Teresa McCoy

I have heard of people putting their cast iron pans in their self-cleaning oven to remove the old seasoning. Since I do not have a self-cleaning oven, this option was not available to me. An outside grill with a lid that can obtain very high heat might also work.

Perhaps you have heard of putting cast iron pans into a roaring fire and letting the seasoning burn off that way. It may work.......then again......it may crack your treasured cast iron pan. I won't be pulling that stunt.

Teresa

Paul,

The term "grease" brings to mind axle grease/grease monkey - lol! Perhaps the use of oil/fat might be another term to use in the discussion of cast iron cooking? Fat can be bacon grease, beef suet, lard, or butter.

Any cooking pan/pot can get too hot if you set the temp at high and go off and forget it. The point I wanted to make was that for some uses, such as Cajun blackened recipes, a cast iron pan is the best pan to use when cooking at high temperatures.

I agree with you that thin layers of accumulated seasoning is what is desired for sealing up the pores of raw cast iron. That process can be *started* by frying potatoes or fish in deep fat and then continued over time through use and seasoning by the method I listed in my first post.

The use of salt in cleaning could not remove the seasoning unless you scrubbed the pan for hours or days at a time, I would think. A main point in cleaning cast iron is to quickly clean the pan by whatever means you are using. A small amount of mild kitchen soap, hot water, and a dish scrubbing brush are what I use after first wiping out the pan with paper towels - or sometimes just hot water and the brush. The point being not to let water/soap stand in the pan for any longer than necessary. I always end the cleaning by heating my pans on a low burner to completely dry them or put them in the still warm oven if I had it on, then wiping down the pan with a little oil on a paper towel.

Believe me, I wanted to avoid the use of oven cleaner when cleaning up my grandmother's skillet - and I tried other things, ammonia for one, chipping away with a putty knife and screw driver for another - but in the end the oven cleaner cut through the rough, aged coating down to the bare metal. I was able to remove all the old chipped seasoning with this method.

At present I have 3 cast iron skillets, 1 round griddle, round grill pan, 1 corn stick pan and 1 heart-shaped muffin/shortbread pan - and years of experience cooking outdoors on family and Girl Scout camping trips. IMHO cast iron is the cookware of choice!

Having read your article, I would offer a few observations:

~ I have a problem with your use of the term oil/grease throughout the article. Our grandparents used lard, bacon grease, cooking oil, and butter. Today we might use butter for frying eggs and canola/safflower/sunflower/olive oil in place of the lard and bacon grease.

~ a quality cast iron pan can be heated quite hot on a stove top with no problem - i.e. Cajun blackened fish or pan seared steaks can be cooked at high temperatures in cast iron

~ the best way to season a new cast iron pan is not to cook cornbread, but to fry French Fried potatoes in as much oil as the pan can safely hold; by heating the oil to the proper temperature for making fries, you will start the process of sealing the pores in the untreated, raw iron pan

~ another way to clean cast iron after use is to sprinkle some coarse salt in the pan and scrub with dish cloth or brush; the abrasive action of the salt will help to loosen any remaining food particles

~ it is possible to take an old cruddy cast iron pan (that bargain you found at a flea market!) and remove the old seasoning that might be rough and flaking: spray the pan well with oven cleaner - do this outside as the fumes can be harmful!; put the sprayed pan in a plastic garbage bag, close and tie the top of the bag and let it sit overnight outside; the next day or the day after that, scrub the pan well and see if more of the same treatment is needed; repeat this process until you have reached the bare (grayish) iron. Wash well with soap and water, scrubbing hard. Dry completely, then start the seasoning process: rub the entire pan inside and out with shortening, such as Crisco brand. Line a baking sheet with foil, lay pan on bottom up, bake in a slow oven (250 to 300 degrees) for several hours, let cool. Repeat the seasoning process several more times until the pores are sealed and the seasoned pan has a nice, smooth, black, glossy look to it. I reconditioned my grandmother's skillet and it is ready for the next 50 years. It was hard work and took several days, but it was worth it!