recommend buying cast iron pan with machined surface

Found this in Fruiticanna, Surrey BC Canada. This is a store that sells mostly to east indian people (not sure if this is how they would wish me to refer to them). Made in China, but the first new cast iron pan I have found with a machined surface. Only $16 compared to the $40 we spent on the Lodge of similar size but not machined.

How much will be the cost of it?Does it work on electricity?

Marry6lopeez wrote:
How much will be the cost of it?Does it work on electricity?

The fry pan cost about $16. It is just a pan and runs on whatever it sits on top of.... gas, electric, wood, coal or whatever. The benefit of a milled surface, is a lot less time to season. A pan with a rough surface has to build up a 16nth inch of seasoning at least to be smooth. That might take three months (a season?), but with a milled surface, the first ultra-thin layer would already be effective. Pre-seasoning, costs almost nothing to do, but can double profit (and then you can't trust whatever gick they used to do it so you have to remove it and start over). Milling on the other hand, might cost as much as making the pan in the first place.... but the pan can only be sold for so much. So milled surfaces are hard to find except in really old pans.

In this case, it is sitting on top of an induction cook top that I have used to replace all the coils in our stove. They are 90% efficient compared to coils(50%) or gas (40%). I use three and they cost about $90 each.... much cheaper than a 4 hob induction cooker at $2200. The "feel" of cooking with an induction cooker is much like gas.

Very cool.

Keep us posted on the performance, please (with pics!).

Travis Halverson wrote:
Very cool.

Keep us posted on the performance, please (with pics!).

Don't know what I can do with pics but I cooked some pancakes on it this weekend. They are peanut butter pancakes, no flour, just peanut butter, eggs and baking soda. The basic recipe is a heaping spoon of peanut butter, 1 egg and a pinch of baking soda for one pancake. Because there is no gluten they are very fragile to turn without tearing... and because they have a lot of egg in them they tend to be sticky. I made a much larger batch...

500 grams of peanuts ground till they make peanut butter.
3 eggs
1.25 teaspoon baking soda
1 mushed banana
1 teaspoon salt

mix the mess together in a food processor (the same tool I used to grind the peanuts) and add water (or more eggs) till it is runny enough to make pancakes hows that for exact?

Anyway, I used tallow for oil (what happened to be the last animal we used). This pan as you can see from the picture in my first post, still looks like raw steel... sorry, iron. Even after cooking this batch of pancakes (a baker dozen  as happens), it is still pretty grey with maybe a bit of browning in the centre. I have found the best way to cook pancakes on our cooktop (with the induction hobs) is to set the temp to 350F just before putting the batter on the pan. It heats up much faster than a coil! As soon as the first bubbles show I turn the hob down to 260F (two stops) and flip. The high first heat firms up a layer that keeps the pancake from tearing when I flip it. Then I let it cook all the way through. The texture is the same as a flour pancake and my son who is on a no starch diet, loves them..... my other son who has no such restriction loves them too.

I had no sticking..... none. even when the middle of the pan dried of the oil. Clean up was a dry paper towel wipe. Very impressive.

I would say, if you can find a cast iron pan with a milled surface.... grab it. I have yet to try the scrambled egg with no browning test.... or any eggs yet.