously might crack a smoothtop by dropping a 7 quart, cast iron dutch oven full of water/soup/whatever several feet down onto any smoothtop ... well, you get the idea. The other stories about cracking surfaces actually originate in situations that have nothing to do with cast iron skillets, one about vacuum suction and the other about thermal shock. The "vaccum" suction theory might be be extrapolated from reports about folks pulling a large, hot, steamy domed pot lid off a pan, immediately plonking the lid rim-side down on the smooth surface. If the lid is large enough and the rim is perfectly straight, if there is enough steam trapped and the lid cools quickly enough, then a vacuum can develop. Large-enough lids apparently have produced sufficiently strong suction to have cracked a smoothop. There is just not enough room under any cast iron skillet for this to occur and it is unikely you could have enough liquid under it, either, without the burner shutting down and throwing an error code. The idea of cracking caused by "thermal shock" really has nothing to do with cast iron pans, either. Most of the reports that I have seen about thermal shock cracks have been with ultra-cheap portable induction cookers (PICs) that cut costs by using thin, tempered glass tops rather Schott "Ceran," the heavy duty glass-ceramic used on better PICs not to mention all smoothtop/induction ranges and cooktops. Ceran is designed to withstand thermal differentials of at least 750° F. Anybody heating pans that hot on induction has tampered with the control circuits & programming and is engaged in industrial metal smelting, not cooking. Other than that, Schott's products are mass produced and, like all mass produced products, there will be some tops with manufacturing defects that will break under use. That's a manufacturing problem, not a cast iron problem. As for superheated air burning cast iron users, again, there just is not enough air space under a cast iron pan and casting rings are never perfect enough for that to be a real problem, anyway.
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mcmann
15 years ago
You can order Lodge online but as you can imaghine shipping is a bear. And although I try to avoid Walmart they did carry several Lodge cast iron pieces.
rhome410
15 years ago
I got 3 separate Lodge pans through Amazon. They actually qualified for the free shipping, as well as being decently priced in the first place. They didn't do the greatest job packing them, but thankfully, they didn't need padding to make it through the trip. I also just picked up a Lodge Dutch oven at Costco.
heimert
15 years ago
Cast iron pans are so inexpensive I suspect a lot of stores don't both stocking them--too low margin. Plus, fewer people know how to cook with them now, given all the non-stick teflon pans et al. that one can buy.
cotehele
15 years ago
Lodge here too. I found some of the pieces (both enameled and not)at Rural King, we live in farm country. Prices were great, and I got most on sale.
nancylouise5me
15 years ago
Why are you going to stores like L&T and Kohls for cookware/bakeware? Are those the only stores in your area that sell these items? I head to my nearest cookware store or camping supply store. For the most part I can find anything I'm looking for. I do agree with you about RR. Can't stand the women. Her recipes have absolutely no flavor. In 30 minutes the flavors don't have time to meld together, and she is just damn annoying to watch so I don't. (Can't stand Paula Dean either.)
edlakin
15 years ago
great post, nancylouise.

yes, folks, if you go to stores like kohl's, kmart, and BB&B for cookware, your choices will be limited to "expensive crap endorsed by rachel ray" and "expensive garbage endorsed by tyler florence."

i try and purchase this kind of stuff from local kitchen stores (we have a wonderful one a few minutes from my house), but whoever suggested camping supply stores and non-chain hardware stores was right on the money. most will stock lodge cast iron, which ROCKS to cook with.

especially for the price, which is just so low. i love my lodge stuff.

you can also buy direct from lodge on their website. i don't recall the shipping being all that bad. here's the link:

Here is a link that might be useful: lodge
moose_2007
15 years ago
Target also carries the Lodge Signature Series.

Go Penguins!
alice462
15 years ago
Purchased a Lodge dutch oven last summer and loved it while camping. Am lucky in that we have my grandfather's set of three cast iron fry pans -- talk about seasoned, they are my favorites!
cooksnsews
15 years ago
I'll confess that I bought a CI pan from WalMart. Made in China. It's real cast iron and works just fine. It was 1/3 the price of a similar pan in a home/kitchen specialty shop. I think I'd like a dutch oven next, but wm doesn't have any. I'll check out a sporting goods/camping store for that.
gizmonike
15 years ago
Restaurant supply places have Lodge. I bought 4 Lodge cast iron skillets from Amazon, all at a great price with free shipping.
leel
15 years ago
Let's not forget garage sales!
overlyoptimistic
15 years ago
In addition to garage sales, goodwill and resale shops often have them.
geguymw
15 years ago
There is nothing wrong with using previously owned cast iron cookware. This is the one kind of product that gets better with age. How great it is to get a skillet that is really, really seasoned. Families pass these things down from generation to generation.

Sometimes you can find these at thrift stores, garage sales, estate sales, ebay, etc. I found a Lodge Cornbread Wedge pan for under $5, at a thrift store. It was never used. Still had the tag. Someone purchased it,then put it away and never used it. It had a rust spot, but I cleaned that off, seasoned it and now make some of the best cheese Jalapeno cornbread wedges. I see Lodge wants $22 for it.

Walmart does carry some Lodge in their camping section. I have also seen enameled dutch ovens in housewares. The enameled dutch ovens are great for stews, roast, and soups. Everything cooks evenly at very low temps.

I also have a fryer and many skillets. I take a skillet, for bacon and eggs, when I go camping.
mangotoo
Original Author
15 years ago
THANK YOU ALL WHO RESPONDED TO MY POST.SOME REAL GOOD ADVICE AS WELL. IT'S RELIEVING TO KNOW THAT I AM NOT ALONE REGARDING MY FEELINGS. I JUST CAN'T STAND THIS CELEBERITISIM.

BEST WISHES,
MANGOTOO
tetrazzini
15 years ago
I agree about the celebrity BS. Just now when I logged on to AOL the "news" was about celebrities from some reality show breaking up.... Are we that pathetic that this is our main interest? There's too much commercialization of everything.

I second the idea of buying cast iron used. I've gotten all mine from garage sales and flea markets, or Goodwill- type stores. They're already seasoned, which is a plus. And you don't pay more than a few dollars for them.
sombreuil_mongrel
15 years ago
The best cast iron ware is the old Griswold stuff. Look for it at yard sales, flea markets, and auctions. It's considered collectible nowadays. Really no better nonstick surface than seasoned iron.
Casey
carolyn8115
15 years ago
I am a soouthern girl. Cook cornbread and fry catfish. Can't live without my cast iron skillets and dutch ovens. Last purchase at local sporting goods store. Academy in Houston. The duth ovens make the most fab roasts. I oil the inside of lid and pan and just put the seasoned beef roast in with water and whatever else I want. Comes out perfectly browned. I can't live without these items, so no glass cooktops for me.
Retroactive
15 years ago
Love cast iron pans. I've collected quite an assortment just from thrift stores and antiques stores. Now that I have an induction cooktop I'm using them all the time. You just have to put a piece of parchment paper between the cookware and the top to keep it from scratching.

Lodge is the best but there are other good kinds out there.

Just don't clean it with soap, use water and kosher salt and season it with a little oil on a paper towel.
sshrivastava
15 years ago
To the OP, what the heck do you expect when you go to Linens & Things to buy cookware!!?!?!?!!! Holy cow, do people really do this?

cast iron pan

Comments (21)

dbaguy

mangotoo
Original Author

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