How to a cast iron pan
The Best Way To Clean and Season a Cast Iron Skillet | Epicurious
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i'm frank proto i'm a professional chef
and a culinary instructor and today i'm
going to teach you everything you need
to know about cast iron care we'll be
going over seasoning cleaning and
storing your cast iron and everything
you need to know to keep it looking
brand new
[Music]
this is cast iron care 101
part of the reason i love cast iron is
because they retain heat really well
compared to the aluminum pan which is
super light cast iron is dense and heavy
you get a better sear better color on
your food when you use a cast iron pan
cast iron is super versatile it can go
from the stove to the oven to the
campfire if you bring it camping it's
also really nice to serve in it looks
really rustic you can use it for a range
of different things hashbrowns are great
you can do a dutch baby in it not only
is cast iron great for cooking it's
great for home protection too
over the head
you can pass these down to your kids and
grandkids and as long as they take care
of them they'll be around forever hey
mom where's my cast iron pan
she doesn't have any i know she doesn't
even if your cast iron's in bad shape
you can bring it back to life with these
simple steps
cast iron is iron you put it away damp
it's gonna rust if your pan is rusted
over you can use a chain male scrubber
like this and you basically just get in
there and scrape the pan down the chain
mill really works well that'll bring it
down to the raw metal you can also use
this to protect yourself from daggers
right but for the most part i like to
use kosher salt which is a little milder
of an abrasive it takes a little bit
more work but i find sometimes with
things like the chainmail it kind of
marks up your pan so i want to just kind
of keep it nice and flat nice and even
sometimes people will heat the pan
sometimes they will put some oil in with
the salt i'm just going to go dry and
i'm putting a fair amount of salt in
there right and then i'm going to get a
kitchen towel and i'm just going to get
in there and scrub it
and i'm just going to scrub around and
just keep going in circles
pull the salt in
hold your pan down nice and firm and you
can actually see the salt starts to
change color gets that rust color to it
this will also get off any debris on the
bottom of the pan it's not ready yet i
can still see a little rust right here
and what i might do is this get rid of
this salt because that's kind of getting
ground up now and get a little fresh
salt like i said this takes a little
more elbow grease but i think you get a
good finish on your pan
it's looking much better now i think
we're pretty much done here this salt
unfortunately right now is garbage but
you can see most of the rust is gone i'm
not really worried about that once i
season this that's gonna all go away now
we're gonna rinse it down and get it
ready for seasoning here we have some
water and dish soap
now i know i'm gonna get a lot of uh
comments about this that don't do that
don't ever put soap on your cast iron
pan but the pan has the salt in it now
it also has some debris left over from
the scrubbing and i just want to get
that clean before i season it you just
get in there you don't even need a towel
or a sponge or anything like that and
any kind of chunks that are still in
there get that out okay and look it's
really nice i'm gonna rinse it
i'm gonna dry it really well with a
towel you can use paper towels for this
i'm gonna dry the inside i'm going to
dry the handle i'm going to dry
everything and just get as much water
off as we can now we're going to move on
to greasing up our pan for seasoning
what we're going to do is we're going to
put some oil in it and we're going to
bake the pan so that the oil kind of
gets into the pores of the pan and seals
it up that process is called
polymerization polymerization is when an
oil is heated at a high temperature and
it forms a slick solid surface in our
pan basically it means you're putting a
non-stick coating on it most people
season their pans with vegetable oil or
canola oil and it works really well i
like to use crisco crisco is just oil in
solid form it sticks to the pan a little
bit better i can see where it's coated
it's a paste it's a little easier to
work with so all i do is get a paper
towel or a napkin and i just rub my
crisco all around make sure that i get
into every corner
i'm gonna put a fair amount so i can
still see the crisco and i'm gonna do
the whole pan turn it over i'm gonna get
the backside too because even though
we're not cooking on the backside of the
pan or the underside of the pan i still
want it to be protected from rust when i
put this in the oven i'm gonna turn it
upside down so any excess fat will shed
off the pan and give me a nice even
coating this looks good i preheated my
oven to 350 and we're gonna put it in
there for about an hour
this is what a properly seasoned pan
looks like it has a nice black shine to
it there's no rust spots let's move on
to our next chapter cleaning your cast
iron
once your pan is seasoned you're
obviously going to use it and it's
really kind of gross
let's talk about how we're going to get
this back to its original season
splendor the first step is getting all
the big chunks out of the pan right i
got a bowl i got some paper towels so
i'm just going to wipe this out
and get as many big chunks as i can out
of this pan
and this is why you should clean your
pans right after you use them because
otherwise it gets dried on and stuck
there's a lot of ways to clean off this
gunk you can use the chain mail that we
use to get the rust off some people also
use brillo with soap that's not really
my preference part of the reason i don't
like using brillo is that it'll ruin my
seasoning
that's why i prefer the salt this is
pretty much the same type of step that
we use to get the rust off this pan what
i'm looking for is that all of the big
chunks come off if you have any pieces
that you're having trouble getting off
the sides of the pan you can always heat
it up and a little bit of heat will help
lift that off as well next thing we're
going to do is just rinse this in some
warm soapy water
[Music]
if you've seasoned your pan right you
have a nice hard coating on here and
soap and water is not going to ruin that
i'm not going to scrub it with anything
more than a paper towel at this point
just to get off any leftover flavors the
last thing you want is your apple
crumble to taste like fish i'm going to
rinse this off and dry it on the inside
and on the outside so there's no water
let's move on to how we store and
maintain these pans
once it's clean and dry i always like to
put a light coating of oil on not only
is this going to help keep our seasoning
it's going to make sure that this does
not rust at all and this time i'm just
going to put it on the cooking surface
everything else is already seasoned and
it has that nice coating on it i'm going
to take this pan and put it in a warm
oven and let the oven in the pan cool
down together
and that's where i store it
now we have a perfectly seasoned cast
iron pan i hope these tips help you keep
your pan in great condition for your
next cooking adventure don't come in my
house i'll do a backhand right
[Music]
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