On the subject of non-stick pans, and actually pans in general. Cause I'm looking to buy some new pans and I want good ones, because really, it's just a pleasure to cook with if you got quality tools. Even though it'll spoil you for whenever you cook at somebody else's place and kind of tempts you to bring your own knife with you :P
Anyway. Nigel said Teflon coating is completely impractical in a production setting. Why is that, I'm curious?
And ECH said
Anyway, when it comes to non-stick pans, Calphalon or GTFO.
I looked that up and it turns out Calphalon is an entire brand of kitchenware, not a particular type of coating material? So what are Calphalon non-stick pans coated with, and why are they so superior?
Anyway, I'm looking for a medium-small frying pan (a skillet is the same thing right?) and a larger one with higher curved/sloped edges, which is apparently "
called a sauteuse (literally a sauté pan in the female gender), an evasée (denoting a pan with sloping sides), or a fait-tout (does everything)".
I'm checking whether the bottoms of the pans are sufficiently thick and heavy, and what material they're coated with.
Currently I'm looking at regular non-stick coating, though I'm not sure if it's still all Teflon? The typical smooth dark-grey coating that used to scratch and flake off and you pretended it was black pepper material, I only see that on the cheapest models, which I'm not buying. The other non-stick surfaces are a lot rougher, a bit like fine sandpaper, except the non-stick material makes them rough but slippery and the most important bit is that it won't flake into your food. I wonder if you could even use metal spatulas on those. Anyone know is that also Teflon? The ones from BK are rough dark grey and Tefal's are dark grey brown with a greenish hue.
(BK and Tefal are the two most common brands I've seen in typical houseware stores. I haven't checked real kitchen stores yet because they're often much more expensive, but not always for quality, but for being extra fancy--though there's a new one which seems to be a bit more reasonable in that respect)
Another material I've seen from BK is ceramic coating. It's advertised as being able to withstand much higher temperatures than Teflon, which is nice. One big wok-frying-pan model even had a heat proof handle so you could put it in the oven. And the ceramic models are heavier and thicker so I guess they keep/distribute heat better. They're blueish light-grey in colour. Only problem is they're generally almost twice as pricey as the same basic non-stick models. Is that worth it? Looking at $53 for a 9.5 inch ceramic frying pan and $84 for that big 12 inch ceramic wok-frying-pan thing which *does* look pretty awesome. But it's a kinda hefty price IMO.
Finally I'm still looking for a nice cast iron Dutch oven. But they're hard to find, especially big ones and not quite cheap either. I found a 9 inch cast iron pot new for $52 which is not a bad deal, but I kind of would like to have one a bit bigger than that. I should probably go looking for cast iron in second hand stores, but when they have some, they're probably gone real quick because I hardly ever spotted them
BTW anyone know what's up with those pans that are suitable for induction cooking? I use gas, of course, so I suppose I could use either one and it would not matter?
