[QUESTION] nonstick cookware?

xep@discuss.online

Stainless Steel, Carbon Steel and Cast Iron have been mentioned, but also look at Nitrided Iron pans. They don’t rust and are as durable as cast iron!

just_another_person@lemmy.world

You are a crazy person

scoobford

Carbon steel is a great option, it’s basically cast iron but lighter. If you can’t be bothered to maintain the seasoning, nitrided steel is also an option.

Be very wary of any nonstick coatings like Teflon, they’re basically all poisonous to either you or the planet.

VibeSurgeon

Did you even read the abstract of the thing you linked?

Sophocles

Your problem might be not pre-heating the pan long enough (this goes for cast iron, stainless, and carbon steel). For eggs made in pans with these materials, you need to let it sit on the heat for a bit; not too hot to obliterate the egg, but hot enough to evenly heat the pan. The pan should have some oil/fat in it as well.

In layman’s terms, the science behind this is that these metals have little microscopic “pores” that open wider when heated. When the pan is cold, they are smaller and latch onto the food. Heating up the metal opens up these “pores” and allows the oil to lubricate the metal much better.

You might want to invest in a 3-ply stainless steel pan ( which basically means aluminum encased in steel). The steel protects the aluminum, and the aluminum distributes heat evenly to the whole pan to facilitate the above process. As long as you pre-heat the pan and add enough oil or butter, not even eggs will stick. I personally use a Viking stainless steel pan, but I’ve also heard that Made-In makes some good ones too. Cuisinart also is a cheaper option

DominusOfMegadeus

The beauty of those carbon steel options is that you can use metal utensils with them!

teft

I use ceramic coated cookware. Nothing really sticks to it. Farberware should be fairly cheap for a set. Im not really a fan of cast iron mainly for the weight. I don’t like feeling like i’ve just done a full set at gold’s gym every time i cook scrambled eggs.

rbwells@lemmy.world

I am on team cast iron, nonstick coatings always seem to be problematic. Cast iron gets better and better with time, and I cook with fats, so it works for me. Buy once use forever, other pans have come and gone but my cast iron is still here and my kids argue about who will get it when I die.

But as I’m sure others have already noted, technique makes a big difference too - oil into hot pan, food into hot oil and not moving the food at the beginning helps it release.

? Offline

I have found that cast iron is quite easy to get nonstick. It isn’t as good as teflon but it does get functionally close, to the point where I don’t have any kind of sticking trouble with my cast iron. Give it one oven season when you first get it then just cook with it like normal. Don’t cook food particularly sensitive to sticking until you’ve cooked with it a few times, a month of regular usage should be more than enough. If you’re worried about sticking, use extra oil, has never done me wrong.

evasive_chimpanzee@lemmy.world

It isn’t as good as teflon but it does get functionally close

Finally someone phrasing it right. Cast iron can’t possibly get as good as Teflon because even a perfect layer of seasoning can’t compete on a chemical level. It absolutely gets good enough, though.

evasive_chimpanzee@lemmy.world

You already have a lot of good responses, but one thing I haven’t seen mentioned is that you can cook on parchment paper. It’s obviously not a method for scrambled eggs, but something delicate like fish can just be put on parchment paper in a pan. Alternatively, you can fully wrap it in parchment.

buddahriffic@lemmy.world

Seconding this. Heat the pan first, I’ll wet my hands and throw some water droplets on the pan, once they sizzle, I know it’s hot enough.

Then heat the oil. It doesn’t take very long, especially on an induction burner. I consider it hot enough when the oil becomes more fluid, almost like water. Then add your foods, not too quickly (or the heat might drop to a steam), but not too slowly either. Pay close attention, as you need to thread a needle between hot enough to fry/sautee but not hot enough to burn. You’ll probably burn some food in the process of learning this, and then again once you feel comfortable with it enough to try to multitask.

On that note, unless you have to wait for a very long cooking time, prep all your ingredients before you start cooking anything. Ideally, you should be able to just drop the ingredients in when it’s time to do so. Put them in bowls that represent the stage they are in and then you can concentrate on the timings, temperature, and techniques.

I say all of that because I barely ever burnt anything until I learned that I was actually only steaming things I thought I was sauteeing, and I learned that by learning how to use heat to reduce food sticking.

Another thing to be aware of is when to deglaze stuff that sticks to the bottom anyways (it’ll still happen, just not catastrophically where the thing sticks more to the bottom than to itself and falls apart) and when to give up on a burnt mess. So far, I think it’s based on the colour (black is charcoal, which you want to limit, brown is caramelized, which is chemically modified but usually not a bad effect on the food, other colours are just that food sticking on the bottom, and will still tastr like that food but maybe with a crispy/crunchy texture from the bottom part), but I’m still learning this one myself.

Edit: one advantage of stainless steel pots/pans is that you can use stainless steel wool on them. It will scratch the finish, but those scratches won’t ruin the pans or make them release dangerous chemicals into your food. They just reveal more stainless steel.

notthebees@reddthat.com

Ive got a crappy electric stove and some oddball pans etc. The thing is heat. Usually it will unstick itself when there’s enough oil and if it’s sufficiently cooked. And if the pan is hot enough, it will be less likely to stick.

Also carbon steel isn’t inherently nonstick. Ideally it needs to be seasoned.

tuckerm

The thing that works for me is allowing the pan to heat up quite a bit before pouring the eggs in. I mean, not searing hot, but you want it to make a little “tssssh” noise when you pour in the eggs. Allowing them to sit and cook a little bit before you stir seems to help, too.

That’s also why I don’t really scramble them very aggressively. The bottom layer needs to sit on the pan and cook, becoming a little solid, before I move them. When I do it that way, they don’t stick. It ends up being kind of like an omelette that I frequently ruffled up and then flipped at the end, rather than really scrambled.

0ops

TL;DR: A little fat, low to low-medium temp, but don’t put the eggs in the pan until it’s up to temp, keeping in mind that it’ll take longer with the heavy cast iron pan.

When my eggs stick it’s virtually always because I was impatient and put them in too soon. If you hear the eggs sizzling from the instant they touched the pan you should be good as long as the heat’s not crazy high, but if you dump those eggs in and the pan is quiet than that means it didn’t get hot enough in time. It’s already too late at that point, they will soak up the fat and stick, but whatever it’s not the end of the world. Just wait until it gets hot, throw a few drops of water on there to check if it beeds and floats (good).

What the other commenter said about waiting a moment to start scrambling is good too. I find that if I start stirring while the layer of egg touching the pan is still liquid (which again, can be for awhile if you didn’t wait for the pan to get hot), it’ll just stir the fat into the eggs instead of around them. So wait just a moment for at least that thin layer contacting the pan to cook before you stir. If your pan is the correct temp it should only take a few seconds, if that.

So yeah, the preheat and the first second or two really make or break scrambled eggs, but past that it’s smooth sailing.

Wandering Adventure Party

[QUESTION] nonstick cookware?