An Introduction to Cast Iron
Out of all the cookware I own, the ones I like best are made out of cast iron. They’re the most versatile cooking vessels I have. I started using cast iron 4 years ago, when I moved in with someone who preferred cast iron for a lot of his cooking. I had been wanting to try it out ever since watching Alton Brown use it to cook a ribeye. In 2006, I got my own cast iron skillets and began using them daily.
Why you should use cast iron
A cast iron skillet is a very forgiving cooking pan. Cast iron is an excellent heat conductor. It heats evenly without hot spots, and retains a large amount of heat. That means the temperature of the pan stays very stable, so you’re far more likely to give your food a nice, brown crust rather than scorch it.
- The sturdiness of cast iron means that pots and pans can be used to cook on top of the stove or in the oven. You can sear a roast on high heat on a burner, then transfer the whole pan into the oven to finish the cooking.
- The layer of seasoning, or cure, that builds up on cast iron cookware protects the bare metal and creates a very nonstick cooking surface. Not only is this great for cooking, but it makes cleaning the pan very easy. It’s strong enough that you can use metal utensils and not worry about ruining the pan – something you can’t do with Teflon.
- Cast iron pans are very easy to produce, which makes them very inexpensive. A typical Lodge 12-inch Pre-Seasoned Skillet costs less than $20. Secondhand skillets (which could be a better choice) can be found even cheaper.
Additionally, cooking with cast iron has health benefits. It’s been found that foods cooked in cast iron, especially acidic foods, have higher levels of iron than foods cooked in pans of other materials. Tomato sauce cooked in cast iron was found to increase from 0.35 mg to 7.3 mg of iron. Scrambled eggs increased from 1.5 mg to 5 mg (source). The workout you’ll get lifting the heavy pan won’t hurt either.
How to choose a cast iron pan
The first thing to decide is what kind of cooking vessel you want. An amazing intro to different types of cookware is here on eGullet. Lodge, the current biggest manufacturer of non-enameled cast iron in the US, makes skillets, grill pans, griddles, fryers (essentially deep skillets), dutch ovens, bakeware, and specialty items like woks and grill presses.
I feel that I don’t need anything more than a skillet and a dutch oven, but it’s nice to have multiple skillet sizes, and some of the extra things like a grill press. I have a 9-inch skillet, a 12-inch skillet, and an enameled dutch oven. My brother also has a cast iron grill press that I use occasionally. I’ve been wanting to get a grill pan, but the weather’s right for grilling now so I’ve been doing it outdoors.
Of the current selection of Lodge cast iron, I would recommend a 10-1/4-inch skillet
It doesn’t look like Lodge sells unseasoned items anymore, so what you’ll get from them is a “preseasoned” pan. They’ve used their own mass-production seasoning process to start the cure on each piece of cookware they make. I found that the preseasoned surface was still very rough, and not as nonstick or durable as a pan that’s been cared for over many years. That said, it does give you a jump on the whole deal – after a first seasoning and a couple sessions of cooking with enough oil, the cure will improve dramatically.
Cook’s Illustrated did a comparison of eight different cast iron skillets back in 2007. That none of the skillets tested earned a grade of “Not Recommended” shows how effective cast iron is, at least in their testing categories: eggs, steak, cornbread, chicken, and the skillet’s design. Their top-rated skillet was the Lodge Logic 12-Inch Skillet
How to season cast iron cookware
One of the things that makes cast iron superior is the thin layer of oxidized metal and carbonized oil that results from a process called seasoning or curing, which provides corrosion-resistance and nonstick properties.
When you first get your piece of cast iron cookware, you’ll want to put it through a full seasoning, even if it’s preseasoned.
- Wash the pan in hot water with dish soap. Unseasoned pans come coated with machine oil or some kind of wax, to protect them from corrosion before they get seasoned. Lodge preseasoned pans can tolerate limited cleaning with soap, so I recommend it, to prepare the surface for home seasoning.
- Heat the pan on the stove to dry it.
- Rub a layer of oil over the entire surface of the pan. The best fat to use is solid vegetable shortening, like Crisco, or lard. If you use a liquid vegetable oil, use something with a high proportion of monounsaturated fat, like sunflower or canola oil. Oils with a lot of polyunsaturated fat can turn gummy or sticky when used for seasoning.
- Let the pan heat on the stove until it begins smoking, then put it in a 400-degree oven. Leave it for half an hour.
- Turn off the oven, but leave the skillet to cool slowly in the still-warm oven.
- Once the skillet has completely cooled down, rub it down with a touch of oil. This will remove any sticky residue left from uncompletely-polymerized fat, and will give the pan a thin protective coat of oil.
That will get you a good first layer of seasoning. If you like, you can repeat the process as many times as you desire to build up a cure, but the best way to build up more seasoning, now that the pan is ready to be used, is to actually cook with fat. The two best ways to build up seasoning are frying chicken and cooking bacon.
It’s been said that you shouldn’t cook acidic foods in cast iron because it can strip the seasoning and corrode the metal. I haven’t found this to be so. I wouldn’t recommend cooking tomato sauce in a new skillet, but if you’ve built up a nice cure, it shouldn’t damage it much. Just don’t cover the skillet with aluminum foil – iron plus aluminum plus an acid creates a battery, which will definitely corrode both metals and ruin the food.
If you want a detailed description of the seasoning process and some of the chemistry behind it, check out this article.
Cooking in cast iron
The versatility of cast iron in cooking makes it one of the more useful things you can have in your kitchen. Cast iron can cook effectively at any heat, on the stovetop or in the oven, with all kinds of food. I use my cast iron skillet for searing steaks, frying chicken, baking cornbread, making fried rice, and lots of other things.
My method for cooking ribeye in a skillet (as opposed to grilling) derives from Alton Brown’s method from his first episode of Good Eats. First I preheat the oven to 500 degrees, and start heating the skillet on top of the stove on the highest heat. I season the steak with liberal amounts of kosher salt and freshly ground black pepper, and small amounts of other spices if I feel like it – onion powder, garlic powder, chili powder, sometimes cayenne pepper. Then I coat the steak in a light oil like canola oil.
Once the skillet starts smoking on the stove, I lay the ribeye down in the middle of the pan. Immediately there’s a loud hissing as the steak sears hard, and smoke fills the kitchen (did I mention you should have good ventilation for this method?). I give it 30-45 seconds – just until it unsticks itself – and then flip it and give it another 30 seconds.
At this point I turn off the heat and put the skillet in the oven. Depending on the thickness of the steak and how done I want it, I let it cook in the oven for anywhere from 2 minutes to 7 minutes. It takes about 4 minutes for medium-rare for a generously inch-thick steak. After the time’s up, I take the skillet out of the oven, move the ribeye to a warmed plate, and cover loosely with aluminum foil to rest for at least 5 minutes.
Baking with cast iron can take advantage of its heat retention properties. To make cornbread, I heat the skillet on the stovetop and melt some butter in it before pouring in the cornbread batter and moving it to the oven. That makes a very nice crust on the bottom of the cornbread.
If you haven’t heard of the no-knead bread method, where have you been for the last few years? In short, it involves baking the bread in a covered, preheated cast iron dutch oven. The thickness of the dutch oven and the heavy lid combined with a wetter-than-usual dough creates a hot, humid environment for the baking bread which results in a very nice crust.
Once you’ve finished cooking in a cast iron skillet, cleanup should be easy. In many cases you’ll just have to wipe it out with a paper towel. If there’s anything still stuck, you can put some kosher salt and a bit of oil in the skillet, then scrub with a paper towel, using the coarse salt as an abrasive agent. Heating up the pan can help.
If that still doesn’t clean off stuck-on, charred gunk, the next step I take is deglazing. Heat the skillet on the stove until it just starts to smoke, then throw in a cup of water and scrape with a wooden spoon or metal spatula. Be careful, the water will boil immediately and violently. Once the water’s settled down a bit and you’ve scraped off anything that’s stuck, just dump the water out, put the pan back on the heat, and let any remaining water evaporate.
Deglazing does hurt the seasoning a bit, so when you use that method of cleaning, it’s even more important to add another layer of seasoning after cooking, which I do every time I finish cooking. Heat up the pan, add a bit of oil, and rub it over the surface of the pan with a paper towel. Leave the pan on the heat for a minute or two, then turn off the burner and leave the skillet to cool on its own. Once it’s cool enough to touch, wipe off any remaining oil with a paper towel, then wipe back on a very thin layer before storing, to protect against moisture and rusting.
I highly recommend adding cast iron cookware to your kitchen. You can cook almost anything in it, it will last forever, and there are some dishes that just come out best when you cook them in cast iron.
Excellent article! If you ever want to guest write for cookingincastiron.com (with links to your site, of course), let me know. I’m adding your website to my RSS reader so I’ll be able to follow you.
1Very informative, thank you! I’ve just become interested in cast iron, and had no idea how to get started — this is helpful and I’ve bookmarked this article!
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