[Sca-cooks] CAST IRON SKILLET

[Phil Troy/ G. Tacitus Adamantius]

Also sprach Phlip:
>Ene bichizh ogsen baina shuu...

>Ordinarily, whatever you cook will use oil- it's basicly for fried foods.

While this is true, I think we may need to define "fried", or at
least maybe add sauteed, pan-broiled, baked etc. I often use my
largest cast-iron skillet for pizza, since I don't have one of those
silly oven stone thingies, and it does a truly excellent job for that.

>  If
>it does get dirty, you can use a scrubble or whatever to remove the crusted
>on stuff, and a bit of clean water to rinse it off, but put it on your stove
>to heat dry, then oil it again and put it away. You don't want a lot of oil
>on it- you don't want to attract diret and dust- just enough added while
>it's still hot to give it a sheen- as it cools, the oil will withdraw into
>the pores.

Again, true. Think of it like an oil-soaked sponge; there may not be
a lot on the surface, but when properly seasoned, it's in there.
Another aspect of that porosity (porousness?) is that some of that
oil undergoes a chemical change with repeated heating and usage, and
what you end up with is those pores being filled, to some extent,
with a plasticky substance (note that most plastics are made from
petroleum) which is essentially non-stick.

I, being a Y-chromosome-bearing life form, give most cast iron pans a
brief soak in plain water, maybe a couple of hours at most, to
dislodge any crud, and then scrub with a soft scrungy-pad or my
wok-brush (which tool I highly recommend for most pans, BTW). Or,
since I have a nice wok-brush, I borrow the technique of the cooks in
Chinese restaurants and wash the pan with the brush under running hot
water immediately, while still hot, so the pan can get back into
action in 15 seconds or so. I'm able to do an entire meal of several
dishes that way, all using the same pan.

Another hint involves the cooking of meats, say, a steak, for
example. James Beard used to recommend (and I've found that it works
pretty well) a thin dusting of Kosher or other coarse salt in a dry
pan for pan-broiling steaks. Basically it keeps the meat from
sticking long enough for the fat of the meat itself to begin to flow
and lubricate the pan (as well as seasoning the meat at the same
time).

I'd be interested in how Phillipa's Kosher kitchen and eating habits
(at least I _think_ that's the situation) are affected by cast iron
cookware, what with the tendency of the pans to absorb fats. I'm
assuming that you'd have to have a meat pan and a dairy pan, one
impregnated with meat fats and one with butter and oil, both of which
should work just fine, and this is probably no different from a
similar situation with other cookware. Have I overlooked anything
major?

Adamantius