Anyone cook with Cast iron ?

Cast iron is great, and very very useful.
It's basically the opposite of why you buy a copper pan: the copper pan heats and cools quickly, so if you use a gas burner and need something JUST RIGHT it won't keep sending heat into the food once you shut off the gas. Cast iron on the other hand heats up relatively slowly, but keeps that heat evenly all through the pan.

It's awesome for woks, which are great versatile pans even for camping, skillets, ovens, you name it. One of the best features is that even if you want to bake something, the iron transfers the heat so well to the rest of the pan that you only really need one direction of heat; from the bottom on the stove, or from the sides with charcoal in a pit.

Like a couple people have said, cook non-goopy fatty stuff like steaks and bacon for the first dozen times you cook in the pan. A lot of people like bacon fat to break in their pan. If someone in your family is a hardcore vegetarian, just use corn or canola oil padded all over the pan with a paper towel. You can speed things up by coating the whole pan lightly in oil and throwing it in the oven three times; first at 375 and cool, repat oil, then 425 and cool, repat oil, and then 450 or 475 and cool. It will smoke at the hot temperature, but you're not hurting the pan. Once it's cool, slather it in oil again and put it away.

You can use soap, but make sure you don't use too much or for long; just enough to cut the grease from cooking, and then wash it off. Never use a scrubber if you can help it, or you'll have to reseason. If you have to reaseason, big deal, just fry some bacon a couple times.

Lodge is great, but they aren't enameled. If you want to cook your food and put it in the fridge in the pan, even a seasoned pan will rust and flavor the food; you'll also have to scrape the rust off. Enamel pans let you cook whatever you want without rusting or flavoring the food. For example let's say you cook up a nice tomato sauce and are too lazy to put it in tupperware.

There's a couple brands from france that are just as good as le creuset, but much cheaper, I can't think of their names. Also Lodge makes a couple lines of enamel that's made in Switzerland or something.

After washing, pat the pans down and dry them upside down.
 
Cast Iron is all we use anymore, in the kitchen and in the field. One of My Christmas gift's to my wife last year was a couple of new cast iron skillets, a bacon press, and 2 big dutch ovens. Best cornbread EVER!!!
 
About fifteen years ago, an old hard-core backpacking codger named Don led a group of us down the Sespe Gorge. The actual gorge is fairly rough and trailess so we were all travelling very light. Don's pack was so empty is was sagging and felt well under 20 lbs. He had an extremely light pad, down bag, and Gore-tex bivy sack plus a few items of very light clothing. Very little food and a very light rod & reel.

We stopped for the night and caught some wild trout. I nearly fell over laughing when Don reached into that pack and pulled out about an 8-10 inch CAST IRON skillet! He said that only an infidel would fry wild trout in anything other than cast iron! I thought about giving him a hard time about it but with his overall pack weight so low, it would have been really hard to give him any serious grief about the skillet.

Don's unfortunately gone now. Although I've never followed his example (no matter how light I was packed) I will always remember that great story. I have cast iron I've used for car camping, canoeing, and rafting (especially the Lodge Dutch oven) but I doubt I'll ever haul any of it on my back.

DancesWithKnives
 
We've begun using cast iron again in the kitchen.

The great thing for the outdoors is that it packs so light. :p :p
 
I don't even know why they started making cookware out of other materials. Cast iron is my favorite, and I won't use any other kind of pan/skillet. Cast iron just cooks so much better and easier, and I never have a problem with sticking like I do with even "non-stick" pans.
 
Same vote here for Lodge brand. The best place I've seen (so far) to get Lodge stuff is 3Vets in Vancouver (Cambie and Broadway-ish). Dunno how it compares to where you'd get it in Vic, but it might be worth the trip. They also have the most machete styles I've seen in one store. A trip there always becomes expensive for me...that whole neighbourhood really: Taiga, AJ Brooks, MEC, etc

Check out thrift stores too - I got one that was well seasoned for about 5 bucks and a Creuset 2L pot for about 10. Le Crueset is a French brand of enameled cast iron that makes great pots and dutch ovens. Pricey to buy new but still worth it IMO. 10" cast iron skillet is a must-have with the fishing gear...

theonew: how do you like the cast iron wok ? I'm thinking about a small one for the 'camping box',
 
Gotta season it EXTREMELY well. I'm a lard guy, but Crisco is a good second choice. As far as camping, if you're going to bring one piece of Iron, make it a dutch oven, especially if you're on a hunting/camping trip! You can use it as a frypan, skillet, pot, kettle or oven.

My dad was on a deer/feral pig hunting trip in Georgia and one of the guys took a small doe. Dad cut out the ribs, put them in the dutch oven with some sliced onion and a bottle of BBQ sauce and buried it in the coals from the morning fire before they headed out for the day's hunt. (All the other guys were laughing at him) When they came back that evening, he pulled the oven out of the dead coals and they had one heck of a feast! The next morning, one of the guys called out as they were headed towards the stands, "If it's got ribs, shoot it!".

J-
 
Cast Iron? Wouldn't use any other type of frying pan.It browns meat far better than anything else,it is almost certainly much less harmful for you than teflon type products which I suspect could be dangerous when they scratch off.
It lasts a lifetime and beyond and gets better the more you use it.
I have a Swedish frying pan in town that's at least a dozen years old and like new.Out in the country I've got one that was made just after the 2nd World War. But it all weighs a ton so I wouldn't fancy hiking with this stuff!!
 
I own mostly Cast Iron cookware and love it. In college I would camp at least once a month sometimes twice and needed cooking equipment that could handle going on trips and some abuse. My brother got me a nice set of Wenzel cast iron cookware which I love then I bought some lodge and CampChef later on. All of it works great!

Everyone here likes my Dutch Oven cobblers and some of them ask if my recipies will work in normal glass cookware. I tell them "I think so, but have not tried it". Speaking of which, I have all the fixings for a Pear Cobbler, think I'll whip it up tonight in my little 10" CampChef dutch Oven.

Heber
 
I love cast iron and use it almost every time I cook. I have a dozen or so pieces and use them for everything and often cook with them on my grill or use then as hot plates. I have a couple Lodge and they are good and made in the US. I also have some antique Griswolds which have amazingly smooth surfaces not found in current production.

It is my favorite cookware.
 
A few years ago, my Mother-In-Law asked what I would like for my birthday. I said only one thing, "Teach me how to do fried chicken the way you cook it". She did and you don't do fried chicken unless it is in an iron skillet...or that is what I was told.
She is a little frail now and can't handle the weight of an iron skillet now....so if we do fried chicken, it isn't as good as hers but I get to cook it. She does still like to "keep an eye on me" when I use the drippings to make gravy in the same skillet, but it is also best in iron.......
We have some iron skillets that are now 3rd generation and a couple 2nd generation....
They have as many good memories in them as they are good to cook with!
 
Horn Dog said:
Darn. I should have taken a picture. I got my dear departed Mom's old cast iron skillets. Black, heavy, and well seasoned. I made the prettiest cornbread you ever saw on Monday, to go with my ham and beans. Nice pretty brown crust as only cast iron can do. Once you get 'em seasoned, those cast iron skillets will make you into a better cook. :D
Click to expand...


FYI--cooking cornbread in a cast iron skillet is a great way to season or renew the seasoning on it.

For example, after my children get a hold of the thing and wash it with soap and everything is sticking to it....I just coat it with crisco and put it in the oven at 400 or so degrees while I mix up the bread. After 30 mins or so, I take it out slosh the shortening around and pour in the cornbread.

After you clean up the cornbread, the skillet is in EXCELLENT shape and will work until my children clean it up again!
 
I have several cast iron skillets. One of my skillets belonged to my Grandmother; God only knows how old that thing is. I also got a cornbread pan from her. It's cast iron and makes conrbread in the shape of ears of corn. Never used that one but I might have to dig it out tonight and give it a shot.

I recently bought a Dutch oven for camping. But rather than cast iron, I bought anodized cast aluminium. No seasoning required, easy clean up (not as easy as cast iron) and I like the way it cooks. Plus, it's about a third of the weight which is bonus points as far as I'm concerned.
 
Cast Iron is the best cookware when quality of food is primary.
Others have expounded upon the heat distribution properties, but another big plus is the taste. A well-seasoned and never washed (only cleaned with hot water and a PLASTIC brush) doesn't just trap the seasoning oils, but traps a little bit of the oils secreted from everything you cook. That's where the great taste from seasoned iron comes from, it has a little of everything you've ever cooked in it.

I have Lodge stuff exclusively. It's a little more expensive, but worth it. If you take care of your iron, you only buy it once. I'm of the personal opinion that animal fats taste better, so I season, and recoat mine with lard. To wash, I let it cool a bit, and use very hot water and a plastic scrubber brush. Then I put it back ont he stove to completely dry it (and reopen the pores) and while still warm, I coat it with some lard and hang it off the board ont he wall. Kind of reinforces the seasoning each time I use it.

I love fried chicken out of it. Cornbread is wonderful, I coat the pan in bacon grease when I make cornbread. Another good thing in a WELL SEASONED (because of the acids) is to cook chili in a dutch oven. Except you leave the top inch and a half or soof the oven unoccupied. When the chili is almost done, pour your cornbread batter right on top, and replace the top of the oven with its coals (or back in the oven in the kitchen). When it's done, you have nice cornbread with a crispy crust on top to go with your chili.
 
Lodge is a nice brand. At the gunstore here, somebody roughhoused with a 3 legged dutch oven, and one of the legs punched right through the bottom of the (chinese made) pot.

So watch out for bad quality ones?
 
Cast iron's great.

One problem I've had, which I'll warn you about: it's possible to crack it with uneven heating. Did this once to a griddle, large size, which I was heating on a small electric stove burner. Oops.

For what it's worth, Harbor Freight Tools sells this stuff, inexpensively:

http://www.harborfreight.com/cpi/ctaf/displayitem.taf?Itemnumber=44707

or, if you've got a big family or large group of friends, and you don't want to have to cook everybody's meal in shifts:

http://www.harborfreight.com/cpi/ctaf/displayitem.taf?Itemnumber=44708


Quality of these Harbor Freight ones is not tip-top, but I find it works. You may want to round off any sharp (and therefore more-easily-chipped) edges with a bench grinder and/or Dremel-like tool before seasoning.
 
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