Virtually Non stick cast iron cookware

[Frank S]

I don't know how many of you guys feel that a humble cast iron skillet is an important tool which needs special care or even use them.
Growing up my Grand mother and mother shared the kitchen and in our kitchen there were dozens of heavy cast iron pots pans & skillets
In fact except for a few thick copper and some pyrex cook ware there were little else the exception being cake pans and cookie sheets.
You couldn't find a single thing made of aluminum in their kitchen let alone any of the new fangled Teflon coated stuff that started coming into popularity later on in the late 60's
After I got married to my 1st wife I bought her what ever she wanted for her kitchen but it was not cast iron and since she grew up a city girl from a different culture she was not exposed to this type of cookware Heck when we got married she didn't even know how to boil water without burning up an aluminum pot , she actually did that once.
Anyway I was no kook by any stretch of anyone's imagination. I could grill steaks & burgers or cook bacon & eggs but that was about it.
Someone gave us an old cast iron skillet blackened and crusted up from many years of use but the inside was smooth and slick almost shiny it became my favorite skillet to use when I would have to make my own breakfast
Skip a couple of decades 2nd wife great cook and by this time out of self preservation I had become a fair hand in the kitchen as well.
Skip another decade or so living in another country we buy some new cast iron stuff it takes forever to get it properly seasoned it seemed
Skip another 10 years having to buy more new cast iron skillets this time I decide to short cut the seasoning time.
First off I used a sander to smooth the inside I kept sanding until I was using 400 grit making the inside look like a mirror then poured in cooking oil and heated on an outside grill until oil had completely burned away. I polished it and did this again a couple of times


And the flat skillet

4 years later

[NortonDommi]

Try using Flax seed oil,(raw Linseed),you don't need food grade. After cleaning scrub with detergent to clean, warm slightly before coating and let soak for a while before heating to smoke point.
A well seasoned cast iron pan beats hi-tech coatings hands down and the extra mass provides even heat.
I use salt to clean the hard stuff like residue from fried beans. Cove pan, heat, scrub with wadded paper towel and rinse. a wipe with a bit of cooking oil on a paper towel is all that is needed to keep perfect.

[matermark]

I don't know how many of you guys feel that a humble cast iron skillet is an important tool which needs special care or even use them.
Growing up my Grand mother and mother shared the kitchen and in our kitchen there were dozens of heavy cast iron pots pans & skillets
In fact except for a few thick copper and some pyrex cook ware there were little else the exception being cake pans and cookie sheets.
You couldn't find a single thing made of aluminum in their kitchen let alone any of the new fangled Teflon coated stuff that started coming into popularity later on in the late 60's
After I got married to my 1st wife I bought her what ever she wanted for her kitchen but it was not cast iron and since she grew up a city girl from a different culture she was not exposed to this type of cookware Heck when we got married she didn't even know how to boil water without burning up an aluminum pot , she actually did that once.
Anyway I was no kook by any stretch of anyone's imagination. I could grill steaks & burgers or cook bacon & eggs but that was about it.
Someone gave us an old cast iron skillet blackened and crusted up from many years of use but the inside was smooth and slick almost shiny it became my favorite skillet to use when I would have to make my own breakfast
Skip a couple of decades 2nd wife great cook and by this time out of self preservation I had become a fair hand in the kitchen as well.
Skip another decade or so living in another country we buy some new cast iron stuff it takes forever to get it properly seasoned it seemed
Skip another 10 years having to buy more new cast iron skillets this time I decide to short cut the seasoning time.
First off I used a sander to smooth the inside I kept sanding until I was using 400 grit making the inside look like a mirror then poured in cooking oil and heated on an outside grill until oil had completely burned away. I polished it and did this again a couple of times


And the flat skillet

4 years later

is that how the story ends?

[Frank S]

Try using Flax seed oil,(raw Linseed),you don't need food grade. After cleaning scrub with detergent to clean, warm slightly before coating and let soak for a while before heating to smoke point.
A well seasoned cast iron pan beats hi-tech coatings hands down and the extra mass provides even heat.
I use salt to clean the hard stuff like residue from fried beans. Cove pan, heat, scrub with wadded paper towel and rinse. a wipe with a bit of cooking oil on a paper towel is all that is needed to keep perfect.

Yep really low maintenance stuff also in the wrong hands a pretty lethal weapon

[Frank S]

There is never an end to my stories LOL
I've used cast iron skillets flat griddles dutch ovens and I used to have a cast iron coffee pot for all of my adult lift and taught 2 wives how to use them and take care of them. The ones I have now that were bought new I sanded and polished as explained they are so well seasoned and used that I doubt if burned milk would stick in them
I've heated up 2 skillets as hot as I could get them on the stove top then dropped cookie dough in one then covered it with the other reduced the heat and baked cookies on the stove top a few times although I will say that cookies turn out better if placed on a metal sheet and placed on something to hold them below mid way between both skillets
My grand mother used to bake pies and cakes in a dutch oven hanging in a fire place./ The best beans you will ever eat in your life will be those cooked in a 10 gallon cast iron pot that has been hanging over an open pit fire after a day or so just add more beans and water as the contents get eaten. Once on a pipeline the cajon line cook kept a pot going for 2 weeks he just kept adding beans water and slabs of pork plus his secrete spices any time you were hungry just ladle up a tin bowlful grab a hunk of corn bread and feast out
Don't worry about gas he always counted the beans and added 239 beans each time because 1 more would be 2 farty

[NortonDommi]

You had a Cajun cook? Reading that I have just lit the gas to heat a cast iron pan and start cooking as that description induced severe hunger pangs!

[Frank S]

Man you just can't pipeline without a cajun cook About 20 of us drove from Texas all the way to north of Fargo North Dakota one winter for a 200 mile 12" line that was going to have a few pumping and heating stations along the way towards Bismark, once we found out the line cook was from Boston we didn't even bother to test out, just turned west and drove over to Billings Montana to look for the other end of the line we found out their cook was named Dupre so we figured he had to be from south Louisiana. Turned out he was the one I mentioned about the beans.

[NortonDommi]

Wise choice.

[C-Bag]

My mother in law was the best cook(not chef) on the planet. Her go to skillet was cast iron she got from her mom. I don't know if it went back further than that, but like you said Frank, it was like glass inside. Nothing ever stuck and she could make anything with it on a stove top. When she passed I was hoping nobody would claim it but my idiot brother in law got the old O'keefe&Merrit stove and the skillet. His house was so small he couldn't get the behemoth stove in and left it out and decided to steam clean both the stove and the skillet(did I mention he was an idiot?) and last I saw as we were moving both were outside in the weather rusted up.

I lucked into an even nicer old O'keefe&Merrit and bought a new cast iron skillet. But I'm going to have to do your process as the new skillet just can't hold a candle to the old one. Nothing beats good cast iron cookware. I found a cast iron griddle that somebody left in a fire pit in the mountains. I think it was basically new. I'm not sure if they just forgot it or just left it. Its very handy too but I'm going to have to do your process to it too.

Thanks so much for sharing.

[Frank S]

C-bag here's a tip on heating the skillet. I found it best to build a large charcoal fire in a grill much larger than the skillet. then just as if you were going to grill a steak as the coals begin to die down a bit place the skillet on the grill you want the heat to come up slowly and evenly everywhere even the sides of the skillet. I used peanut oil but that was just what I had at the time. I left it on the coals until all of the oil was burned away and peanut oil takes a long time to burn away. then I removed the skillet scrubbed it with steel wool and rock salt (ice cream salt) then wiped it clean and put it back on the coals again after I had re stoked them with more charcoal then did the oil burn the second time finally just cleaned it up and let it cool before taking it in the house or at that time into my RV.
I've done this to several now and with the exception of 1 cheap no brand someone gave me I have been very satisfied.
the cheap one cracked all the way around the bottom so I don't know if I heated it too fast or if it was flawed it had a too thin bottom I felt to begin with.