“Nobody owns life, but anyone who can pick up a frying pan owns death.” –William S. Burroughs
Last night while cooking on my ancient, somewhat crappy electric range I heard an ominous “pop!” Some magic smoke came out, and the circuit breaker tripped. I switched burners, reset the breaker, and went back to cooking. But afterwards, I wondered if this was a Sign that I should be looking at a new range. So after dinner I did what any right-thinking American would do. I did some online window-shopping.
For those of you who haven’t shopped for a cooking range recently, there are basically three options. Putting aside the question of gas vs. electric oven (the answer is “you always want electric”), you still have to pick a stove top. The three reasonable choices are gas, electric coils, or electric-heated ceramic.
Gas stoves are a little more efficient, but generally have dodgy heat control (the lower the heat you want, the dodgier), and are annoying to clean. Electric coils work wonderfully at low heat but are also annoying to clean, and often look cheap. Ceramic stovetops are attractive and are very easy to clean.
I was leaning towards ceramic when I discovered an amazing fact: most manufacturers recommend that you don’t use cast-iron cookware on ceramic stovetops. This, for me, is enough to eliminate them from consideration. I can cook over electric, gas, steam, wood, charcoal, or the scorched flesh of my enemies. It doesn’t really matter where the heat comes from. But you’ll only take away my cast-iron skillet from my cold, dead hands.
If I had to pick only two pieces of cookware for my kitchen, they’d be a cast-iron skillet, and a stockpot. Everything else is negotiable.
Cleaning the Skillet
For a number of years, I was confused about how to clean a cast-iron skillet. It seemed like there were so many rules! Don’t use water! Don’t use soap or detergent! Don’t use steel wool! Anything which violated the sacrosanct and mystical act of seasoning the skillet is verboten, and will subject you to the mockery of sophisticated people. Most of those people can explain in detail how you shouldn’t clean it, but never deign to tell you how you should clean it.
Eventually, though, the magnificent Alton Brown explained how to do it in simple terms, which I will pass on to you:
Heat the skillet a little bit if it is cold. Dump a generous amount of very coarse kosher salt into the skillet. Get a paper towel and scrub the skillet with the towel and the salt. This should take care of even the toughest sticky goo in the skillet. Then you dump the salt out and rub it with another paper towel with a little bit of a neutral-tasting oil on it. That’s it.
Have fun in the kitchen!
The title of this article comes from a graphic novel by Daniel Clowes
We use cast iron cookware (agreed that they’re indispensable–though I also love my All-Clad LTD) all the time on a ceramic stovetop with no obvious problems. (The only obvious problems are those we’ve done to ourselves with less-than-perfect cleaning solutions–don’t use Bon Ami, use Barkeeper’s Friend or those pricey stovetop cleaners.)
I don’t like ceramic top stoves at all. I’ve used them a few times when stuck at other peoples places. They don’t transfer heat well to pots or pans that aren’t perfectly flat. You certainly won’t cook well on a wok. They take a long time to cool off. And I heard from another friend when we were in this discussion that if your pot is really big and covers too much space it sets off some sensor that doesn’t let it turn on. I love gas. I love my cast iron even more. I never have any problems washing while warm with water, then drying with a towel and rubbing with oil. My skillets are very well seasoned.
What Doug said — I’ve never had trouble cleaning my cast iron pot. For all the hysteria, I just use water and a plastic scrubber. If I get to it within 12 hours, it seems to work fine.
I too find my cast iron skillet irreplacable. I use it as my primary skillet. All I use to clean it is hot water (as hot as my hands can stand) and one of those plastic scrubbers, which I use only for that pan. I heard Alton’s suggestion but it seems very cumbersome, and a waste of a lot of salt.
I would think that my dream stove would have two ceramic surfaces, two electric coils and a griddle.
I’ve cooked with all three types of cook tops in the last few years. Standard electric is by far the worst, and ceramic shares one of it’s problems: I have to look at the dial to tell what the hell it’s doing.
With a gas stove, I’ve got the some audio feedback (sound of the flame) + easy to gauge analog visual feedback (size of the flame) to help. I find it much easier to control/adjust heat with gas. I rarely burn stuff with gas (except when I need to… handy for flambe) and it produces the best cooked bacon. ‘Nuff said.
I’m with Benoit when it comes to cleaning cast iron. Easiest to clean when the pan is still hot.
Gas all the way.
Turn it on and it’s hot, turn it down and it’s less hot instantly, turn it up and it’s hot again instantly, turn it off and its not hot.
Try that with a gas or ceramic cooker:p plus you can use cast iron on it if you must.
Ah, the debate about cast iron maintenance. While I admire Alton for giving what he says is the ‘final answer’ – it’s just Yet Another solution – first time I’ve ever heard of using salt.
To me, the only thing you’re trying to do when working with a skillet is to prevent it from rusting. So scrub and clean it out all you want (I’d recommend against soap, but a normal scrubbie or whatever is fine). Get all the yuck out of it, but do NOT let it just sit and dry, that’s what causes it to rust. After cleaning it, either dry it completely (towel and paper towel), or rub a little oil around on it to keep the surface from getting ambient moisture on it.
That’s it – just keep it from rusting
Hmm… around here when shopping for a “table de cuisson” the choices these days revolve more around induction versus gas.
I’m curious therefore :
- didn’t you consider induction at all ?
- did you know that glass gas tables are extremely easy to clean ? I have something that looks like this : http://www.scholtes.fr/scholtes/productsheet.do?productId=29274FR and I can tell you it’s practically as easy to clean as any ceramic/induction top. A gas top does not have to be a nightmare like this one : http://www.scholtes.fr/scholtes/productsheet.do?productId=28678FR
Cheers,
–Jonathan
I stopped using cast iron because my lame coding-weakened limbs couldn’t deal with the weight anymore. So I use small non-stick fry pans for skillet work and I just buy a couple of them every year or two.
Also, this is the best cooktop in the world
http://www.amazon.com/70031-Inch-Five-Burner-Cooktop/dp/B0000SWAPK
I heard from some guy who knew some other guy who knew some girl who slept with his cousin’s third-best friend that induction cooktops were terrible. So I blew off even researching them after hearing that.
There are those who may say it is irresponsible in a home with two young children to own a device that releases gas whose delayed ignition creates substantial fireballs. To these people I say, how else am I supposed to teach them these life skills?
Yeah, but those same people were also probably saying we weren’t supposed to have access to the acetylene and oxygen but without it how were we to learn important bomb-making skills?