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Ingredients of the week: Mushrooms,Cranberries, Brassica, Beetroot, Potatoes, Cabbage, Carrots, Nutritional Yeast, Miso, Buckwheat
Cuisine of the month:
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For the hob/burner: Stainless steel is pretty versatile and you can put it in the dishwasher. I also have a cast iron that I use for things like eggs that need a bit of 'non-stick'. You have to hand wash it though and take care not to damage the seasoning.
For the oven: Stainless steel or pyrex if you want something that retains heat. Some people love their enameled cast iron but that stuff is so expensive that I've never bothered with it.
Additional notes on cast iron care: There are a lot of guys out there for whom caring for their cast iron pans is their entire identity. They buy special oils and have their little routines for caressing their special little cast iron baby and you should pay no attention to any of them.
I upbear all a' this. Though enamaled cast iron isn't too bad if you avoid all the stupid expensive brands, I can get pans ~$25 per. An often untold beauty of cast iron and steel pans is they both actually provide you nutrients - Cooking in cast iron meaningfully increases your iron intake, and steel gives you some iron and other trace metals you actually need.
I do about 90% of my cooking in two cast iron pans, and fully agree with your last point. I was very hesitant after all the chatter about upkeep, but in 3 years since changing to cast iron, I've only ever done one thing - handwash and dry it. Never seasoned it, nothin'.
I fry stuff, cook stews in 'em, tomato, omelettes, pancakes, scrape the fuck out of 'em, wash with mild soap when needed. These pans do everything for me, and all I do is keep 'em dry. The pan is still great at non-stick, no rust, works perfectly. I'm sure it must have its place, but from my perspective, seasoning is a scam.
My cast iron pan routine can be entirely summed as "After cooking, wash it by hand for 5-10 seconds with a chainmail scourer, then leave on the hob to dry with residual heat."
I do season once in a blue moon (as in, I rub in a tiny bit of sunflower oil before heating the pan) but only when necessary. And it is possible to fuck up the seasoning in my experience, but the nice thing about cast iron is that you can always fix it pretty easily. And to be honest the easiest way to fuck them up is by following one of those insane reddit seasoning routines lol. If you fry with plenty of oil at least some of the time, there shouldn't be a problem.
I've fucked up my seasoning a couple times, usually due to me being impatient. Just put it in your oven on a self cleaning cycle and that takes the pan back to raw cast iron. Then start over with your seasoning.
You don't even need to go that far ime — if it's just a bit damaged you can season right over the top. If it's flakey (which is probably because you over-seasoned it in the first place) scrubbing it back with a wire scourer is enough. There are people on the internet who take it all the way back to bare metal with electrolysis, but there's just no need imo
The flaking is usually because you didn't clean it hard enough and you ended up building a layer of seasoning over some carbonized shit in the pan. Once you realize how tough cast iron is it gets even easier to take care of.
Yeah for sure — the learning curve is learning how easy it actually is
Honestly, I feel like pots and pans should all be hand washed. Maybe I'm crazy lol.
You also don't have to take all that much care to not damage the seasoning. All that weird advice comes from the days when soap had lye in it. Don't soak it though obviously.
I dunno I think with stainless steel it's probably better for the pan to put it through the dishwasher than going at it with a scourer. Using the dishwasher also saves water over hand-washing, somewhat counterintuitively
A little bit of powdered detergent and hot water will lift damn near everything out of a stainless pan.
Not damaging the seasoning isn't that hard. Just use soap and a cloth. Re-seasoning is also super easy