Hi Kaleo,
You’re right.
The unevenness of CS parts was an afterthought, because once I decided to get rid of my stash of CS pans I naturally begin to look for other reasons to get rid of them - being a cookware enthusiast and all.
You’re also right in that if they weren’t prone to rusting, I would’ve kept them and used them as my searing pans for high heat searing.
Still on my fathers mediocre induction stovetop the 4 CS pans I’ve given him (3 De Buyer Mineral B and one Darto N30) they actually perform pretty well for sautéing and searing jobs.
But compared to my other pans they just don’t quite make the cut.
However for people, who are not cookware enthusiast and just want a versatile, good performing rather affordable pan, CS pans are a great choice.
I’m at a stage now in my cooking journey where I honestly feel I can cook on any type of pan and get at least a decent result out of it.
I constantly see the Danish Masterchef contenders and the Masterchef hosts (who are some of our best chefs) use Eva Trio non stick frying pans to cook anything in, including searing all kinds of steaks at high heat and they still get a very decent crust and result out of it, so we also tend to exaggerate how poorly non stick pans are at searing steaks at high heat.
Is it dangerous to use non stick pans at high heat ? I’m not sure, it’s probably not advisable especially if you have birds in your household LOL
Is it dangerous to use non stick pans in general ? I’m not entirely sure, but we can all agree that the manufacturers of Teflon should have had a lot more control over how they managed their production facilities to avoid polluting the surroundings the way they have and did.
I do admit that I once in a while use my Demeyere Alu Pro non stick wok for fried rice at a pretty high heat, perhaps a too high heat not ideal for a ceramic non stick pan.
And I still don’t get the correct ‘wok hei’ like charred taste, but that’s not obtainable on 99% of most home stovetops anyway.
However I - as a rule - try to never use more than medium to low heat when using my non stick pans and sticking to that rule, non stick pans just work for me and not against me.
I sometimes felt carbon steel pans worked a bit against me - even though I knew the ups and downs with CS pans, sometimes they didn’t quite manage to do the job I expected of them.
Whether it was making a fried egg with bacon (not quite as evenly fried results as I get with my non stick ceramic pans), making a frittatta (a bit of sticking issues and not quite as evenly a cooking results as in my non stick pans) or I had to high speed high heat sauté a bunch of mushrooms and broccolini and the results didn’t quite live up to the same even result I get when I use one of my bimetal copper pans for the same job.
As said multiple times before, I perfectly understand the reason why people love their carbon steel pans and accept the - for them - minor shortcomings with them.
Unfortunately I’m also a guy who very often use balsamic vinegar and wine in my pan sauces, and like to reduce the pan sauces slowly at mid temperature for 8-10 minutes and that can easily partly strip even a solid seasoning in a CS pan, so also there it’s going to be a relief to use my Demeyere Proline frying pans.