You take away their little brooms
I like to cook, but I've always struggled with this. That was until I found out it was because I was doing it all wrong.
TLDR; Use a real pan (Cast Iron is usually best), get it real hot first, add oil if needed, don't touch it. In other words: You can cook perfect, easy over, eggs in a cast iron without ever having anything stick.
Why food sticks (and why you don't need non-stick) Metal is porous (it has tiny holes/dimples in the surface). Food sticks when parts of your food get inside those pores, effectively welding it in place in the pan. Non-stick coatings are a cheap (usually terrible, can be bad for you in extreme scenarios, and easily damaged) way to fill these pores and make your skillet surface as smooth as possible.
Now all metal is different, and cast iron has much larger pores than metals such as stainless steel. You'd think that would make it worse, but when you heat metal up it expands. As the pan heats up the pores open wider, allowing oil to fill them, stopping them from grabbing on to your food. So an up-to-temperature cast iron skillet is significantly less "sticky" than cold. Even so, cast iron still doesn't get "smooth enough" on its own. That's why it's so important for cast iron skillets to be seasoned. The "seasoning" is really just you filling in those pores to create the smooth surface we need.
What's the point of oil? Even with heat, and seasoning, your pan still won't be perfectly smooth. We use oil to act as a physical barrier between your food and the pan. This helps stop the food from getting a foothold on the pan. Any physical barrier will do this, but oil is the best when you consider all other factors as well.
Heat comes first This is the first, and biggest, mistake most people make. It's the mistake I made every single time I tried to sear something. If you put oil in a cold pan, then start heating it up, your oil will start smoking away before the pan reaches the searing temperature you need. If you put in oil first you will always have a sub-par sear. Simple as that.
Hot hot hot The goal in searing is to give your food a crust. A beautiful, crispy, flavorful, outside. Brown food tastes good. To get the maillard reaction happening, and to not seriously overcook your food, you need that pan hot. In some cases as hot as it can literally get (such as searing a steak). In most cases I'm using a medium-high setting on my burner.
Note: Never heat cast iron (or any empty pan) over max temp. You will
... keep reading on reddit ➡
Throw away in case anyone in my family finds this.
CONTEXT: I (20f) have had diagnosed severe OCD for half my life. Because of this, I have to have a couple of my own separate plates and cutlery and I don’t like people using my stuff.
I was given a really beautiful frying pan a few years ago, the first proper houseware item I’ve ever owned, and I use it every other day. I am extremely careful with it, wash it straight after using, and it’s stayed in near perfect condition until tonight.
I walked into the kitchen and saw my dad using my pan. I immediately got upset and asked why he was using it without asking me first. He told me to fuck off, and said since I was living under his roof he didn’t have to ask permission. I then got more upset and argued with him. He snapped at me and said I could take my pan and leave home. I went to clean my pan after dinner and he has scratched it.
My sisters both stood up for me and my mum is remaining neutral. So, AITA for arguing with my dad after he used my pan?
Looking to buy a new cooking pan and pot for the kitchen. Only requirements I'm looking for is that it is PFOA/PTFE free and safe to use metal utensils on.
It has infinite durability. Cost no stamina to use. I'm 75% sure it stuns. It go bonk. Need I say more?
I got a tip on a loading screen recently, it was the one saying how as a soldier, you should not use the frying pan if you're trying to be stealthy because of how loud it is. I've seen this tip in the past, but only now did I think of how weird it is.
Why is it mentioning the soldier specifically? Was the frying pan originally only for the soldier or something? I'm somewhat sure that each tip is for a specific class, and all of them start with "As demo/soldier/scout/whatev..." so that's probably the reason why, just for consistency. But do you think there is a more rational reason for that?
Any engineering or physics majors find this unlikely?
Off we go, into the fire.
About a month ago I was at an LGBTQ event. (I followed all masking etc rules in place.) It was the first one I had ever been to and I was feeling awkward/nervous.
We were in small discussion groups (it was a casual kind of thing), and at one point briefly discussed the difference between being bi and pan. This one guy “Jake” said he thought the difference came down to which colors you preferred, and the other people in the group, including Jake’s friend “Emily,” laughed a lot.
I had said that I was still trying to figure out whether I was technically bisexual or pansexual, and joked lightheartedly that if I said I was pansexual some people might be confused about whether I was into frying pans. (I thought I’d heard another queer person online make a joke like this before and I wanted to make the others laugh too like Jake did.)
Well, Emily (bi) got after me basically and said the joke was homophobic. I immediately apologized and felt terrible, but was I TA for making that specific joke in the first place?
My meat, eggs, pancakes (you name it) slide off that puppy without thinking twice.
I should have done this years ago when I first saw the Teflon/DuPont documentary "The Devil We Know" from 2018 (turned into a movie in 2020, Dark Waters).
--
Some elaboration:
A sheet steel frying pan is PFOA (Perfluorooctanoic acid), PFOS (Perfluorooctanoic Acid) and PFTE-free (polytetrafluoretheen or a plastic coating aka Teflon), recyclable and sustainable. Just need to properly burn it in before using.
-
To keep the pan in good condition, burn it with vegetable oil before using it for the first time. Do it multiple times!
-
Keep the pan greased even after use to prevent rust.
-
During use, the natural non-stick coating of the frying pan will blacken and work better.
-
Clean with only hot water without using detergent and dry the pan well after cleaning.
Note:
PFOA and PFOS are extremely persistent in the environment and resistant to typical environmental degradation processes. [They] are widely distributed across the higher trophic levels and are found in soil, air and groundwater at sites across the United States. The toxicity, mobility and bioaccumulation potential of PFOS and PFOA pose potential adverse effects for the environment and human health.
Main ingredient(s?) in production of Teflon.
PFTE (known as Teflon) has been very controversial for years. Check out the documentary about the DuPont scandal in Parkerburg, West Virginia.
The new coating chemical GenX is just as bad.
I just realised that a major part of my struggles with Christianity was that I was trained to believe that men were superior to women, and men's sins are caused by women. Over and over again, I was told that I needed to submit to my husband and show him respect. This is while he was going around cheating on me, contracting STDs, lying about his behaviour, screaming at and threatening our child etc.
Every single time I discovered something new about his behaviour, all he would do is give an excuse about how me or our child provoked him to behave the way in which he did. This went on for over a decade. The church leaders would meet with us, so would christian counsellors and all my family. They would pray with him and give him 'words of encouragement', then they would tell me off for being rude to him, for speaking up, or for complaining. Over and over again, I was told to be more prayerful and to be more forgiving. No matter how bad things got, they just continued to tell me that marriage is a lifelong covenant and there was no way out of it.
I've now realised that I don't know a world outside of christianity - this has been my world for 37 years. For all of my life, I've only ever seen relationships with Christians and majority of these relationships were either abusive, controlling, manipulative or just inauthentic and fake. Throughout my marriage, the only people that stood up for me/looked out for me, were my non-Christian friends. All of my christian friends would only offer to pray for me or they'd act like they couldn't hear me, and change the subject.
Maybe I've just been brainwashed to believe that the only good, trusting and authentic relationships you can find is relationships in church - Not that I've experienced many.
I was always given the picture that the church is the safest place but now I'm wondering if the rest of the world is really worse than the church? Or is the church just a representation of the madness that's already in the world? I know it sounds like a stupid question but what I'm trying to figure out is - Is the whole world is like this?
I'm finally getting divorced, and leaving the faith and the brainwashing that got me into this mess. I'm ready to say goodbye to my family - I'm not going to miss any of them and I'm ready to create a new life with my son, but now I'm worried that - Am I jumping out of the frying pan and into the fire?
Is it really worse out there or is this a scare tactic that churches use? I feel so los
... keep reading on reddit ➡I've looked across the internet and this subreddit but can't seem to find an exact answer. Everybody just says cast iron. We already have a cast iron that's great for meat, but I'm looking specifically for a deepish pan that I can cook things like curry, bolognese in etc. So I can fry the meat in there, spices and sauces (chopped tomatoes etc which you're not meant to put in to cast iron pans). I was thinking ceramic but then I've heard stainless steel are good too? It's all a bit confusing.
I also use a mini pan for frying eggs most days. Is a small cast iron good for eggs? I currently have a Tefal one but the non stick has gone already and I've recently learnt about their toxic coating so I'm keen to move away from any toxic coatings in any pans.
...take away its tiny little brooms.
