Claus, if one would take Tim’s excellent statement as a starting point, my question to you would be:
what do your current frying pans miss that you are trying to get by buying a new pan?
Answering this would help in making a good choice, including perhaps sticking with what you have (boring though, I know…).
I’m just playing around trying to test the best frying pans out there for searing steaks.
Carbon steel pans do an excellent searing job, and if it wasn’t for the fact that they don’t like wine that much, I would live happily not thinking about other type pans for searing.
I’m also a restless individual, always looking for something new.
My Proline and copper pans can sear steaks very well.
And I can deglaze in abundance of wine afterwards.
Had just forgotten about the Lagostina Lagofusion frying pans and the fact you still can get 3.0 copper.
This thread reminded me of this.
I already have better pans and pots than 99% of the worlds population, so I’m just playing around a little and in that process listening to what other people use.
Combining Pilgrim’s caramel story with mine, I’d guess it’s something along the lines of
My, what a range of opinions!
My own is that, in most cases (and with some exceptions), a pan’s materials and construction don’t matter. Seared proteins tend to crust and release from all surfaces, and fond/sucs are left behind–even with nonstick.
And I think that–under most circumstances–extreme evenness and heat retention aren’t super important, either. Most cooks do not fire >2 steaks at a time. And very few goose the heat to replenish; most hobs are powerful enough to replenish in short order. Four baseball steaks in a 12" pan might be an exception.
Another factor that muddies thinking about meaningful answers is temperature. I was taught that “searing” happens as low as 400F, which is not exactly screaming hot. Note that fond will ultimately burn that low anyway. So it’s safe to sear even in tinned copper, yet people THINK searing is 'way hotter.
I think where pan choice can make a difference is in finishing. My mom was a master at using residual heat (in her case from cast iron) to finish and rest steaks just by leaving them in the pan over a deadened hob. But if the plan is to make a pan sauce, this would require finishing in a different way.
I think answers to the OP turn less on truths about different pans, and more on the individual cook’s preferences about method, convenience, tradition, etc. Part of this is completely rational–if your steaks are dialled in on X hob and Y setting, and in Z pan, that pan will likely get named “best”,
and the reason(s) given don’t much matter.
Thus, the difference between quixotic and chaotic. Making a reasonable choice, sticking to it, and then working on your cooking knowledge and skills 
it also depends on the thickness in conjunction with how you like it done - i.e. rare-to-well.
I use a smoking hot pan for thick cuts - with an oven finish.
I’ve found using cooler temps tends to over cook the first ~1/2" of the cut.
thinner cuts can be done sear-flip-sear with reasonable control of the doneness.
And you’re making pan sauces in the pan that just seared at screaming hot?
no - that’d be pretty silly . . . (g) after the sear the steak goes on a rack over pan/tray in the over to air sous vide to medium rare.
while that’s happening the pan has cooled and the sauce be done.
I think sticking with what you already have can be the opposite of boring. Smiling as I pick up a pan with half a century of use and the scuffs, dings, and dulled tin to show, it I feel the happiness of an old friend. Plus there is no need to move things around to make room for a replacement and nothing needs to find a new home.
My thoughts exactly. I know how my “pudding and rice” saucepan works, and I don’t have to worry about scorching or burning.
I can recall the bargain I got on the cast iron roaster when a kitchen store was having a moving/clearance sale.
I can pull out the trusty tri-ply skillet and not have to wonder how many cutlets I can fit in it.
This has turned into quite an interesting thread.
I wish I was more like Tim (Vecchiouomo), Damiano and others, that will stay with what they got and get it to work. And what they have now is already top of line cookware.
I really am more like Tim, than many thinks.
Just because I post a thread asking what other people prefer for searing followed by a lengthy deglazing in wine for a pan sauce, doesn’t mean I’m buying all the pans people are preferring as their favourite pans for this particular cooking technique.
But I enjoy reading what other people like and prefer and like to argue and question if what I and they do is the optimal route.
I’m going to stay with my rust prone carbon steel pans since I don’t have the heart to sell them. I simply love (and hate) these pans too much now. I’d had to almost give my two Darto’s away, since no man or woman in Denmark know what Darto as a cookware brand is.
But I’ll find space for 4 extra frying pans somewhere (2 Falk 2.5 copper & 2 Lagostina Lagofusion) since I love to experiment with different pans - cookware has become one of my (too many) hobbies now too.
My wife looks at me with rolling eyes and I understand her. Yet another pan in the household - is that pan & pot number 60 now ?
As Kaleo states - most pans will sear a stake pretty well. The end result between a steak seared in my Mauviel M’Cook frying pan, my De Buyer Mineral B Pro carbon steel pan, my De Buyer Inocuivre 2.0 copper pan and my Demeyere Proline won’t be drastically different.
But I still have to say the Achilles heel of carbon steel pans is exposed when I want to make a looooong thorough red wine deglaze in the CS pan after searing the steak to make a reduction pan sauce is quite vividly exposed, when I then taste a weird off taste in the sauce afterwards - partly coming from parts of the polymerised oil seasoning and partly coming from the iron reacting with acidic fluids in the lab. My tastebuds can sense this.
On the other hand carbon steel pans and raw cast iron pans are still so versatile pans, that they most certainly are here to stay, no matter how relatively unevenly they heat. As Andrew (am47) states - just place the pan in the hot oven before using it for searing on the hob and you’ll get a pretty even searing.
Thank you to all for reading and taking part in this thread.
Thanks to all for you different approaches to how you sear your steak and to how you make your wine reduction pan sauce afterwards.
Our definitions of ‘screaming hot’ must differ.
Didn’t quite understand the comment either. Once a screaming hot pan hits the oven, the temperature will decrease to the point where a few minutes later you can easily make a pan sauce on the stove again.
True. This is what has led me to use my 24 cm saute pan for a thousand different preparations, from making fish soup and parboiling asparagus to indeed searing a steak once.
Ah so you’re going to get Falk copper and Lagostina? Nice, congrats!
You know that Falk Europe has a promotion running now, for existing clients only? 25% off everything.
Few comments. Why not try doing a different approach than red wine reduction? The better steak I buy, the less I add - to the point where if I buy a 30 euro steak for 1 person I will only add salt and pepper. No sauce at all. The fat in the steak will give you all the flavour.
Preheating. Carbon steel (and copper) for searing I preheat to Leidenfrost, just. Never in the oven. As the guy in the dover sole video above says, if the pan is too hot, any butter will burn. But if the pan isn’t hot enough, the juices inside the meat won’t seal.
People sometimes complain about carbon steel not being as even heating as copper or thick aluminum disc bottom but my experience suggests evenness of heating is less important when searing a steak.
Both copper and carbon steel excel in providing this delicate balance between being hot enough to sear and seal juices inside, but still giving control to prevent butter burning.
Please keep us updated on the Falk and Lagostina!
Hi Damiano,
I’m probably getting the Falk 2.5 Trio frying pans 20/24/28 and that trio never comes for sale as it’s already down by 25-30%. I’ve had that trio on my radar for a year or two now. Pulling the trigger soon.
As for the Lagostina Lagofusion frying pans, I got to find extra cabinet room for them somewhere in the condo - now that I’m keeping my 5 carbon steel pans.
I had already made ads for them and had placed them for sale - my De Buyer Mineral B Pro 24/28 together with my little Matfer Bourgeat 22 cm pan and then in another ad had my two Darto’s N25/N27 together with my almost unused Falk 18 cm 2.5 copper saucier.
But the prices people are willing to pay made me reconsider and I would probably have repurchased them again within 1-2 years anyway - because I have this love/hate relationship with carbon steel pans 
LOL
Still many THANKS for reminding me of the Falk 25% off sake for regular customers.
Thanks for your tip, Damiano.
I sound like I constantly do wine sauces, but I actually quite rarely do them, but it’s WHEN I WANT to do them, that carbon steel pans really annoys me. They suck in that regard. That’s just how they are. Love them & hate them.
I wash my carbon steel pans really thoroughly after each use, so I know very well, I won’t get that deep dark seasoning in my CS pans. I still have a rugged dark seasoning in my CS pans, but it’s not that deep and I can sense the off taste from the iron in the pan reacting with wine and the polymerised oil seasoning too in the pan sauces I make in CS pans.
But I really don’t make wine reduction pan sauces that often any longer. Nor do I make reduction sauces in my sauciers that often anymore. I’m becoming more Italian inspired than French inspired in my cooking these days.
You know what I mean here.
Well to me Andrews way of preheating cast iron and carbon steel pans in the oven prior to searing in them on the stovetop does make sense to me as it prevents the risk of warping a pan on the stovetop by preheating it empty to somewhat near Leidenfrost temperature.
With that said I rarely do it myself. I just preheat my carbon steel pans empty on the stovetop at relatively low heat for 10-15 minutes before adding the steak to the pan.
I never reverse sear steaks, as I find that technique makes even more stovetop splatter and I don’t find it gives me a better steak than my two preferred ways of searing a steak, which is stovetop from start to finish or with really thick gigantic steaks - stovetop first, then into the hot oven for the finish.
The OP idea is to use “the” pan for both the sear and, later, the sauce. This is pretty seamless for thinner steaks seared short of “screaming hot”–the fond left by the steak doesn’t have much chance to get dark, embitter, or burn. Meanwhile, the steaks finish and rest.
But if you start deglazing as soon as the steaks are removed from that screaming hot pan, there is time and heat for those bad things to happen, even if the pan is taken completely off the heat. How much time depends, but a cup of wine/stock added to a 400F pan is more akin to steam cleaning than deglazing, IMO.
There’s also the issue of oil in a very hot pan. For something “screaming”, I’m more inclined to not oil the pan at all, and maybe just put a light wipe of oil on the steak beforehand.
Some of the best crusts, best fond and best sauces I’ve made were produced closer to what many people call “pan frying”. I prefer a certain color and texture in crusts, and I’m willing to forego the thinnest possible grey band to get them. If I want a quick steak with a pan reduction, I’m going for one pan, a short time, and no baking/SV.
I’ve taken a love to blackened steak. I know, blackened is so 80’s. Put you put the steak in a hot pan, no oil, then dump butter over the top.
I’ll have the steaks rubbed up with bacon fat before I spice them and put them in the hot pan, though.
The methodI have arrived at is heating the pan until that black pan floor is looking a little ashy because it’s so hot. I salt the bottom and toss in a cold steak. After a bit I flip it. Then I turn the heat to about medium, put a couple of pats of butter on top, and flip it a few times to get an even crust and a rare middle. After that if I want a pan sauce, it is cool enough but still hot enough to reduce the wine. A tablespoon of reduction is plenty for me.
You be you! You are cool, and I know I would enjoy what you prepare.
