How To Cook With Cast Iron

[00:00] This is by far the most inexpensive, durable, multi-use tool you can possibly buy for your kitchen, and everybody is afraid to use it. Not anymore. This is your all-inclusive guide for

[00:13] using cast iron from the beginning of seasoning to cooking with to cleaning. This is the only guide you'll ever need, so let's begin. Before you start cooking, we're going to talk about seasoning. Don't get scared, relax. What the hell is seasoning? All you're doing is creating a protective layer of

[00:32] essentially built up polymerized oil. That's oil that's basically just been blasted so hard with heat into the pan that it's created a hardened layer that's essentially invisible to the eye, but your pan will look matte. Number one, it prevents food from sticking, but number two, it creates

[00:46] a protective layer that keeps your pan looking like this all the time. You can even use soap when you have a proper seasoning, which is that layer, on your pan. It's essentially protected for life. Every time you cook in it, you don't even need to re-season it usually if you keep cooking with it.

[00:59] Because as you cook, you increase the layer of seasoning. Whether you have a pan that's sitting somewhere in your kitchen that's f***ed up and you think is unusable or you have a brand new pan, I'm going to show you what to do. Now, if your pan is f***ed up and it's sitting somewhere,

[01:11] maybe you're thinking about throwing away. Maybe there's rust on it. Maybe there's food all crumpled up on it. It looks disgusting. You can still use it. You can fix it with what I'm about to show you next, which is the stripping portion. First step, you're going to be doing something that you might think

[01:23] is wrong. And well, you know, sometimes two wrongs make a right because this pan is also in a state of what I would consider wrong. That's going to go into a sink into a bowl or some sort of container, we have a bus tub, something that it'll fit in. Or you could even plug up your sink and fill that up.

[01:38] That works too. So you're going to cover with equal parts, water, and white distilled vinegar. So make that around. Make sure that it's thoroughly combined and you're going to let that sit for at least an hour or around two hours. You don't need to strip the pan every time. You don't need to strip it

[01:52] when it's super f***ed up. But if you do need to re-season your pan, simply revisit the seasoning portion of this video. Now, after it's soaked, we're kind of there. A lot of the f***ed up is gone. This is already starting to come off. So at this stage, you're going to sprinkle on baking soda,

[02:07] which obviously is going to react with the vinegar. And then you ever see one of these? These are so dangerous. Oh my god. Metal scouring pads. Be very careful. Maybe wear gloves if you don't have rough and tumble hands. Just get in there. You'll notice that I'm scrubbing in circles. Don't just

[02:21] scrub like, think about it, right? Circles are the best way to scrub. I don't know why. Just scrub into little circles and trust me. Okay, you can dunk in your vinegar mixture. Scrub. Now the point here is to do two things. Number one, clean the pan thoroughly. Get all the s*** out of it. The number two,

[02:35] you want to strip the pan a little bit. The pan is going to look a little bit more silvery than black. And you're just going to repeat this with your entire pan. The inside of the pan, the walls on the inside, the outside, the bottom, the handle, everything. Now once that pan is stripped, you can season it.

[02:49] Look at this guy. It's looking a lot less f***ed up, but still f***ed up. It's okay. I know you're seeing like, oh my god. I rubbed all the sort of black pan look to it. Don't worry. It's going to come back. You're seeing a little bit of raw cast iron in there and that's okay. So we're going to wipe this out.

[03:02] Get it as dry as you can. Get it with a towel. And you're going to see some of that s***. Some of that metal shaving on their towel. So I would recommend using a tea towel that you probably don't plan to keep after this. I would only wash it with a like towels if that makes sense. You might look at this

[03:15] and go, oh, this is dry. You're ready to roll, right? It's not. Cast iron is porous. If you put your hand here, you can immediately see the condensation because there's still water emanating in those pores. So to get that out completely, we're going to take it over to the stove, set it on medium high,

[03:28] explode your kitchen also. And then you're just going to let this sit for like a minute or two until you don't see any more wet spots on the pan that just guarantees that the pan is totally bone dry. We want to do this as quickly as possible because it will start to get a little bit of surface

[03:41] rust. That's okay. We'll wipe it off in a second. Okay, our pan is dry. Take it back up to your linen. Now, from here, we're going to use organic flax seed oil. This is the optimal oil to use because we essentially want it to completely oxidize in the oven. Flax seed oil is basically begging to

[03:57] oxidize. There's also some of that on there. And then using a towel again, the towel that I'm going to throw away, going to wipe the whole thing out. And you're going to see a lot of stuff come off your pan doing this. The oil is part of not only the seasoning process, but the cleaning process.

[04:13] You're going to get everything. Get the handle, the inside of the handle, get this little hanging hook thing, the edges, and the walls of the inside of your pan. You're going to flip it over. You're going to do the same thing on the other side. I want you to get not just the bottom, but the

[04:28] sides of the bottom. I want you to get the underside of the hook dangly hanging foot side. And then finally, I want you to get the whole underside of the handle, the sides of the handle. Absolutely everything. Guys, if that's not an apparent. And then you're essentially just going to wipe off all

[04:42] of that oil. At this stage, we are ready. If you have a f***ed up cast iron pan, it is now ready to be seasoned. If it wasn't at this stage, you were just ready to add another seasoning. Now you're on to your seasoning stage. So you already have applied the oil. If you want to feel extra good about

[04:56] yourself, you could always add another layer. But the key is, this is the most important part about seasoning cast iron. Although you're wiping the oil on, you're coating the surface of the pan. Your goal with your towel should be to wipe off as much of it as you can, because it's going to leave

[05:10] a very thin veneer, no matter what you do, because it's in the crevices in the pores of the metal. If you do not wipe it out enough, what will happen when you season this? And I know you guys have experienced this. My pan was sticky after I season it. That was because there was too much oil in there.

[05:23] You got to basically leave the thinnest veneer possible. Your goal should be to basically try to wipe it all out. We are ready to pop this in our oven. First, on the bottom of your oven, place a sheet tray. And then directly on the rack above that, which would be your middle rack, you're going to set your

[05:36] pan over turn this way down directly over your sheet tray. The oven's totally cold. It's off. Close that, start it, and then you're going to set that to 500 degrees Fahrenheit. Now, once it's preheated to 500

[05:48] degrees Fahrenheit, you're then going to leave it at 500. But the second that they heat dings and says, I'm hot. Set a timer for one hour. Now, we have a beautifully seasoned pan. It's matte. Nothing's feeling sticky in here. This is ready. Now, how do we cook with this? There are three main ways to

[06:03] cook with cast iron. Number one is possibly the most important thing, and I think most people do not get this. It's cast iron. You gotta be really careful. Oh my god, might get fucked up. Literally, just use it like a normal pan. Obviously, it is not a non-stick pan. You can get it close to that,

[06:18] but let's not bully ourselves. It's not a non-stick pan. But it is a cheap pan that has stainless steel capabilities. Cook with it normally. You can make things like steaks in it. Crab cakes. I don't know why I went to crab cakes. I think I really just want a crab cake right now. Saute vegetables. Make

[06:31] chicken thighs. Make pancakes in it. Use it like you would use stainless steel or even a griddle, for example, right? These are great for things like steak. Get your pan. Set your burner in a medium high. Let that get hot. Add a little bit of oil in there. Add a steak that's been seasoned to your

[06:45] liking. Sear for two to three minutes. Flip. Sear for another minute. Add in some butter. Baste it if you like. Take your steak out. Slice and serve. And guess what? You would have done the exact same thing with stainless. It's just cast iron. If anything, you could beat this up even more.

[06:59] You could use different tools that you maybe don't want to use in your nice stainless. The second way, this doubles as your oven's best friend as well as serve where you could serve your guests with this pan because it looks cool. Looks nice, right? You can bake things in this like cobblers, like pies,

[07:15] like pizzas. And it can go in and out of your oven constantly with very minimal cleaning. But the most important thing is because it's so heavy and thick, it doesn't heat up as quickly as stainless steel. I wouldn't make a pie in a stainless steel pan. You could, but frankly, you risk burning because the

[07:30] metal is so thin and the crust ends up burning. But this can handle all of your favorite baked goods. And when you serve this with a bubbling mac and cheese or a bubbling cobbler in the center of a table, I mean, it looks nice. You could give someone a metal spoon and they can they could do this all day

[07:44] want. This pan is almost indestructible and it still looks nice. So, for example, with a cobbler, you would take a cold pan, you don't need to set it on the stove, add whatever fruit you want to add, sugars, spices, et cetera, toss it together, master it at it, top it with whatever drop biscuit dough you

[08:00] want and bake it. It is the easiest dessert, but look how beautiful this is. You set that on a table, put a big fat scoop of vanilla ice cream and let it melt. Let people scrape at that, they're going to be happy. And all of a sudden, they're going to be like, man, I should get my cast iron season.

[08:13] Yeah, you should, Sally. I know you're using your oven as storage space and you're leaving in there, and I know it stinks a little. And number three, the final thing, this isn't just a pan. This is also a fryer, right? A shallow fryer or a deep fryer. In this case, it would be a shallow

[08:29] fryer because it's pan, but if you get a pot version, it becomes a deep fryer. It's the perfect thing for deep frying because when you drop in your fried foods, in this pan, for example, you're making a chicken cutlet or chicken katsu, that oil temperature is going to retain heat much better than it would

[08:42] in stainless steel because of all of the heat that's retained in the pan itself. Baking and frying are the two things that cast iron does that stainless steel can do, but actually not as well. And that's

[08:54] hard for me to admit, but it's true. For example, adding just enough vegetable oil to fill it up halfway, we heated it until 350 Fahrenheit. We have a beautiful breaded chicken cutlet that goes in and fries for about four to six minutes until a crispy golden brown and cooked throughout. Then you just set it

[09:09] down, maybe serve it with a little bit of katsu sauce and coupi mayo, some fresh green onion, and guess what? This is actually the easiest method to clean because you just toss your oil as you usually would, and if just give it a little white, maybe a little bit of hot water in there, that's done.

[09:22] The point in frying is the oil goes in, you heat the oil to a specific temperature, you put the food in until it's done. That's it. It's amazing. But Josh, what are all the things I'm not supposed to cook in a cast iron pan? Everybody told me I should never put tomatoes in a cast iron pan, or it will

[09:34] literally turn into a demonic void that unleashes the hellscape that's been residing in the center, hot magma of the earth, and it will take over the rest of the world, mineral engineer AI to compete against me in my work. That's a fair concern these days. You can put acidic foods in them. It's fine.

[09:50] Just be aware that the longer that they sit in there, the more likely it'll start to have kind of an iron flavor. Don't let them sit in there for too long. Don't let the pan cool down and then spoon it out of there. The point is get it in, get it out of the pan as quickly as you can. Try to avoid

[10:04] too many acidic ingredients. The one thing that I don't love using cast iron for and I really would advise not using it for is boiling water. It's really not great for it. I'd rather you go get a cheap aluminum pot that you keep to the side for pasta and just boiling water stuff in general.

[10:18] I don't think that this is the right pan for boiling any kind of water, so don't do that. And then the third and final thing, and this is not a no-no zone. It's more of just like a, it's not my first pick. It's really, really delicate. High fat fish. Yes, you can black

[10:32] in fish in this really nicely, but if the fish is something that will fall apart in the pan, I would opt for frying that fish in this pan, like breading and frying and shallow frying or deep frying or doing some sort of a blackening where there's a lot of oil in the pan. Not a no-no,

[10:45] you just need to be super aware of how you use it. So the best way to clean this pan is while it's still warm or hot. So usually what I do is first I have my hot pan that I've just finished cooking this steak in. First you'll sprinkle the pan with a generous amount of salt. Scrub that with chain mail or

[11:00] a metal scouring pad, remove any stuck on debris, and then take it to your sink, add in some hot water, scrub aggressively. Don't use any plastic to clean this while it's this hot because the plastic will melt, rinse it out with water, and it's good as new. Once that's done, you need to dry it immediately and

[11:13] completely with the towel, and then you're going to take a step further. I would recommend that you set it over a medium or low heat burner until all of the liquid has been evaporated off the pan, even after wiping it down because sometimes it gets stuck in the pores. That's it. It's 10,000 times

[11:28] easier. Scrub off any particulate matter that's stuck to it. If the pan is ripping, ripping, ripping, hot, just be cautious adding water that's too cold because you can crack the pan sometimes if you completely submerge it in ice cold water. A lot of people over obsess with, oh you do this, don't do

[11:42] this. Cast iron pans are essentially indestructible. Unless you manage to find a way to crack one in half, it's likely still usable. You just gotta learn how to fix it. And once you learn how to use cast iron, it will last not only the rest of your life, but your children's life, their lives, etc, etc, etc.

[11:57] Do we have a study yet on when a cast iron runs out? I don't think society is old enough yet. I'm not a history buff, guys. If I'm wrong here, just leave me alone. Subscribe! Love you so much! Bye!