care and feeding of stainless steel pans?

[politicat]

I picked one up yesterday, since I'm thinking it's time to get away from the teflon, not htat I have any idea what we can go to, since we're not supposed to use ferrous metals for cooking (DH stores iron the way squirrels store nuts.)

How do I take care of this pan? What should I not do to it?

[Stinky The Clown]

1. Don't not use it

other than that, stainless steel cookware is pretty carefree. It can go in the dishwasher. You can use metal utensils in it.

One thing that kinda sorta harms it is salt. Lemme 'splain ......

If you're getting ready to boil macaroni (a **very** frequent ritual at mi casa) you put water in the pot and bring it to a boil. Then ya add some salt. Then ya add some macaroni. Then ya boil it. Then ya drain it. Then ya smile cuz its good.

When you add that salt in step two, the salt can cause minor pitting on the bottom inside of a stainless steel pot. It won't hurt anything. It is inert. But it pits. No way to stop it. No need to worry about it. The pan still cooks and the food's still good.

Another affliction is 'bluing'. If you cook starchy food that remains in contact with the bottom of the pot, you will see a blue 'ghost' of the starch item (little blue rice grains or little blue elbow macaronis or little blue spuds cubes). Another issue that hurts nothing. But they don't go away on their own.

How do you get rid of them?

This stuff works miracles.



It is as cheap as any other cleanser. You get it at the local soopermarket. It cleans stainless like magic. Also copper and brass and the chrome on the ol' SUV's bumper. Use it in the batchroom and the laundry. This stuff is nonabrasive (like Bon Ami) but also contains a mild acid that cuts the tougher stuff (like bluing) and the stains. We even used it to clean the old chrome kitchen set that's now in our house. It came out looking like brand spanking new.



For your new stainless steel pan, use it when it needs it. Otherwise, just clean it with soap and water. Or in the dishwasher.

The real downside of stainless steel cookware? It is a poor conductor of heat. That's why almost all of it has some metal to enhance conductivity. Copper bottoms. Aluminum disk bottoms. TriPly construction (copper or aluminum core). Thin stainless steel pans are prone to scorch food. The conductivity enhancing devices really help.

[hvn_nbr_2]

2. Pitting from salt, bluing, Bar Keepers Friend

I've heard/read that the pitting of stainless steel is specifically from heating undissolved salt. So if you dissolved the salt in cold water before heating or even dissolved it in some separate water and added that water to the heating water in the pan, there wouldn't be a problem. Or even added a small amount of salt to hot water so that it dissolved almost instantly. I don't have any definite idea how valid that is. I've never seen pitting in my stainless, even back when I used to add salt to pasta cooking water. Getting older now, high blood pressure, hardly ever use salt anywhere except in bread now.

As for the bluing, I never knew what that was about. Thanks. Depending on the angle that you hold it in the light, it has a rainbow effect like an oil slick. Unless I'm talking about something different. I've used Farberwear Stainless Steel and Aluminum Cleaner on that successfully and also on just general dulling of the shine over time, but the Bar Keepers Friend looks like it might be easier and more convenient. (Bar Keepers Friend stovetop cleaner for my halogen stove doesn't work very well for burned-on stuff.)

[NMDemDist2]

3. don't know what a halogen top is, but my glasstop stove I need to

take a razor scraper to it and get the burnt bits off, then BKF works awesome to remove the stains

i don't use any special BKF, just the regular stuff

(note to self, put BKF on the shopping list... can is low)

[hvn_nbr_2]

20. The top itself is glass, or something glass-like

The heating elements are halogen. They look like the new style of traffic lights, some concentric circles of little red dots that glow and get hot. I've heard to scrape stuff with a knife but it always made me nervous that that would scratch the glass.

[NMDemDist2]

21. that's why i use a razor scraper

it's flat and doesn't dig in

like this one...

[hvn_nbr_2]

22. Thanks. That looks worth a try. n/t

[OldLeftieLawyer]

4. Bless your heart.....

I've been using Bon Ami, which works really well, but I'm going to get some of this stuff post-haste.

I got rid of all our Teflon a while back, and picked up a great set of cookware at Costco. I'm really, really happy with it, and now it feels like cooking again. Nice browned edges on the fried eggs, things like that.

(Politicat, if it's at all possible, and no one's come up with the suggestion yet, make sure your husband is a regular blood donator at the Red Cross. It's the classic treatment for hemochromatosis, but I'm sure you already know this.)

[politicat]

10. Boy is a multi-gallon donor.

It still makes his endo and his GP annoyed when his iron levels get high. We're big on the blood-letting around here. (We're both O Neg, so Bonfils (our local blood bank) just LOOOOOOVES us.)

How much oil do you have to use with the stainless? Can I use non-stick spray or do i need to actually put oil in the pan?

[Warpy]

12. Stainless steel is still ferrous metal

only it has chromium mixed in so that it is resistant to staining from a lot of the things that will ruin plain steel, like acid foods. Iron can still leach into acid foods from a stainless steel pot, although not the quantities you'd get from cast iron, no matter how well seasoned.

I've always been very unhappy with stainless steel skillets because food does tend to stick to them and stick its tongue out at me and dare me to get it off without screwing up the mirror like finish. My ex husband got the stainless steel pots when I left; I took the wok, cast iron skillets, and Teflon coated aluminum saucepans.

My suggestion for frypans would be Le Creuset. Yes, you do have to be careful when using it not to chip it, but the finish will release stuck on stuff when you soak it off with a little baking soda and nothing will leach from the pot into the food.

It's a suggestion for keeping completely away from ferrous metal and Teflon.

Of course, if you can afford Le Creuset (try dealing with Caplan-Duval in Canada for good prices), you can also afford Calphalon. Nothing sticks to that, it will all soak off.

[politicat]

15. I thought Calphalon was just Fancy Teflon?

What am I missing here?

(Okay, I don't spend enough time in Bed, Bath and Beyond My Budget. Mostly because I don't want to get in trouble... but I do need to replace skillets in the near future; they're just wearing badly - not scratched, but they don't look right.)

We are going to get one of the enameled cast iron skillets at Sears - they're made in the US and appear to be equivalent to Le Creuset.

DH's endo gave him the thumbs up on stainless, since it is less ferrous than cast iron (DH's preference.)

Want the "God is an Iron" punchline of this whole cookware and blood issue?

...

I'm mildly anemic in the winters and my GP wants me to USE cast iron.

[Stinky The Clown]

18. Calphalon is a brand, not a type .....

The gray stuff is anodized aluminum, not teflon. Now, Calphalon started with the anodized aluminum stuff but has since branched waaaaaaaaay out. They now make stainless to compliment the anodized stuff and both the anodized and the stainless may or may not have teflon. Then they have several quality lines.

But in the end, Calphalon is a brand name.

[Warpy]

19. Don't pay BB&B's prices for cookware

Watch the sales at Amazon. Typically, those prices are less than half what you'd expect to pay for Calphalon in a bricks and mortar store.

Caplan-Duval in Canada generally has better prices on Le Creuset, though.

[OldLeftieLawyer]

13. It depends.....

I don't use non-stick sprays. Olive oil and butter, that's all. Actually, it doesn't take much - I've used too much in scrambling eggs and not enough in frying Virginia ham, so I'm still learning.

But, boy, the food's SO much better.

And congratulations on the blood donor stuff. I can't give blood (in my youth, time in the Amazon jungle left me the gift of amoebic dysentery), so I'm always impressed with people who do it, for whatever reason. And, the universal donor type is, indeed, the gift of life.

[politicat]

16. We'd thought we were not going to be able to donate....

when we started several years ago - I lived in the UK for 6 months in 1978, then in Kiev for several months since 1980 and DH is a Gulf War (Iraq I) vet. But Bonfils has been happy so far... I have to quit from January through April, so I am not quite so prolific as Mr. Bleed 'em and weep....

We use this:
(well... not this one. Ours is mercifully logoless.) I have two - one for olive oil and one for canola oil, since banana bread tastes funny with an olive oil release in the pan. But they work like the non-stick sprays. (And the pump action is kind of like that old teenage "we must, we must, we must increase our busts" bit....)

[NMDemDist2]

6. hey H2S, can I use the Bon Ami on my sink? I have both BKF and

Bon Ami but my BKF is getting really low.......

[Stinky The Clown]

9. Sure you can, but it isn't nearly as effective as BKF

Bon Ami and BKF are similar in that tey both use a non-scratching abrasive. They differ in that BKF has a **very** mild acid (citric?) added to it. That's what gets metal really clean.

[Tab]

7. Since you're giving out cleaning advice...

any tricks to keeping plastic containers from staining with tomato sauce?

I hate to use plastic to store either tomato or anything with tumeric, as it stains and never cleans. I know it doesn't hurt the storage, but it just looks so awful.

[NMDemDist2]

8. sounds weird, but it may work

leave it out in the strong sunshine

and then oil with EVOO or Pam before putting tomato sauce in then next time

[Stinky The Clown]

11. I use this to deal with stained plastic storage containers .......

My ex took all the tupperware with her when she and I parted ways some 15 (or so) years ago. And I'm glad she did. It had all stained. Now we use Gladware, or similar semi-disposable containers.



We also use a lot of glass storage containers that look pretty much like these new ones ........

They never stain! We enjoy buying and using the old refrigerator containers from the 40s and 50s. They really work. If they need to be sealed, we use plastic wrap topped with the glass lid.

See, here's the thing ...... plastic is chemically almost identical to oil. That's why they often feel greasy when they've held something high in fat. The fat literally bonds to the plastic and they never really get fully clean. The colors in certain foods, tomatoes for one, are based on a fat-like substance. Not true fat, but close enough that it too tends to stain plastic. Look at an old rubber spatula or plastic ladle or spoon. They get stained too.

[OldLeftieLawyer]

14. Do you hear the theme

from "The Twilight Zone" playing in the background?

About six months ago, we did exactly the same thing. Went to the Container Store and bought a heavy load of glass containers (made in Italy, which pleased me for some odd, chauvinistic reason), and later, at the Corning Ware outlet at Potomac Mills, bought a bunch of those glass containers in your lowest photo. Dark brown, though.

I just suddenly got all creepy about all that plastic, and that was that. Sort of like the Teflon thing with cookware.

We store all leftovers in glass, which just feels better.

[DemExpat]

23. Ask my husband,........I purged our home of plastic containers

and teflon within the past 6 months as well.....:think:

He wasn't thrilled, but never gets in the way of my projects.
:D

DemEx

[NMDemDist2]

24. wise man

:rofl:

[OldLeftieLawyer]

25. Well done, Dem ...........

Old Yeller here wouldn't notice if I were keeping leftovers in rabbit fur and cooking in brain pans.

This ensures him a long and healthy life.

Until my new woodchipper is delivered........................

[politicat]

17. Thank you!

With the chaos of the past 48 hours, I haven't had a chance to play with it yet, but hopefully, that's for tomorrow. (DU is, as long as I stay out of GD, a respite from the real world, and as good as a couple episodes of Buffy to leaven my spirits.)

It seems to have a thick bottom - purchased used, so no real info, m'afraid - so we'll see how it handles.

And I knew the BKF had to have other uses than cleaning off the stove!

[eleny]

5. Don't use metal utensils on stainless

Best to use wood and the plastic for stirring, scraping and flipping stuff. I put my 30 year old stainless stuff in the dishwasher and so far it looks as good as ever.

One thing I do when food sticks or burns on a bit is to just let some water sit in the pan a little while. Then it almost slides right out. I wipe the pan and then put it in the dishwasher.