One of these days, someone will follow the lead of Lodge with their HMSOV “dishwasher safe*” line, and address the rust issue in carbon steel.
*Only in commercial dishwashers.
I find my CI more resistant than the CS, but then again I use the Demeyere for most everything, except for some high heat searing or where some traditional recipes call for it. As I mentioned in the other thread, I use the “searing pan” for sandwiches, paninis, quesadillas and the like.
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You’re set-up is fine Claus. Carbon steel is not a requirement. You can sear just fine in disk bottomed pans and ply pans.
Very high heat searing does not usually contemplate making a pan sauce (an ‘integral’ sauce) since the fond is likely to burn a little. If you plan to make a pan sauce, which most people do, then your first job is to not burn the fond. You’ll end up cooking a little deeper into the product which will shorten your finish time in the oven. That’s no big deal. The protein will be fine. You want your fond be intact and golden, with no burned areas at all. It doesn’t take much burned fond to ruin the pan sauce.
Stainless also gives you a blank canvas. While carbon steel holds on to old flavors a lot less than bare cast iron, it still holds on to some degree. Squeaky clean stainless does not. What’s in the pan is what the dish is going to taste like.
There are exceptions, but this lays out the general strategy.
The most reached-for pans in my kitchen are 10" disk bottom stainless steel restaurant supply pans. Everybody sells them – the typical hollow handle with a flattened tab hang hole. I don’t think twice about using them hard.
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Golden information right there, Charlie.
The more I cook, the more I understand the term ‘it’s not so much about the pan, but more about the cook, the technique and the ingredients’
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I too find carbon steel to be quite painful to deal with. Especially at the moment because I stripped most of the seasoning and now I get a bit of rust every time it gets washed. I haven’t bothered to put multiple layers on, and a single layer doesn’t hold up to cleaning after use. As you can tell I am also of the “scrub thoroughly with soap after use” school.
However, I still keep it around and use it regularly. Most of the time I will use by stainless pans, but every now and then I find myself wanting a little less sticking (eg for skin on chicken thighs or fish) and reach for the carbon steel instead. I’m sure I could use the stainless, and probably would if I was making a pan sauce, but I like the comfort of the less sticky carbon.
I don’t have any non-stick at the moment, but will be buying some in the near future. My Danish frikadeller stick to everything else. Maybe that will be when the carbon steel gets retired…
To each their own, and I totally understand why you would chose to ditch the carbon steel pans, Claus!
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You’re not entirely wrong, Claus. But as Charley has put into different words, “screaming hot” and integral sauces usually don’t play well together. I’d put it a little differently: truly high searing is rarely desirable.
I’ll add that dark pans, be they Staub ECI, seasoned CS, or cast iron make it harder to judge when fond is bordering on blackening. Tin, SS and light enamel make it easier to judge when enough is enough.
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Also Charlie the detail you mention about old taste in a new cleaned carbon steel pan. I totally can relate to that.
I cooked some chicken breasts in my fathers carbon steel pan the other day - and since it’s my fathers pan and he is not so fussy about cleaning his cookware, I gave the carbon steel pan a good thorough scrub and wash in detergent before using it, yet when we later sat down and was about to eat the deliciously cooked seared juicy chicken breasts, we both got this slight off taste from fish.
Turns out my father cooked a turbot in the same pan 3 days earlier, but he told me he had washed the pan afterwards in detergent and hot water. Yet still after I washed it once again, we both still got a slight taste of the turbot in out chicken breasts.
Perhaps more flavours bond to a carbon steel pan through the seasoning than in other pans, which aren’t seasoned - I don’t know for sure.
Hi Alexander,
Nice to hear I’m not alone with my need to use clean pans that aren’t prone to rusting, when you wash them down thoroughly.
As you say frikadeller are some of the worst type food you can cook, if you hate sticking.
I have cooked frikadeller in both PLY and carbon steel pans but I now only cook them in my Demeyere Alu Pro non stick pans, because it’s a foolproof method.
I don’t want to feel proud over my technique and seasoning quality by being able to cook frikadeller in a PLY and carbon steel pan, when it’s totally foolproof to cook them in a non stick pan.
So precisely here, knowing what pan to use is actually the key to making better food - so here I’m actually contradicting myself. Sometimes using the correct pan for the job will indeed make a better quality dish.
Cooking is hard work enough.
Being annoyed over your frikadeller sticking to a pan is close to idiotic behaviour, when one can just use a pan that will do the job 100/100 times without sticking while cooking the frikadeller to perfection.
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Super hot sear is nice on a steak that’s going to be unsauced or have Bearnaise, compound butter, or something along those lines - a sauce made separately and having nothing to do with fond.
Or not, something less aggressive tastes fine.
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You can put a carbon steel pan on the heat and in a minute or so you’ll get smells - usually old aromatics and oils, but certainly fish will come through if the pan has been used for it. It’s even worse with bare cast iron.
Neither pan (carbon steel or bare cast iron) will pass the “drinking water test” whereby a glass full of clean water is put in the pan, brought to a rolling boil for a few minutes, left to cool then poured back into the glass-- the water will be funky and essentially undrinkable. Stainless steel passes this test easily and this means each dish stands on its own - it is not fighting with old aromatics, rancid oils, fish, etc.
On the old Chowhound forum, I recall posting a picture of a kitchen, I think it was The French Laundry, where All Clad SS fry pans were stacked ten high next to one of the stations in the kitchen. I’ll see if I can find it later if I have time. I’m not advocating All Clad, though they’re fine, it just looked like what they were using based on the pans’ handles. The point is not the brand, but the fact that SS was what they were using a lot of. Before anybody has a fit, I’m not claiming they used, or use, SS exclusively.
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I’m not aware of any serious professional kitchen that is going to risk cooking a product or dish that tends to stick, in a pan that would tend to make it worse. “Oh, hell, this piece of fish just stuck to the pan” is not a phrase you’re going to hear in a well-run kitchen.
Home cooks really shouldn’t either and I see that you don’t.
There’s more than one video on YouTube of Eric Ripert cooking fish in a Teflon pan, and a pretty darned hot one at that.
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I know this is a big issue for you, Charlie. Do you feel the same way about wooden things like salad bowls, cutting boards, and utensils? What about unglazed ceramics like tajines? Stone dolsots?
I also have to ask if you’re OK with eating dishes cooked in seasoned CS woks. I mean, one minute the wok has given someone ginger fried crab, and the next it turns out an eggy moo shu. In between, it may get a hot water rinse. Can you taste what dish was cooked before yours was fired?
As I’ve said before, recently, I’m a super-taster and smeller and I don’t know if it’s a blessing or a curse. I could as easily have been a master perfumer as a cook.
With regard to food, It’s less an issue on things that are not heated (in the list you’ve mentioned). It’s a big deal on things that are. That said, I have a wooden board that I do all my aromatics on and nothing else but so do other kitchens. I buy wooden spoons by the dozen, when they aren’t handed to me gratis. They go in the dishwasher. When they warp, into the garbage where they’ll eventually recycle as they’re, well, made of wood.
I can go into depth later, perhaps, but not all Asian chefs or chefs cooking Asian food, in NYC at least, use carbon steel for everything. That’s a bit of a stereotype, almost like all African Americans eating cornbread made in cast iron skillets. It’s a stereotype we need to get rid of.
Around here, you’ll get a big eye roll if you mention woks around more than a handful of really accomplished Asian chefs. It’s probably something you should be aware of. Oh, and don’t mention ginger either. NYC is where all these kinds of stereotypes go to die, at least at the high end, and that’s a good thing
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Yeah I have tried cooking them on carbon steel and ply as well - let’s just say that the experience ruined my mood for the evening…
What size Alu Pros are you using? Do you have the trio (20/24/28) as well? Bestsale have 20/24 and 24/28 bundles and I’m trying to decide which ones to get 
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I have recently converted from hot sear to medium heat, flip every two minutes, basting with butter during last minutes. Perfect rare/medium rare, gorgeous sear, diving flavor.
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Perfectly fine technique.
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OK, but the tajine and dolsot examples are heated. Romertopfs and cassoules, too. I’m just wondering if you get carryover from those.
It’d also make sense that if you used a porous wooden spoon one night to serve tomato sauce, when you stir to dissolve sugar for hummingbird nectar the next morning, that wouldn’t pass the drinking water test, either.
Well, OK, I didn’t say all cooks. But don’t you agree that the vast majority using woks do use seasoned CS? Do you only eat in Chinese restaurants that eschew CS woks because of ghosting? How would you know beforehand?
Some places using the particular cooking vessels you seem to be so fixated on offer their interpretation of a regional cuisine that is far more spice-laden than the real thing. I’ve eaten all over North Africa and other places and it simply isn’t the same cuisine I think you’ve experienced. But, yes, a super spicy dish will definitely mask issues with ghosting, even for experienced palates. Developing a “house flavor” in a porous cooking vessel isn’t a problem if you cook mostly the same thing in it all the time - same spices, same oil, etc. In some cultures this would be considered kitchen nirvana.
With regard to “Chinese restaurants,” we have a couple we go to on occasion. If I referred to them as such (a “Chinese restaurant”), we probably would be no longer welcome there. I’m not quite sure that you’re understanding what I’m trying to get at. You’re still assuming that if it’s Asian that it involves a carbon steel wok. I’m telling you that it does not. A lot of Asian chefs in NYC cycled through Le Bernardin, Daniel, Gabriel Kreuther, Per Se, etc. They’ve moved beyond the wok, ginger, and the rest of those kinds of, at this point, unfortunate stereotypes.
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Hi Alexander,
I own the Demeyere Alu Pro frying pan in 24cm & 28cm and the Demeyere Alu Pro high sided frying pan in 24cm & 28cm.
I also own the Demeyere Alu Pro 30 cm wok as well as the Mauviel M’STONE 24cm sauter pan and a couple of Mauviel M’Stone saucepans (used mostly for rice pilaf dishes and bechamel type sauces)
Now that I’m getting rid of all my CS pans, including my Matfer 22 cm omelette/fried egg pan, I’m buying a 20 cm Demeyere Alu Pro to replace that pan.
I’ve actually experimented with this searing technique too the last couple of months too.
It creates less splatter (which in a home kitchen is a nice thing) and I find I get more control over the meat I’m searing.
