I am so glad a friend of mine gave me a pressure cooker pot to use on 
the stove.  It is so quick and easy when you want to make mashed 
potatoes or cook a variety of meats.  As far as meat, I often buy 
small whole chicken fryers (you can remove the skin to reduce fat), or 
any cut of meat that will fit in it.

It's not the latest kitchen gizmo that will cut the fat (and man, I 
would love to have a RonCo Showtime Rotisserie someday), and so you 
have to hand cut the fat out, broil it, or any other traditional 
method, but it's very handy and very useful.

So, first, commentary on pressure cookers?

55 responses total.

We use two of them to cook most meals - one for beans, one for grains or
potatoes.  Bring to pressure (15 pounds) and turn off and wait.

Iron.  Cast iron.  I've recently read part of a book propounding its
virtues, purchased a couple small pieces, and looked around a bit on
the web.  One thing's clear - there's no agreement on how to season or
clean cast iron.  Or whether (WHEN well-seasoned) acidic foods can be
cooked in it.  "Don't store food in it" does seem agreed upon.  What
sorts of experience & wisdom with cast iron do folks around here have?
Is it worth the bother compared to stainless steel clad, non-stick and
other modern pan technologies?

Properly seasoning cast iron seems to require cooking a whole lot of greasy
meat on a regular basis.  :(  I mostly use my cast iron skillet for camping,
when that's the sort of food I'm cooking often.

Cast iron works well for cooking eggs, and also for pancakes made from
chickpea flour, and probably other things that would stick to stainless steel.
Nothing seems to stick to the blackened iron.  I don't wash the pans unless
I have used liquid in them.  I never cooked meat in them.  We take the
lightest possible pans camping (on our bikes).

We recently acquired an electric teflon-coated pressure cooker.

If you don't cook greasy food in them keeping them seasoned is just a matter
of wiping them occasionally with an oily papertowel when they are good and
hot.  Don't use soap on them, once they are properly seasoned rinsing with
HOT water is all that should be needed, with maybe a touch of a wet papertowel
for anything that doesn't come loose.

Right now, the only thing I cook in cast iron is cornbread.  I used to cook
eggs in cast iron skillets, but that was when I was growing up.  I think I'll
try the skillet for eggs again, though; no amount of olive oil keeps them from
sticking to the stainless steel skillet.

Cast iron holds heat, and thus I find myself using much lower heating levels,
and turning off the heat slightly before the food is done.  

I use it for tomato-based foods but expect the food to darken a bit, and the
seasoning to be eaten away.  It is wonderful for stir-fries, baking cornbread,
pineapplle upsidedown cake, and baked beans.

I have a single-use pan for omlets, and an array of frying pans, griddles,
and dutch ovens.  Even a 1 qt size pot that works well for a single person.

BTW, when I purchase a  new pan, I take it to the local welding shop and have
the inside bottom machined smooth.  The ridges and casting marks, I've found,
make it hard to clean and keep seasoned.  Otherwise, you have to accumulated
old food and rancid grease until it fills in the ridges and smooths out the
spots that "catch" food.  Too many burn spots, and too much time spent
pampering a "tool".

My cast iron pans are more than 50 years old. I like them because they 
are easy and pretty much indestructable. I dont fry a lot of foods so I 
dont use them a lot. Sometimes I do what glenda mentions in resp:5 
where I take a paper towel with oil and wipe the pans when they are 
hot. They are reasonably seasoned so are pretty much non-stick. 

Honestly, Lester House has a cast-iron skillet that's been in the kitchen
taking abuse for years, and it doesn't seem to be any worse for wear. 
Anything nasty that was going to happen to it has already happened, and the
skillet seems to have dealt with it and moved on.  It's almost like the old
crud forms a shield that keeps the new crud from sticking.

I'm intrigued with Colleen's practice of having a new cast iron piece machined
for smoothness.  Where, and how much, and how the heck did you come up with
that idea in the first place?

Digging around extensively on the web, i found only one site suggesting
such smoothing.  At least one other specifically disapproved of it.  From
whether to wash with soap/detergent to seasoning with animal/veggie fat
to seasoning temp to vinegar treatment before seasoning, sites just did
not agree on things.

(Indeed, I was surprised to have someone say not to wash the things, &
more so to have so much agreement.  I grew up washing a cast-iron skillet
as part of my regular kitchen chores.  You'd really rather not let it
soak, & you want it to dry quickly afterward - either wipe dry or heat
briefly on the stove.)

My grandfather was a blacksmith, and my inherited cast iron skillets from his
kitchen are all smooth on the bottom.  Early purchases of cast iron skillets
were also of the smooth interior version.  So when the trendy cast iron
company quit doing that, and gave me grooved or bumpy bottoms, I look around
for the modern version of a blacksmith.

I think I paid five bucks, but it was a goodwill offering.  I suspect if I'd
let him set the price it would have been a couple bucks.  

I also grew up washing the skillet.  Very briefly, but with soapy water, and
a scrub pad for burnt/stuck spots.  Then extremely hot rinse, and a wipe with
the towel.  If the seasoning had been worn through either from the acid foods,
or from steel wool on burnt spots, we wiped it with a greasy paper and heated
it a few minutes.  

These family skillets came west on covered wagons in the 1890s, so I just
followed family practice.  

I *knew* I wouldnt win the "oldest cast iron skillet" contest ;)
Those things last forever!

   When I get brand-new cast iron, the first thing I do is wash it with
soap to get off any waxy coatings the manufacturer may have left on.
When it is thoroughly dry, I coat it inside and out with shortening
(Crisco or similar) and stick it in a 450-degree oven for an hour. 
Then I turn the oven off and let the oven and cast iron return to room
temperature together, with the door closed (4-6 hours, usually).  Then
I spend about six months cooking nice greasy or grease-requiring stuff
in it, like burgers and bacon and pancakes and fried potatoes and such.
After the initial washing, soap never touches my cast iron again.  I
keep a soap-free yellow plastic non-abrasive Brillo pad (these things
used to be called Dobie pads) specifically for cleaning cast iron. 
The cast iron gets scrubbed with the Dobie and hot water, then is
immediately put on a hot stove burner for a few minutes to dry.  After
a minimum of six months' seasoning, I have cooked acidic things like
spaghetti sauce in cast iron, but the acidic stuff never sits in the
pot longer than the duration of cooking and meal-eating time, and the
cast iron is always washed right afterward.

My cast iron pan does not need to be scrubbed, just rinsed - why do you scrub
yours?

   'Cause sometimes stuff sticks to it and won't come off with plain
rinsing.  The only time it needs hard scrubbing instead of
encouragement is when I manage to burn something.

Does it help to just let it soak with water in it for a hour before rinsing?

   I don't soak cast iron.  What's so wrong with scrubbing the stuff?

*shudders at soaking cast iron in anything but grease*

Amazing how many people here use cast iron.  I have a few nasal 
aversions and cast iron is a big one.  The smell makes me instantly 
ill.  Anyway, we like to buy nice nonstick pots and pans, treat them as 
well as cooking utensils deserve, and throw them away after a few 
years.  (No wonder Al Qaeda hate us.)  I do have a nostalgic affection 
for enameled stuff, but so far I've kept it in check.  Maybe when I 
retire and have more time for such things.

Colanders: I got a gorgeous stainless steel colander for Christmas last 
year.  It's one of those items you *have* to use for company because it 
actually makes food seem to taste better if people see you using it.  
Otherwise, I like my Williams Sonoma pot with the colander and steamer 
inserts, or our ancient plastic colander with the long handle.  I'll 
sometimes use this black half-moon shaped thingie to drain a pot when 
I'm going to be leaving [whatever] in the pot.

I'm trying to figure out the cast iron thing.  Why would you want to 
leave grease on a pan?  How do you store them?  Don't you worry about 
bugs and mice getting on/in them?

I grew up scrubbing cast iron pans just like anything else.  I now have 
one cast iron frying pan, which I like just fine, but I have trouble 
visualizing storing it covered with grease.  I am domestically 
challenged but willing to learn.

There is not enough oil left on the surface to attract bugs - just a very thin
film.  For some reason it does not seem to get rancid like old oil usually
does.  Perhaps the iron protects it somehow?  Rane probably knows.  I have
never smelled my cast iron pan.  Or had anything stick to it that needed to
be scrubbed off.  I only rinse if it I cook something wet in it (tomatoes)
and it dries without rusting.

All right, but how come you want to leave any grease on a pan you use 
for cooking?  Do any germs just get burned off the next time you use it?

You put the oil on a hot pan, which allows it to sort of weld to the pan which
gives it the nice non-stick surface and prevents rust.  Once the pan is
seasoned properly it really shouldn't need more than a rinse with hot water
and frying the occasional thing to keep it seasoned and clean.

I looked around on the web a bit before upgrading my cast iron collection
recently.  Beyond "don't treat the finish too rough" and "stripping and
re-seasoning will cure virtually anything you can do to it" there are NO
universally agreed-upon rules.  Some cure with veggie oil, some insist on
animal fat.  Times & temps are all over.  Some won't clean it with more
than a finger & warm water, others scrub with dish soap.  Some put on a
touch of oil & heat to re-cure a bit after *every* use, some do it once a
year, some only if needed.  Some won't let water or acidic foods near it,
some cook down tomato sauce in it.

A very thin layer of reasonably pure oil/fat is fairly unattractive to
microorganisms (which is why they keep well in cupboards); it also helps
discourage foods from sticking.

I abuse my cast iron regularly, but don't seem to have problems.  YMMV.

Tomato sauce cooked in cast iron pans is what they put on their pasta 
in hell.

Cast iron pans are a good source of dietary iron.  

And I'm sure that very few of the unhappy diners in Michael Deliza's personal
hell are anemic.  

Caitlin's mom makes chili in a cast-iron pan.  She insists that it tastes
wrong cooked in any other sort of pan.  Not only that, she swears that
cooking it in a larger or smaller cast-iron pan makes it come out wrong.
Her explanation has something to do with the surface area of chili
touching the iron pan compared to the total volume of chili.  I think
that's going overboard, but I do like the chili.

("Chili" is one of those words that looks stranger and stranger the more
times you write it.)

I've been looking for quite some time now for a wok to replace
the cheap one we gots about 10 years ago, which we've worn out.
But buying any pan for a ceramic cooktop is tricky.  They must
have very flat bottoms that are no smaller than the diameter
of the heating element.  This is the only thing I don't like
about my cooktop, so I just deal with it.

So, back to the wok.  Today I went to Williams-Sonoma and
looked at what they had.  Again, two of the three they carry
wouldn't have worked.  But they had this iron one that's very
heavy, the bottom is a perfect (flat) fit, and the say it's
not a high-maintenance finish.  There is something not quite
non-stick that seals the iron but can take getting extremely
hot.  There weren't any instructions as to the care and
feeding of the surface so I'll see how it goes.

Tonight is Pad Thai.  Cross your fingers.  At least
Sonoma will take it back if I don't like it.  A hassle
but nice, nonetheless.

!!!!!!!!

My understanding is that cast iron & smoothtop ranges mix about as well
as sodium & water - without superhuman care and attentiveness, you WILL
damage the range surface with the very hard & heavy iron.

It worked well last night, getting very hot and staying hot even when lots
of veggies and noodles were added at the same time. Cleanup was easy, just
a little soap and water and a light wipe.  And I found I actually liked
the fact it was heavy as I didn't need to keep one hand on a handle to
stabilize pan.  I could toss with both hands.  But I sure don't want to
harm my cooktop. 

Would you be worried about the weight or scratching the glass? 
I could always go back to my old pan and give this one to our
son.  He cooks everything he eats in a wok and his must be
on last legs too.

I believe that the problem is mostly setting cast iron down on the
smoothtop - misjudge by 1/4" when quickly setting it down, and the
force of very heavy & hard iron meeting very inflexible & unyielding
top is too likely to crack the top.

I wonder if something like a thin copper disk could be used to
shield the top but not interfere with heat transfer too badly.

I hadn't considered the weight aspect as I find I don't even
think of the cooktop as ceramic.  I treat it with the same
respect as my countertops, meaning, almost none.

I'll see how it goes but buying an iron wok may not have
been the best choice, even a coated one.  I brought up woks
today at work and most of my Asian friends who do a whole 
lot of stir-fry meals use non-stick electric woks.

I have a stainless steel electric wok and a stainless steel non-electric wok.
I generally just use a plain stainless steel frying pan instead of dragging
out the wok.

It's possible that my knowledge of cast iron & smooth cooktops is dated...
did the new stove come with a meaningful manual, mary?

I'm not sure how you use a wok up.  We've got a well-seasoned one from my
parents that they had before I was born.

And they probably bought a nice new one, huh? Looks like your the 
sucker with an old wok, joe. nya nya ;)

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