I find the different terms for pots and pans confusing; pan is qualified by frying pan, and sauce pan, while each is quite different from the other; so, if you use ‘sauce pan’, as a term, what is a pot? I like to stick to the following: The flat thing, often called a frying pan, is a skillet. A pot has vertical sides, and it would make sense to a reasonable person that it be called a pot. I boil water in pots; I fry eggs in skillets. ‘Pan’ means any bloody thing in which you cook.
Traditional: We like (love) All Clad for all traditional, stainless steel skillets (another term: we all know what non-stick is; what is the other? Full-stick? I go with ‘traditional’). Regardless of size, the best stainless skillets we have, for all purposes, are All Clad. They are worth every penny.
Non-Stick: We have tried Calphalon and All Clad for the high-end non-stick; All Clad was slightly better; Calphalon, for all the hype, has been a consistent let-down; that said, neither was worth the money. Our best non-stick skillets have been Ameriware Professional (Vollrath), and Kitchen Aid; not just better dollar for dollar, but better all around on performance. The Kitchen Aid skillet we have is an 8″ hard base non-stick pan; it was $20 at Target; it is the best egg pan I have ever used.
- To be sure, we limit how much we cook on non-stick pans; I am ok with making eggs and a limited number of other things in them, but I do not trust my health with using non-stick as the go-to items. Non-stick is likely bad; stainless almost certainly harmless, and cast iron is quite likely beneficial.
Cast Iron: We have many cast iron skillets (a dozen?); a cast iron pot, given it has a lid, is a Dutch oven- more bloody confusion. So, cast iron skillets, and Dutch ovens. We love both, and use whenever possible. I go back to stainless when I am making a pan-sauce, but, there is something about the feel of cooking with cast iron that makes cooking seem real. I see no reason to spend more money on cast iron skillets than the price of Lodge Cookware- and, it is fun to find it at some funky place (like the San Gregorio General Store), and remember the purchase.
- Cast Iron Maintenance: People have the strangest ideas about how to care for cast iron; a friend once told me to season them by leaving them in a fire in the fireplace- this seems a little extreme. Another odd one is the idea that no water can ever come into contact with the pans. If you are willing to cook tomatoes in your pan, then you are willing to expose them to some water. Soaking is out, but a rinse is fine. Our pans have a fantastic finish- many of them look like black glass. We do the following:
- Heat the pan after cooking; while hot, shake in a generous amount of salt. When the pan is cool enough to handle, but still warm, rub the salt around the pan with a piece of paper towel; then rinse out the salt with a little water. I like to reheat the pan before I add a touch of olive oil; the heat dries the pan, and the oil takes beautifully.
Slow Down and Cook 