School me on frying pans - Page 2

Without reading through the thread:

- Don't get nonstick. If you cook your food properly you won't need nonstick. Further, nonstick coatings chip and degrade over time and some people think it is unhealthy.
- We are very happy with All Clad but yes, it is fairly expensive. Maybe look at Calphalon One.

you don't want to cook on bare aluminum, but you don't want non-stick either. You want a stainless surface on an aluminum (or copper) pan. That is ideal. You get the benefits of the aluminum/copper, but the cooking surface is non-reactive.

I think we're throwing out recommendations without explaining why. - You want a large fry pan with gentle, shallow, sloping sides that flare out. Pans with high vertical sides are saute pans and are for something totally different. - There are four major metals used in cooking: aluminum, stainless steel, copper, iron. Aluminum is lightweight and responds well to heat, but it reacts with acids and can leave a funny taste when it does. Stainless steel is easy to maintain and does not react to foods like aluminum, but its heat conductivity is poor. Copper is the best at heat responsiveness, but it is very expensive and reactive and all-together really inconvenient to use and maintain. Iron is cheap and retains heat well, but it can be tiresome to maintain, is heavy, and also reacts with some foods. - What you're looking for in a fry pan is something that is non-reactive, has good response to heat (heats up quickly), maintains easily, and is NOT non-stick (you want to brown food, right?). You also want something that heats all the way up the sides, lest your food be cooked unevenly. - If you want your food to be cooked evenly, you can't buy a fry-pan that uses a disc bottom because the heavy aluminum disc bottoms (for good heat transfer) they use don't go all the way up the sides. This = uneven heating. - This is why they make tri-ply pans. It uses a thick copper (expensive) or aluminum (cheaper, better choice) core that goes all the way up the sides for good responsive & even heating, with a thin top layer of stainless steel for non-reactivity and easy cleanup, and a third layer at the bottom (usually another thin layer of stainless steel, or like the MC2 line from All-Clad, some brushed aluminum alloy). By combining aluminum & stainless steel, it marries aluminum's responsiveness with the non-reactivity of stainless steel. Look for pans that have thick aluminum cores. You can usually see the aluminum core sandwiched between the two outer layers by looking at the edge of a pan.

+1

I have the Demeyere Atlantis stainless steel 12" and 14" fry pans; each has performed admirably over the last five years of constant use. I like the manageable heavy weight (just slightly lighter than a cast iron skillet) and fast heatiing copper core that extends all the way to the edges of the pan for reliable even heating across the entire base of the pan and all the way to the splayed edges. The stainless stell has a high nickel content and is very durable; the handles are cast stainless steel and remain cool even when the pan is under sustained high heat.

Trying not to restate anything that's already been said and I agree with. Lesson 1... it's a skillet, not a frying pan Lesson 2... you need more than 1. It's like knives. 80% of the time, you use your chef's knife, but there are some jobs that it just can't do as well. Lesson 3... one of those jobs is eggs. Whoever said you don't need non-stick is crazy. It's just not worth the effort to cook eggs in a stainless pan. YES it can be done, but non-stick increases the margin of error ten-fold, and it SUCKS to clean burnt egg off a stainless pan. Everyone should have an inexpensive 7" non-stick egg pan. Mine is from the cheapo Emeril line. DO NOT over pay for straight All-Clad or MC non-stick. It's a waste. Lesson 4... one of those jobs is bacon and deep frying. For that you want cast iron. It just works better and has the right cachet. For everything else, see above. The "chef's knife" in my analogy is described very well by skunkworks. And the restaurant supply store is a good suggestion. Just remember to buy something that fits well on your burners. They distribute heat well to a point, but if you get a giant commercial pan and you have a small home burner, you will not get ideal results.

I have always bought my pans at Marshalls. They are all non-stick casue they are easyer to maintain. I always coock my meals from scratch. I cannot oreder pizza or sub and consider it a meal.
I never had problems with coocking on those teflon pans, my potatoes are always nicely brown when I pan fry them vegetables (add a little bit water) are always nicely flash fryed. I have done crepes on those cheap pans and stake as well as meatballs and pressed-coocked chicken.

I have no clue why would anyone need $100+ SPECIAL SUPERMAN frying pan to have a well coocked meal.

I don't know why people always mention eggs sticking to stainless steel. I never have this problem. For oil, simply heat up the pan with oil and wait till it is about to smoke. Remove it off the fire and let it cool. Then heat the pan and cook. Even easier, use butter. Heat butter till no more foaming and put in eggs.


I would avoid non-stick because the chemical is toxic. I don't care what people say about normal heat levels being ok. There are just too many variables and the material will eventually wear away which means a little bit ends up in your food everytime you cook.

+1.

I didn't say it can't be done... I said there is a much smaller margin of error. If you haven't heated the pan enough yet in a non-stick, the eggs aren't wasted. If you overcook in teflon, it'll still slide out. In stainless, you can't mess up.

Every chef I know (I was a chef for 15 years and now teach cooking) uses non-stick for cooking eggs. They use them, wash them when finished, put towels in between, stack and hide them so that other cooks can't screw them up. They would never give them to the dishwasher as they are too likely to get scratched. When you're working an omelet station with a line of people waiting, there is nothing better than a non-stick pan.

I agree with this...Nothing sticks to a well seasoned cast iron skillet. If you get the hang of cooking with it, nothing beats it in my opinion.

And Wal-Mart carries Lodge skillets...which surprised me.

jag