No, this isn’t a cast iron thing. Using stainless pans, you can get nonstick effects that, in my experience, far outperform Teflon anyway. The process is called “spot seasoning.” I have cooked crispy, cheesy rice noodles with eggs with zero sticking.
I love my cast iron pans, but stainless is my daily go-to. Added bonus: use 100% copper wool to clean your stainless pan. The copper-coated wool at most grocery stores is problematic; you might get a few uses out of the coated garbage and then it starts shedding metal bits.
It’s the simplest thing in the world with a stainless pan. Bring up the heat, add in some oil, wait for it to smoke, wipe it out with a cloth, in with cold oil, add in your food. It won’t stick.
“wipe it out with a cloth” I’m curious about the cloth you use and what you do it? Sounds really messy an oil soaked cloth… But you do say it’s the simplest thing…
Sometimes I forget others haven’t accepted tea towels into their heart. I’ve got a dozen or more cloth towels around the house for mopping up. It all comes out in the wash. Cotton ones won’t burn readily, so they’ll dry out a hot oily pan no problem.
Paper towels work fine. Just make sure they’re pure paper and not mixed with synthetics or weird scents or whatever.
Thanks for this but I will stay say teflon is simpler (not better!)
The most annoying thing for me with Teflon was that in two years or so it is no longer nonstick, so your pans have essentially an expiration date.
Not to mention that it will be scratched and danger to you and all around you long before that.
I preach the gospel of our lord and savior stainless steel pans!
A soft (e.g. silicone) spatula is all you really need to avoid damaging a non-stick pan. And they are incredibly useful for other uses (a rubber flipper is awesome if you are perpetually impatient when it comes to flipping meat and don’t want to damage the skin).
But yeah. They are inherently a consumable which is why nobody should ever spend more than 20-ish (pre-trump) USD on one. It is up to an individual to decide if they would use it enough to justify that.
Id recommend going for carbon steel instead of teflon if all clad or stainless steel is too much work.
For like $40-100, they heat up insanely well, are very light and will last your lifetime. They form an excellent non stick coating after several uses just like cast iron.
I bought two a couple of months ago and I am never going back to anything else.
If you have a strong burner, the recommended carbon steel wok works great too, even on my electric stove. Im stunned at how fast it heats up and what a good job it does even in my inexperienced hands.
Kenji, a serious eats alumni, has an award winning wok book I picked up at the same time. It’s a beast, covering tons of different cuisine and methods. Really great combo.
If you’re lazy just say that
right? six steps and having to deal with hot oil every time or use teflon and have a slightly higher risk of cancer and zero extra steps to cooking. I’ll stick with teflon and hope for a global war to wipe us all out before I have to worry about cancer.
I want to shun you but it seems like you’re struggling enough 😑
Fresh teflon is. Then you start throwing it away in a year or two since your teflon coating has FLAKED off despite using only wood-plastic-silicone and handwashing it carefully.
And then you read TEFLON FLAKES cause cancer.
And then you start putting two and two together.
I just let it go until leidenfrost, add oil and roll oil around and its good to go. If you are making eggs, reduce the heat and wait a bit. Only difference vs teflon is that you put the pan on heat while you are prepping to ensure thorough preheat. Havent used teflon in years. Havent missed it either, I make pancakes (local ones are thin, not quite crepe like but thin) with only one knob of butter at the beginning just fine. No oil in pancake batter either.
No oil in your batter? I wanna know more. Doesn’t that make the pancakes too chewy?
eggs, flour, milk, baking soda, bit of salt, bit of sugar. Thats the common batter. Ratios were like 1-2-3 or something for the main ingredients. Idunno, nobody has ever told me the recepie.