♪♪
♪♪
-Hi, I'm Stephen
with the Field Company.
We make lighter, smoother
cast-iron pans here in the USA.
I'm here to talk to you
about cooking in cast iron,
caring for cast iron,
and probably
demystifying some things
that you may have learned
along the way.
Cast iron retains its heat
really nicely,
and it happens to develop
a natural nonstick coating
just by cooking in it.
You can buy one,
and you should have it forever.
Seasoning, as a noun,
is this black sort of coating
that develops
by basically burning oil and any
other little particles around
into the surface of the pan.
This pan is a
new from the factory seasoning.
It has three coats
of our grape-seed oil on it.
This is a pan that hasn't seen
any action yet.
Whenever I get into seasoning
and people ask me,
"What should I use?"
just get some grape-seed oil,
and you'll be good.
Sort of the principle is
you want unsaturated fat.
One of the worst oils to choose
is coconut oil.
It's just going to burn up
and really not do much.
The job done and the job's
going to get done the best
with grape-seed oil.
This is the tricky part.
So if I overdo it,
then I have to wipe way longer,
and if I underdo it,
I'm not going
to add much seasoning.
Trying to give myself
a pool there to work around.
I'm pretty much well
covered in here,
and now I can take this
and, using the oil that's left,
I can pretty much take care
of my outside.
If you don't season the outside,
it will rust, as well.
Taking care of your pan is
taking care of the whole thing.
And now I'm going to go back
in here
and try to get a lot of that oil
out of there.
It should look fairly dry,
but not completely dry.
I'm going to go ahead and throw
this pan in at 300 degrees.
I'm going to take it out
after 10 minutes
and just to make sure,
if any oil is beading up
into little pools,
that I can remove that
before I actually, you know,
bake it into
the surface of the pan.
♪♪
Okay. We've
had the pans in there
for 10 minutes at 300 degrees.
There is no pooling on this pan,
so I think I'm pretty good.
Going to throw that back in.
[ Pan scrapes ]
Alright, we're going to
bump this guy up to 400,
give it 30 to 60 minutes.
♪♪
Alright, here is our slightly
seasoned, brand-new pan.
It's a little splotchy,
but I kind of just don't believe
that oven seasoning
makes it perfect.
I think the Internet kind of
fools everyone into thinking
that these pans look perfect,
and they don't.
Even the best-seasoned pans
don't look perfect.
The first will just be
a simple fried egg.
With the seasoning that you have
down there,
you're going to be able
to move the egg around
without it getting stuck.
What this also sort of
demonstrates is that people
who complain about sticking,
it's all technique.
One of the cool things
about cast iron
is I could probably
turn the heat off
and still cook this egg
to get it to the end
because it'll hold
that much heat.
Go ahead and give her
the old flip.
Smoothness matters for sticking.
When you go rough, you get...
It's harder to create
this nonstick property.
We're also showing
how you don't need
a tremendous amount of heat
to get to cook.
You just -- It's --
Having control
is what's important,
and cast iron
gives you a lot of control
because you put the right
amount of heat into it,
and then it just --
it holds it there for you.
I think we can call that a day.
♪♪
The steak is going to benefit
from a little bit
higher temperature.
In order to get a good,
you know, sear on this steak,
having the pan stay hot
is really crucial.
I'm going to go ahead and use
a grape-seed oil here
because it has
a nice, high smoke point
so I can go higher without
creating as much craziness.
I'm looking at the pan.
Looks like it's getting
pretty hot.
I'm going to throw a little bit
of that in.
I want to wait
till that just starts to smoke,
and then I'll be able to drop
the steak right in here.
This is one of those events
in a pan's life
that both helps and can hurt
the seasoning.
So I might just take
some off here and there,
but at the same time,
I'm kind of, like,
putting it through some abuse.
I think of seasoning like how
you would grow, like,
a strong tree.
The strongest trees are going
to be in not as much light.
They're going to be blowing
all around,
they're going to learn
that they have to be strong,
and then they're going to build
into that level,
so I feel the same thing
is going on with seasoning.
It's good to put it
through the wringer.
[ Sizzling ]
Big thing about proteins
in cast iron,
if you try
to move them too quickly,
they're going to stick.
You want it to actually cook
for a while,
convert its surface
into that browning,
and then it will -- it should
just release just fine.
The three pitfalls of stickiness
are not enough fat,
too high of a temperature,
and trying to move your food
too quickly before it's set up.
All right.
I'm happy with that.
[ Sizzling ]
♪♪
All I've done is cooked
an egg in butter,
and my pan is completely clean.
I would say the way
to clean this pan
is simply to wipe it out.
I'm just going to give it
a go here.
I'll use a little bit of that
residual oil
on the other sides
of the pan.
Why not?
♪♪
Now I've got a little bit
of that caramelization
that happened there.
I've got
some stuff stuck on there,
and while the pan is hot,
I can give it
a little bit of a scrape.
Some of this is coming
off nicely.
Some of it's taking the bottom
layer of seasoning off.
That's actually
sticking to the pan,
so that's causing damage,
so I'm actually gonna
not do that.
Let that calm down a little bit.
It's probably better
to just leave that on there.
If I keep trying to do this,
I'm going to lift it all away.
And if I just cook over
the top of it,
some of it will go,
and some of it will stay
and that would probably
be better,
in the end,
to just do it that way.
This is a marathon,
not a sprint.
Your pan is going to last you
your whole life.
It's going to go through all
sorts of different processes.
It's always possible for it
to bounce back.
It's kind of meant for that.
You know, it's going to develop
this whole history of its own.
One of those amazing things
that you get to sort of either
start that journey or begin
that journey with a new pan.
So, a lot of people
are really worried
about whether to put soap
on the cast iron pan or not,
and the truth is soap is not
going to mess up your seasoning.
Soap is going to degrease
your pan.
You always want to have
a little bit of grease,
a little bit of fat, oil --
whatever you have --
like, on the pan.
If you're a soap person,
you can't get yourself
to stop using soap,
you just want to make sure
that you come back, dry it off,
get that oil back on there,
and you'll be good to go.
If you were cooking something
really, really delicious,
and you're like, "I really want
that flavor in my next thing,"
you don't really have to give it
the whole runaround
every single time.
I think the important thing
with flavor migration
from one meal to the next
is asking yourself,
do you want it?
Do you want what you just cooked
to come into your next meal?
Your seasoning buildup
and the way your pan builds up
is totally going to be
a function
of what you like to cook,
and there will
be flavors in there.
So having a sweet and a savory
pan is always a good technique.
Alright.
Hopefully, we've taken
some of the guesswork
out of cast iron for you,
demystified some of the things
that are going on,
and you won't be
scared of it anymore.
You'll be ready to cook
all sorts of great food.
And signing off here
from the Field Company.
Hope you enjoy your next meal
with us.
♪♪
♪♪
♪♪
