IRON SKILLET SEASONIN'
Don D
9,834 Posts
[font size="1" color="#FF0000"]LAST EDITED ON 10-26-04 AT 09:07PM (CST)[/font][br][br]If you find an iron skillet in any condition at a yard sale or antique store, buy it. I can't imagine that anybody would sell their momma's or grandmomma's skillet. You can also buy iron cookware at stores like Wal-Mart or Target.
1) Any iron skillet can be conditioned/seasoned, no matter it's age or condition.
2) If you buy a new one from any Wal-Mart or hardware or hunting store, season it this way: Rinse it out thoroughly with a sponge and hot water in the sink, no soap. Dry thoroughly and pour in a quarter cup of grease, oil, lard, bacon drippings or any cooking oil. Wisk it around and rub it into the pan with a paper towel; top, bottom, handle and sides, thoroughly. Preheat oven to 300. Place pan on a baking sheet (to catch runoff) in the oven and heat it, undisturbed for 25 minutes and don't worry if it smokes. Remove and let cool down. Wipe it out and then repeat the same process at least once, preferrably twice over the next two hours. No soap! Only a paper towel.
3) Never scrub your iron pan/pot/skillet/dutch oven with a metal scouring brush or soap. Never put any kind of cleaner in your pan besides hot water and a sponge or tough brush to remove residue. Then set it on a stove eye to dry. Don't let it rust in a dark place like a drawer.
4) If you find a cast iron skillet that appears to have a half-inch of encrusted crud cooked on it, grab it up and offer less. These old skillets are good as solid gold and can be put in a sandblaster or outdoor grill and fully restored, even improved. Once you sand-blast it or heat it in a blazing fire for an hour, scrape it out and season it as shown above. If you think you don't know where a sandblaster is, consider that anybody you know who works in a manufacturing plant or municipal utilities place knows where one is or has one.
We have probably 20 iron products; square, round, oval, sectioned and shaped like corn, oblong and 6 inches deep, 3 inches in diameter up to 17. They have their own personalities, one being the best for fried chicken, one only used for catfish, several only for cornbread, the square one only for chicken fried steak and gravy, a little round one only used for scrambled eggs on Saturdays, the newly restored one only used for deer steak or smoked sausage.
Iron skillets and pots ain't teflon and won't cook stick-free. When you cook, perhaps pour in a smidgen or three of grease or oil or lard and let it heat gently, then do your cookin. The magic and beauty of the cast iron is the heat distribution and quick heated, consistent capability of the surface.
1) Any iron skillet can be conditioned/seasoned, no matter it's age or condition.
2) If you buy a new one from any Wal-Mart or hardware or hunting store, season it this way: Rinse it out thoroughly with a sponge and hot water in the sink, no soap. Dry thoroughly and pour in a quarter cup of grease, oil, lard, bacon drippings or any cooking oil. Wisk it around and rub it into the pan with a paper towel; top, bottom, handle and sides, thoroughly. Preheat oven to 300. Place pan on a baking sheet (to catch runoff) in the oven and heat it, undisturbed for 25 minutes and don't worry if it smokes. Remove and let cool down. Wipe it out and then repeat the same process at least once, preferrably twice over the next two hours. No soap! Only a paper towel.
3) Never scrub your iron pan/pot/skillet/dutch oven with a metal scouring brush or soap. Never put any kind of cleaner in your pan besides hot water and a sponge or tough brush to remove residue. Then set it on a stove eye to dry. Don't let it rust in a dark place like a drawer.
4) If you find a cast iron skillet that appears to have a half-inch of encrusted crud cooked on it, grab it up and offer less. These old skillets are good as solid gold and can be put in a sandblaster or outdoor grill and fully restored, even improved. Once you sand-blast it or heat it in a blazing fire for an hour, scrape it out and season it as shown above. If you think you don't know where a sandblaster is, consider that anybody you know who works in a manufacturing plant or municipal utilities place knows where one is or has one.
We have probably 20 iron products; square, round, oval, sectioned and shaped like corn, oblong and 6 inches deep, 3 inches in diameter up to 17. They have their own personalities, one being the best for fried chicken, one only used for catfish, several only for cornbread, the square one only for chicken fried steak and gravy, a little round one only used for scrambled eggs on Saturdays, the newly restored one only used for deer steak or smoked sausage.
Iron skillets and pots ain't teflon and won't cook stick-free. When you cook, perhaps pour in a smidgen or three of grease or oil or lard and let it heat gently, then do your cookin. The magic and beauty of the cast iron is the heat distribution and quick heated, consistent capability of the surface.
Comments
I like how you keep mentioning, "NO SOAP", Don. That's key. Very well written, valuable piece of information too. Worthy of being cutout and taped on the iside of the cabinet door where these gems are stored.
(You can sail a 100 foot skipjack but can't season a little ole iron pot?) x:-)
This new way of cooking and cleaning frying pans is foreign to me. I set the smoke detector off using my regular cookware! Ugh. I'm due for a new microwave.
Anne in Ohio
Another wonderful cast "cooking" vessel is an old lid off a wringer washer found in a scrap yard. After being fired and properly seasoned, it has become my favorite griddle for campfire cooking - the edges are turned up enough to keep grease out of the fire and the surface can hold enough to feed me and several teenagers.
>old lid off a wringer washer found in a scrap
>yard.
I don't know if I could eat french-fries or chicken fried steak cooked in/on cracked white porcelain that wobbles. Maybe you'd teach me.
In germany when you purchase a new frying pan, be it iron, teflon, stainless steel whatever! In big bold red letters is a stickers that say's NO SOAP", of course the sticker is in german and I cannot recall how to spell NO soap in deutsch, but, you get the idea? I have difficulty when I am at my daughters and washing up after dinner. I wanna reach for the soap! I have had my bad finger slapped more than once over that, truly :-)
Yep, no soap!!!!Excellent advise.
scorpio
Concerning your squre iron, everytime my grand dad would hear the math expression "pie are square" he would respond, "No, pie are round, cornbread are square!" Apparently his mom always used her square iron for cornbread.
Remember.... anytime you make cornbread for dressing, etc. be sure to leave enough that you can crumple it up in a tall glass and then fill the glass with sweet milk, all you need to add is a spoon and/Or you don't have to have shortbread or angels food cake to pour those strawberrys on, corn bread will work just as good.
Anne Williams
Attorney Editor
M. Lee Smith Publishers, LLC
Is it the inner or outer bottom and sides that are gunked up? If the inner surfaces are smooth and the outer surfaces are crusty, don't sweat it. You have skillets just like my mother's, and they haven't killed anybody (yet). My mother used to be rather famous for small kitchen fires through no fault of the cast iron skillets themselves. She would start yakking on the phone and forget that she was heating up grease in the skillet to fry potatoes (or squash or okra or chicken or round steak...but usually potatoes). The upside was that our kitchen got repainted regularly. The other source of our kitchen fires was overflowing ashtrays with a few smoldering butts discarded into the trash during a bridge game. As I write this, I realize I'm lucky to have survived childhood.
Anne Williams
Attorney Editor
M. Lee Smith Publishers, LLC
Anne Williams
Attorney Editor
M. Lee Smith Publishers, LLC
Cabellas (spelling?) in Kansas City also has a big selection of cast iron cookware. Last time I was there I saw an iron frying pan that had to be three feet across.
Happy Eating.....
Mine was handed down from my Great Grandmother....I wouldn't trade it for anything!
Cheryl