tools for. This is, of course, just a more complicated way of saying, “Don’t be stupid.” And that’s good advice for all walks of life, whether or not they involve homogenized emulsions of butterfat, water, phospholipids, and milk proteins
All of this is just a roundabout way of saying that the physical hardware you stock your kitchen with is just as important as the ingredients you choose or the techniques you use when you cook. Good equipment is the third side of the Triforce of cooking: good ingredients + good equipment + good technique = good food.
Here are some common metals, along with their properties:
Stainless steel is very easy to maintain—as its name implies, it won’t rust or pit, no matter how much you mistreat it. But it also is an extremely poor heat conductor.
What this means is that heat will not travel rapidly through it. Stainless steel pans tend to develop distinct hot and cold spots that match the heat pattern of your burners. This can lead to uneven cooking, resulting in, for example, an omelet that’s burned in some spots and still raw in others.
How do you gauge the heat distribution performance of a pan? The easiest way is to spread a thin layer of sugar evenly over the bottom, then heat it over a burner. The pattern in which the sugar melts will indicate the pan’s hot and cold spots. A great pan will melt sugar very evenly.
Aluminum is a far better conductor of heat—one of the best, in fact. It’s also a very inexpensive material. Why aren’t all pans made of aluminum, you might ask? Well, there are two problems. It’s not very dense, which means that despite its high-heat capacity, you’d need a pan that’s a ridiculously unwieldy thickness for it to retain a reasonable amount of heat. Furthermore, it discolors and pits if exposed to acidic ingredients: wine, lemon juice, tomatoes, etc.
Anodized aluminum has been treated to give it a ceramic-like finish that is reasonably nonstick, as well as resistant to acid. This is the ideal metal for cooking foods that don’t require an extraordinarily high level of heat. You wouldn’t want to sear a steak in an anodized aluminum pan, but nothing is better for cooking an omelet.
Copper is even more conductive than aluminum. It’s also
quite dense, with a great heat capacity. But copper pans are very expensive. I’d love to have a great set of copper pots.
I’d also love to have a lifetime supply of Stilton and a yacht with an onboard petting zoo. It ain’t gonna happen. If you can afford a set of copper pots, you are a much richer person than I. For the rest of us, let’s move on.
Laminated, or tri-ply, pans offer the best of both worlds.
Generally, they are constructed with a layer of aluminum sandwiched between two layers of stainless steel. They have the high density of a stainless steel pan, with the great conductivity of aluminum, making them the pan of choice for most home cooks (including me!).
Time was that nonstick pans were pretty tough to recommend. Coatings that flake off or give off noxious fumes when heated too much are not something you want to be cooking with. These days, nonstick coatings are more durable and far safer. You’ll want to own at least one good nonstick pan for egg cookery.
The subject of cast-iron cookware is so divisive that I feel the need to go into a little bit more detail about it. Being a proud owner of both a puppy named Hambone and some really nice cast-iron cookware, I’ve found that they are remarkably similar in many respects. They both require a little work, a little patience, and a whole lot of loyalty. The main difference is that in return for my investment, my cast-iron pans give me golden brown fried chicken, sizzling bacon, corn bread, apple pies, well-charred hash, perfectly seared steaks, bubbly pizzas, and crisp dumplings.
Hambone, on the other hand, gives me mostly licks, chews, and a whole lot of poop. You do the math.
As far as retaining heat goes, nothing beats a good cast-iron pan. Its specific heat capacity is lower than of aluminum, but because it is so dense, for the same thickness of pan, you get about twice the heat retention capability.
This is important: the pan doesn’t cool down when you add food to it. While the temperature in a thin aluminum pan may drop by as much as 300 degrees when you add a half-pound rib-eye steak to it, a cast-iron pan will stay close to its original temperature, delivering a thicker, crisper, more evenly browned crust. Similarly, you can get away with using a little less oil when frying chicken, since the heat retained by the cast iron will rapidly reheat the oil when the chicken you add cools it down.
The fact that cast iron is oven-safe means that you can braise and bake in it just as well as you can fry or sear. Corn bread comes out with a beautiful golden brown crust, and pies, even with moist fillings, come out wonderfully crisp on the bottom. Its heat retention abilities mean that even when your oven’s temperature fluctuates (as most thermostat-driven ovens do), the pan’s heat will stay fairly constant.
And talk about durability! Cast-iron cookware is one of the few items in your kitchen that actually gets better as it gets older. Some of the very best pans have been passed down through multiple generations, their well-used surfaces worn as smooth and nonstick as a Teflon-coated pan—
without the toxic chemicals. And because cast-iron pans are cast from a mold as a single piece of metal, there are no welded joints or even rivets to wear out.
There are, of course, a few downsides to cast iron:
• Until a good layer of seasoning has built up, food will stick to it. This goes for even the “preseasoned” skillets on the market now, which have a mediocre level of seasoning at best. With everyday use, a cast-iron skillet will be perfectly seasoned (I define this as nonstick enough to cook eggs in) within a few weeks. With less frequent use, you can expect the process to take a couple of months. It’s a long haul, but think of how proud you’ll be (just like housebreaking a puppy) when that first egg slides magically off the bottom.
• It heats unevenly. Contrary to popular belief, iron is a poor conductor of heat, which means that the heat doesn’t travel far from its source. Trying to use a 12-inch cast-iron skillet on a 3-inch burner ring is an exercise in futility: the edges of the pan will never get hot. To heat a cast-iron pan effectively, you need a burner equal in size to the pan, and plenty of time for even heat distribution. Alternatively, a cast-iron pan can be preheated in a hot oven before transferring it to the stove. (Don’t forget to use a kitchen towel or pot holder!)
• It can rust. While a good layer of seasoning will prevent this, carelessness (like scrubbing the pan or not allowing it to dry thoroughly before storing it) can lead to rust spots.
• You can’t cook overly acidic foods in it . Acidic foods will pick up flavor and color from the iron, turning them dingy and metallic-tasting. This means that until a very good layer of seasoning has developed, even quick wine-based pan sauces are out of the question, as are acidic recipes like tomato sauce.
• It’s heavy . There’s no getting around this one. The
density of the material is what makes cast iron so good at retaining a large amount of heat energy in a small amount of volume. Innovations like helper handles help, but smaller cooks will probably struggle with tasks like flipping food or pouring a sauce from a cast-iron pan.
• It requires special cleaning . Because the cooking qualities of cast-iron cookware are dependent on how well seasoned it is, care must be taken while cleaning to prevent accidentally removing the layer of seasoning, or you’re gonna have to start from scratch.
All that said, there’s really not much to it when it comes to seasoning, maintaining, and storing your cast-iron cookware.