Last edited by MikeJSmith; 9th January 2024 at 08:48.
I have been using debuyer and samuel groves pans. i like the fact theres no wood on the handles so you can put them in the oven.
Getting the hang of carbon steel.. I like the fact that worse case I just need to reseason !!
I have just purchased my first Samuel Groves chef pan and I am still getting used to it, but they seem very nice quality and nicely made. I will certainly add a few more as other pans give up the ghost.
I went for the 'unfinished' pans, ie NOT non-stick, as I was fed up of expensive non-stick pans becoming useless after a year or two, so would rather a bare metal pan and season it properly - something I am not very experienced at doing. Not helped by everyone on YouTube having a different version of what to do and how to do it!
I have to be quite aware of excessive heat on my pans as we cook on an AGA for 6 months of the year so often have to fry on the 'blast furnace' plate before sticking the pan in the roasting oven to finish.
Samuel Groves apparently offers a pan refurbishment service too, so if they can fix them, they will do and it avoids sending more stuff to landfill.
Yes there are so many ways everyone talks about. My best results come from upside down in the oven, with a tray underneath; stops getting thick bits where it gets sticky.
Only cooked on an Aga a few times and been bemused by the options of being a) too hot and b) molten lava. Amazed looking back at my mother cooking on one with such a relaxed attitude, half the pan off the hob etc.
From the website it looks like it has a lot of uses; mine is just on its way now so will have a play. I’ve been using ridged pans but I like to use the pan after making steaks to do a sauce, and the ridged pans aren’t so great for that. Also they werent cast iron but some sort of lighter metal and the non-stick has never been great.
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Agreed.
Cooking with an AGA really is a totally different way/style/method of cooking but it really does very quickly become second nature. It is also scary how quickly you forget how to cook 'normally' too though!
Every pan I own has to be hob-to-oven capable, so non-stick isn't very happy in the roasting oven.
I am low-end food tech; but may I hop in with an anecdote?
One of the cottages I lived in in Cornwall when I was alive had an ancient cast iron open fire range with a cooking plate to one side and a water heater tank; it was as much use as a one-legged Cossack. That was the sole source of heating in the place.
Friends gave us a redundant Rayburn. Rayburns are heavy old things and need specialist lifting equipment to move, something not available to us at the time.
The Rayburn was in a property about a mile and a half away, across the A390. The plan was that we would manually move it using 3ft lengths of scaffold tube as rollers; my father on a rope pulling, my mother at the back pushing, and me as a little tacker moving the rollers from the back as they emerged and placing them at the front to continue the process.
It worked well. We emerged from the back lane from Butterdon onto the A390 for a short stretch until we turned left on another back lane to our cottage.
Traffic was light in those days. About halfway along the A390 leg of the journey, a Triumph Mayflower overtook us (which probably makes it the fastest Triumph Mayflower ever produced) and pulled over. The driver came towards us brandishing a ten shilling note. "What are you collecting for?" he asked. He thought it was a charity fundraising stunt!
When we told him the true nature of the project he said "Well, you keep the ten shillings - you will all need a drink when you have finished".
Ah! The days of my youth - poor but happy.
Sorry - back on topic; my mother produced the most delicious meals using that Rayburn, including her pasty recipe that I still use today. She made a pasty that fed the whole Cornwall Schools cricket team once, and there was some left over. As has been said, no mean feat given the apparatus.
Last edited by unclealec; 11th January 2024 at 10:12.
I would be happy to share were there enough demand, but it isn't very TZcentric. You can't use a Magimix for the pastry, you can't use an air fryer to cook them (not 12 at a time anyway) nor do you deploy a suitably-encrusted cast iron skillet.
I suppose you could make them whilst wearing Raybans, brogues, and combat gear. And expensive aftershave.
TBH it's more the technique than the ingredients, which are simple enough. It's the pastry that makes the pasty.
It seems a bit off-topic to post on here; there must be a TZ recipe thread somewhere; anyone care to point me at it?
Edited to say: found it! See my post a few hours into the future, recipe included.
Last edited by unclealec; 11th January 2024 at 10:08.
Not even close! But was more the science on veg thickness that intrigued me, as perhaps the bit I was getting incorrect.
Spent too much time looking at the tech & science of food at uni, some bits stay, others have long been forgotten. Quite why I had to know how to size up a heat exchanger when the seller would do that for me was beyond me!
I’m now a few hours from dinner, a few more hours from Cornwall & craving a proper one.
We converted to De Buyer Mineral B (Carbon Steel) pans. Would never go back.
You need to put in a tiny bit of effort at first... But once they're seasoned, they are exceptional.
They are used for most things in the kitchen, and the range is vast.
Cast Iron and Stainless have their place, but for general use we use Carbon Steel.
FWIW we use a Cast Iron skillet for Steaks, and a Stainless Skillet for sauté.
De Buyer are easy to clean (wipe). Don't need lots of oil, and if you're worried about Teflon, then they are (obviously) Teflon free.
They are also really easy to handle.
They look jazzy, and bizarrely often people comment/ask questions about them. Maybe I need new friends!
Like most things in life, look at the what the pros use, and copy. That's what I did and it worked for me.
I'd love some copper saucepans but cannot justify the expense... Yet an £8.5K 14060M makes perfect sense!
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My big surprise was when on a visit to Baxters at Fochabers I discovered that all the soup ingredients were canned raw, then the cans sealed, and the soups cooked in the can.
I suppose I fondly imagined a giant soup cauldron with Mrs. Baxter fondly ladling the cooked soup into the cans.
To digress, Ena Robertson, the woman who by marriage became the famous Mrs. Baxter, was courting my father's brother for quite some time. Had the passage of that particular romance run smoother (and one brother to the left), you could all have been eating Uncle Alec's Cock-a-Leekie Soup.
Delia Smith's Cornish Pasty Pie is quite good. https://www.deliaonline.com/recipes/...nish-pasty-pie
@Mj2k, sprite1275, and anyone else who fancies a go:
https://forum.tz-uk.com/showthread.p...26#post6334626
Last edited by unclealec; 11th January 2024 at 10:09.
Didn't want to clog up the recipe thread. Daughter and I had a go at the famous pornish castys.
Only did three and they look more like pornish torpedoes.
Ain't even tried them as we cooked them with the Sunday roast.
Put them in the fridge for now but really wanted to bite into one.
I hope you enjoy them; if they taste as I suspect they will, and I gave up on attempting the professional look years ago in favour of cutting down on production time, you may find them a place in the regular diet.
My wife and I are scheduled to consume one each on Tuesday.
Good idea to utilise the oven being on anyway.
Don't forget the haggis for Thursday folks.
Last edited by unclealec; 13th March 2024 at 00:26.
So these carbon steel pans. What can you cook in them? I've got my de bryner and seasoned it in the oven. Thought I'd make a stir fry in it tonight and the veg has just stripped the seasoning right off.
Pretty much anything once seasoned fully, although I always avoid on any pan requiring seasoning anything too acidic until I have a good layer of seasoning as can eat away at it - tomatoes etc.
How many times did you season it, I always got for at least 3 cycles of seasoning with a new pan just to make sure there is a good layer.
Cannot see why a stir fry would strip the seasoning off, very strange indeed. Did the food stick, or just come away with the seasoning?
Without seeing the pan, I would suggest it wasn't fully seasoned; but given you did the oven route vs hob (much harder to get wrong), it is peculiar.
What oil did you use, out of interest?
Had a drawer sort out afer buying some new heavier non-stick pans to toss out the cheapos, and had a critical look at my Cast Iron pans....................
Mine simply have a nice gloss seasoned surface - nothing like those! I even leave mine to soak overnight with some serious pan-cleaner & water.
Those things, if unable to needle-gun that crap off them and start again - would have gone to the recycle bin.
I seasoned it twice. I messed up the first season by putting too much oil on. It beaded and went sticky. Took me ages trying to get it off with vinegar and soapy water. I should of just used the stir-fry method because it literally stripped it straight away. Used vegetable oil.
Last edited by sprite1275; 30th January 2024 at 21:47.
Feel your disappointment, always frustrating when something you've looked forward to doesn't deliver.
Looks like you've seared a rectangular piece of steak towards the left side based on the marks, very strange.
I am assuming you removed the wax layer first - you won't be the first or last if you didn't, got caught out with a Chinese supermarket wok a few years back!
If I were you, I would strip back what is left with a deep clean & scrub, then start again (on the positive, you might not be too far from stripped back already!) - maybe with a higher smoke point oil; I use avocado oil, but have also used a a specific 'seasoning kit' when I had a moment of frustration with a cast iron bbq griddle that refused to behave & had great results.
Get it back oiled & seasoned a few more times perhaps and then give it another go. Maybe start with some hard searing on it, as that will also help with the build of & patina of lovely non stick; then I hope you can cook anything you wanted. I do still cringe when I have something acidic in a pan just on the off chance it goes awry but touch wood, it has all been fine once fully seasoned.
Good luck!
The square bit is where I left the sponge in when I soaked it in vinegar. It left that mark. I don't think there is any film on it.
The veg I used was one of them packet ones from the supermarket. I'm wondering if they put anything in them to preserve the veg. Had to chuck the veg as it went a bit brown. Did some eggs in it the other day and they were fine.
A lot of carbon ships with a light coating to stop them rusting in transit / storage. If you washed with hot soapy water first, should have all come off.
Some veg mixes have lemon juice in them, which could have done it, bloody unlucky as not all have it in them. Still strange for it to come off that easily, that's the bit I cannot work out!
The fact you can see the sponge mark suggests you didn't get it all stripped off evenly - you can build it up and it will disappear eventually.
Spend some time almost over-seasoning it and you will get it good I'm sure.
Once you are there it will take so much abuse from heat & food, so just be patient in getting to that point; don't think the early days have even been the best with new pans tbh.
Are these pans a collaboration between the Man City maestro and renowned French pot maker?
On a side note The De Buyer stuff is bomb proof so you'll have that pan right as rain.
I bought one of the pans from the Netherton foundry and It's decent but IMO the De Buyer I have is a better constructed pan.
Looked at the ingredients and no mention of lemon juice. These pans seem to get a lot hotter than non stick. Even though not seasoned I did some pork chops in it last night. Heated it up slowly then put some oil in and smoked the kitchen out. The oil ends up going brown as if it's rusty. I now seem to have a brown patch in the middle. Might have to vinegar nuke it again and re season....again.
Last edited by sprite1275; 1st February 2024 at 08:44.
If not mentioned, VonHaus pans are very good. I have had these for years, they are now £24:99 for a set. Bargain.
https://www.vonhaus.com/vh_en/3pc-cast-iron-skillet-set
You're doing it wrong on possibly 2 counts:
- You're waiting too long to add your oil/food to the pan. Even if the oil resists, you will warp it in no time
- The oil you use may not be ideal: it shouldn't burn so quickly
But start by reducing the heating time.
PS: burnt oil is carcinogenic.
'Against stupidity, the gods themselves struggle in vain' - Schiller.
I've took it back to steel again. I take It veg oil should be fine to season with. Also when the pan goes black after seasoning, is that not the oil burnt onto the pan to create the season?
There is probably better oil to use than veg oil. Google is your friend.
You also only need the tiniest amount.
There will be smoke.
Keep on going until you have it nice and black/brown.
We use ours for everything that isn't tomato based really. But the real star is fried eggs with butter.
We've got 2 crepe pans too which we use for pancakes for the kids. They literally are a revelation, and now we're almost totally non stick free.
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I bought a De Buyer pan based on this thread and am very happy with it - thanks to whoever (or everyone who) mentioned it.
"A man of little significance"