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Eat Your Books » Recipes & Ingredients » Recipes & Cooking Advice » Cooking without cast iron

Cooking without cast iron

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bittrette

#1 Posted : Friday, January 19, 2024 2:09:42 PM(UTC)

I'm reading all over the place that a cast-iron skillet and a cast-iron Dutch oven are essentials for the kitchen - not nice-to-haves but must-haves. But I'm physically too weak to handle a cast-iron Dutch oven, and possibly also a cast-iron skillet - if I'm in danger of dropping one when it's empty, how much more so when it's filled with food. So for cooking I depend on pots and pans without cast iron - the only cast-iron utensils I have are trivets.
So am I fooling myself if I aspire to prepare good food without cast iron? If not, then why do food writers never take muscular weakness into account when they recommend cookware?

Rinshin

#2 Posted : Friday, January 19, 2024 4:12:18 PM(UTC)

Are you able to lift 3.5 pound weight (8 in skillet) How about 2 pound (6 inch skillet) How many people are you normally cooking for?

I have various sizes in skillets, dutch ovens etc that I purchased mostly older used ones via ebay at least 20-15 years ago. Of all, my favorite one is 10 in skillet weighing 5 pounds. I use this often when grilling steaks, burgers, chicken, and pork over high heat with weight on top. I can lift it using my dominant hand, but not my weak hand. It is not used as tossing frying pan like woks.

I love the 10 inch skillet. It grills like no other. How about checking 8 inch skillet? It should handle two steaks.

bittrette

#3 Posted : Friday, January 19, 2024 7:40:49 PM(UTC)

Are you talking about cast-iron or non-cast-iron cookware?

I usually cook full recipes (for 4 to 8) and eat and freeze leftovers.

Fyretigger

#5 Posted : Friday, January 19, 2024 8:26:20 PM(UTC)

There are definitely light weight alternatives to cast iron. This website goes into some depth and gives example weights for a number of pieces:
https://prudentreviews.c...st-lightweight-cookware/

Enameled cast iron certainly seems to be the gold standard of Dutch Ovens. But do you do the things you need a Dutch Oven for? A full 5 quart Dutch Oven, the food alone will weigh 10 pounds. This might be okay for stove top use and serving out of the pot, and transferring from the pot to storage containers. But for an oven braise, that is still going to be lifting around 15 pounds in and out of the oven with the lightest of Dutch Ovens. Only you can decide if you can manage that type of cooking.

For skillets, you mostly care about the pan bottom. Many skillets with thick, or special material bottoms are available, that provide the even heat of cast iron at lighter weights. You only need the same qualities in the sides if you do the sort of cooking where you finish in the oven; the same sorts of things you'd do with a Dutch Oven, but in smaller quantities. You don't need the heavy sides for sautéing or frying steaks or that sort of thing.

bittrette

#6 Posted : Friday, January 19, 2024 9:00:33 PM(UTC)

So if I make a stew in my 6qt soup pot with a heavy bottom but not heavy sides, will there be any chance that the stew will be worth eating?

Fyretigger

#7 Posted : Friday, January 19, 2024 9:27:35 PM(UTC)

bittrette;49541 wrote:

<p>So if I make a stew in my 6qt soup pot with a heavy bottom but not heavy sides, will there be any chance that the stew will be worth eating?</p>

On the stove top, absolutely! Stews, soups, stocks, etc, the heat coming all from under the pot is fine. And you’ll be fine for browning the meat at the start. Even braising will work fine. Braising may take longer than it would in the oven, since the heat is entirely coming from the bottom, but heat rises, so it will still work.

bittrette

#8 Posted : Friday, January 19, 2024 11:30:51 PM(UTC)

Thank you, Fyretigger.

What I take from this is that the food writers who say that every home cook MUST have a cast-iron Dutch oven are young and strong, or at least middle-aged and strong, and they make their youthful strength into the standard, even if that means making the perfect the enemy of the good.

I might add that my kitchen is small so there is no room for bulky appliances.

Rinshin

#4 Posted : Saturday, January 20, 2024 4:24:00 AM(UTC)

bittrette;49539 wrote:

Are you talking about cast-iron or non-cast-iron cookware?

I usually cook full recipes (for 4 to 8) and eat and freeze leftovers.

cast iron. I like Griswold or Wagner vintage. Smoother than new ones. The one I use the most is Wagner.

Marimar

#9 Posted : Saturday, January 20, 2024 10:09:29 AM(UTC)

Field Company produces light weight cast iron skillets that are smooth and easy to maintain

ellabee

#11 Posted : Saturday, January 20, 2024 11:56:35 AM(UTC)

I developed a new relationship with my cookware during recent years of illness, and can confidently say that most people don't _need_ a cast iron pan, bare or enameled, for anything. Braises and stews cooked conventionally on stovetop or oven in enameled cast iron are just as tasty made in a pressure cooker (stovetop or electric), with much less weight and use of gas or electricity.

The one thing that cast iron skillets do better than any other material is sear meat. (The 1930s 9-inch skillet I inherited from my mother is big enough for two steaks or chops, and was at the upper limit of what I could handle during my recovery. I've now gone a long time w/o using the much heavier 10.5-inch skillet; until just recently, I couldn't easily move it from shelf to stove.) But even if you're regularly searing things, there are acceptable lighter alternatives: carbon steel, or stainless pans with a thick aluminum base.

I'm grateful to have recovered enough strength to be able to use my existing pots & pans, most of which are on the heavy end of the spectrum (stainless-lined copper, tri-ply stainless, and both hard and enameled cast iron). But if I hadn't, I'd be looking seriously at getting a lighter-weight everyday skillet, and do all braising in the pressure cooker (stainless w/ thick aluminum base) rather than the ten-pound braiser.

Rinshin

#10 Posted : Tuesday, January 23, 2024 8:47:57 AM(UTC)

Marimar;49545 wrote:

Field Company produces light weight cast iron skillets that are smooth and easy to maintain

Thank you, that is definitely great alternative to the vintage hard to find Wagner or Griswold and American made. Smoother the better.

The best use for cast iron is for searing as ellabee mentioned.

Marimar

#12 Posted : Tuesday, January 23, 2024 10:19:22 AM(UTC)

You are welcome, Rinshin. Yes, it is a good option, and I think a cheaper one. Since I had cancer, the nutritionist told me to eat a lot of protein. I use it every now and then to cook steaks.

Rinshin

#13 Posted : Tuesday, January 23, 2024 12:53:59 PM(UTC)

Marimar;49562 wrote:

You are welcome, Rinshin. Yes, it is a good option, and I think a cheaper one. Since I had cancer, the nutritionist told me to eat a lot of protein. I use it every now and then to cook steaks.

Good advice Marimar. Mine told me to reduce or remove sugar as she feels sugar may be indirectly involved in the development of cancer.

Marimar

#14 Posted : Tuesday, January 23, 2024 3:41:47 PM(UTC)

Rinshin;49566 wrote:

Good advice Marimar. Mine told me to reduce or remove sugar as she feels sugar may be indirectly involved in the development of cancer.

Oh, Rinshin, yes, that too is a good advice, let´s hope we will all enjoy a healthy life full of interesting gastronomic books/cookbooks and small and big adventures.

Barb_N

#15 Posted : Thursday, January 25, 2024 10:29:20 AM(UTC)

I have my share of cast iron and love them for stovetop to oven dishes like Dutch babies. I also have a cast iron griddle/ ridged pan. I recently switched to non stick skillets in a range of sizes. My impetus was trying to invert and flip a rosti. 12" cast iron is too heavy for me to invert w/o asking for help. I am mid-sixties but consider myself strong. My cast iron griddle lives at the bottom of the stack and is rarely used now that there are no kids wanting pancakes.

StokeySue

#16 Posted : Monday, January 29, 2024 7:47:12 PM(UTC)

It's interesting.

Here in the U.K. and as far as I know in most of Europe, there just isn't the same feeling that you need to have cast iron.

It is available of course, and some people swear by it, the Le Creuset and similar enamelled cast iron pans are still quite popular but I think they are going out of fashion a bit - Le Creuset themselves seem to sell as much stainless steel cookware now (I'd love some of their tri-ply stainless pans, which conduct heat really well, but are light and easy to clean).

we can also get, and I know people who use, cast iron skillets, but our tradition is "black iron" - spun iron - which is used much the same but is not nearly as heavy, my pan is nearly 50 years old and going strong

https://www.netherton-fo...ade-in-England/spun_iron

Barb_N

#17 Posted : Saturday, February 3, 2024 10:19:55 AM(UTC)

I see the advantages of spun iron cookware and the process is interesting but it is expensive. You can get a 3 skillet set of cast iron for less than $25. I bought mine at the hardware store.

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