French steel / black metal / carbon steel

[maggiethecat]

I love blue steel, adore a metal handle I can put in the oven, and appreciate that these pans have been used, with satisfactory results, for hundreds of years.

But while we're on the subject of carbon steel: I have a drawer full of Teutonic knives, lovely Globals, Chineses cleavers. What do I want?

I want the Sabatier low carbon knives that rusted and pocked, and could be sharpened to a razor's edge by a five year old with a pebble. I have a couple of bowed newlywed Sabatiers I still treasure. I want more.

[oraklet]

I love blue steel, adore a metal handle I can put in the oven, and appreciate that these pans have been used, with satisfactory results, for hundreds of years.

But while we're on the subject of carbon steel: I have a drawer full of Teutonic knives, lovely Globals, Chineses cleavers. What do I want?

I want the Sabatier low carbon knives that rusted and pocked, and could be sharpened to a razor's edge by a five year old with a pebble. I have a couple of bowed newlywed Sabatiers I still treasure. I want more.

try ebay. i recently bought a huge chef's knife from the 50'ies and a slicer from the 70'ies there, both sabatier carbon steel. they certainly weren't mint condition, but who cares, as long as the blade is full and the handle tight. the chef's knife was c. 35$, the slicer c. 25$. would have been a lot more, had they been collectors' items, though.

i like pans with metal handles, too

[Anna N]

...But while we're on the subject of carbon steel: I have a drawer full of Teutonic knives, lovely Globals, Chineses cleavers. What do I want?

I want the Sabatier low carbon knives that rusted and pocked, and could be sharpened to a razor's edge by a five year old with a pebble. I have a couple of bowed newlywed Sabatiers I still treasure. I want more.

Me too! No matter how hard I have tried I can't put an edge on the knives I own but damn, I could on those old carbon steel blades - and I would rather have a pock-marked sharpie than all the dull but pretty knives I now own.

[maggiethecat]

try ebay.

D'oh! Slaps head. Great idea, Oraklet, thanks.

[project]

Fat Guy:

Thanks for the estimate of 125,000 BTUs/hour for the power of the burners in US Chinese restaurants.

That puts in perspective the King Kooker propane burner I have, claimed to have power of 170,000 BTU/hour. Uh, it's only for outdoors! If it's covered with snow, then the snow melts quite quickly once the burner is lit!

This burner was made in Louisiana and is sold for cooking pots of shellfish at beach parties. It's crude but rugged and effective. The burners now being sold for deep frying turkeys seem to be similar.

Over that burner, I heated my cast iron skillet too hot and cracked it. Going out to buy a new one, sadly discovered that these are now collectors' items and no longer sold new. Instead all we have are imitations that do not have a machined interior.

So, at a local restaurant supply house, I got a steel saute pan such as you are describing, and, from a mail order vendor in San Francisco, I got a steel wok from China.

The handle on the wok looks like something I would bang out of a piece of steel pipe in a few minutes in my workshop; the rivets look like a student's embarrassing first efforts in high school metal working shop. So far, the rivets are holding.

Actually, the wok works well over the propane burner. My wok is now a fairly uniform smooth dark black on the inside.

I've tried to imitate what the inexpensive US Chinese carryout restaurants do but have not found the right proportions of the ubiquitous chicken broth, soy sauce, vinegar, sugar, garlic, chili peppers, tangerine peel, black mushrooms, black beans, corn starch, etc. My stack of Chinese cookbooks tries to be too authentic and is not much help. Big bad bummer.

Someday someone will actually write a book on what those restaurants really actually do and really actually show people how to do such things at home -- really, actually, not just some literary fictional fantasy. From what I have seen in, and cooked from, the books I have, one of those Chinese restaurants cooking such things would go out of business in a week.

For the wok, I'm finding that it's terrific for browning chicken pieces. I put a lot of pepper on the pieces, put some oil in the wok, turn up the propane flow loud enough to hear, light the thing, assure my kitty cat that a fighter jet is not about to run into the house, wait for the oil to smoke, and brown the chicken pieces. The high heat does nice things to the pepper. Then I poach the chicken pieces, etc., and make a chicken casserole, last time, two chickens, about 7 quarts.

I have yet to try the saute pan but may soon: Once again bought an aluminum saute pan with enamel on the outside and Teflon on the inside. Using that pan to fry hamburgers three at a time over the propane burner has nearly ruined the Teflon. So, should be moving to the saute pan soon.

For the mysterious subject of 'seasoning', here is some simple advice: (1) When the pan is new, clean it once to remove any oil left from manufacturing. (2) Use the pan, for frying, with oil. (3) When cleaning the pan, just remove any liquid oil and stuck food and don't try to remove the burned oil. In the cleaning, it's okay to use some detergent, water, and abrasive, just don't try to get off all the browned or blackened oil. That's it: Keep this up, and soon will have a beautifully 'seasoned' pan. That is, for 'seasoning', basically just use the pan; that usage is enough to provide 'seasoning'. Seasoned steel is a terrific cooking surface.

Over high heat, there may be a really big difference between a steel wok and many steel saute pans: The wok is beautifully convex on the outside with nearly constant 'curvature' everywhere. So, as heat makes the steel expand, the shape will remain convex. No way will 'dimples' appear. A new saute pan is also convex on the outside, but the curvature varies a lot, and usually the bottom is flat. So, as heat causes the steel to expand, no telling which way the bottom will bend. So, dimples are likely, and the result will no longer be convex on the outside.

I still have one cast iron frying pan, just the right diameter for making crepes or pancakes. I cook the first side in this cast iron pan and cook the second side in a Teflon pan.

I do use a Teflon saute pan for making omelets.

For French toast, I have an old Westinghouse electric something that can cook four slices at once. The interior is a nearly indestructible rough non-stick surface.

But I fully agree with you that a saute pan should be steel or cast iron; I want nothing to do with frying on a surface of aluminum, stainless steel, or enamel.

For your main question "So why don't we see more of them in home kitchens?" Ah, that's just rhetorical, right? If not, then here's the answer. Not just everyone will see the answer right away, so I will have to explain!

In the US there's an image, a norm, an expectation that the kitchen is the 'sphere of influence' of the 'little woman': She is supposed to be a good wife and mother; in the kitchen she is supposed to do well feeding her family; success here is nearly as serious as all of marriage, motherhood, and life; her pride, self-esteem, public image, and success in life itself are in the balance; here truly perfection is the minimum acceptable standard; cleanliness is next to godliness; and everything should be shiny, glossy, beautiful, and totally spotlessly clean. She should look like the image of ideal of motherhood, in long, soft, full skirts, that any child with a skinned knee would rush to. She should wear a perfectly white apron, the perfect whiteness a representation of the perfection of her duty and work. Then, in this context, a pan is a piece of sculpture to provide a communication, interpretation of those emotions, experiences. That's why for decades Farberware polished the outside to a mirror finish and used shapes and curves somewhere between Rococo and Donna Reed.

And, now, you, Fat Guy, with "why don't we see", want to replace all those cherished images of marriage and motherhood -- the tiny delicate shoulders, pretty little hands, demure face, great sympathy, empathy, affection, and dedication, which must carry the future of our civilization -- with something burned, black, greasy and merely pragmatic that sounds like, and might have been stamped from, the hood of an old Ford. Shame, shame on you! Is nothing cherished anymore!

[Boris_A]

Instead all we have are imitations that do not have a machined interior.

Machined interior?

Is this something like forged pans?

BTW, here you have German one peace pans forged by hand.

At $140 for a 12" those are usable collector items, I guess.

[Anna N]

While I am quite likely to get bashed over the head for agreeing with some of project's sentiments, I say he's right on the button when he suggests that the modern home kitchen is largely a triumph of form over function. Countertops that easily nick, chip and burn, small appliances in shiny chrome that look grubby as soon as touched by the human hand, pans that warp if subjected to anything more than moderate heat, stoves whose design has largely remained unchanged for close to a century........... etc. Yeah, I know, with the right amount of money you can revamp a kitchen and purchase restaurant quality equipment but it seems to me that the time is ripe for a re-think of the whole philosophy of kitchen/equipment design.

Must be the anticipation of moving that's getting me all riled on this subject.

[project]

Borris_A:

"Machined interior? Is this something like forged pans?"

No. You make a cast iron pan the usual old way of casting iron: Pour the iron into a mold of sand, perhaps clay (I'm not an expert on casting), break the mold, extract the casting. So, the surface of the casting has reacted with the mold and is different from the interior.

So, often in casting, the surface is removed to leave just the cast iron underneath.

In the US, long the standard cast iron frying pans were made by Griswold or Wagner. Apparently after they did the casting, they clamped the pan in front of a machine, essentially a milling machine with a cutter, and had the cutter go over the interior surface. So, the cutter made a pass over the bottom and the sides. The cutter left tiny circular lines but mostly the surface was quite smooth, smoother than what came from the mold.

From all I have seen, now in the US nearly all the cast iron frying pans come from China and have the interior just from the mold and without the machining.

So, the pans were cast and not forged.

Anna N:

"I say he's right on the button when he suggests that the modern home kitchen is largely a triumph of form over function."

Or, the people selling items for a kitchen are totally convinced that they just must sell fantasy dreams and not practical tools. The ideal situation is a wealthy couple that has a gleaming kitchen, complete with a matched collection of hanging heavy copper pots, and dressed in formal evening clothes on their way out to dinner!

[Chad]

From all I have seen, now in the US nearly all the cast iron frying pans come from China and have the interior just from the mold and without the machining.

Have you looked into Lodge cast iron? Cast iron cookware since 1896 -- and damn fine stuff. The nifty thing is that you can usually find it at your local hardware store. I couldn't live without my 12" Lodge cast iron skillet.

Chad

[Kenk]

Many years ago I used a standard steel pan from a restaurant supply store and really liked the way it cooked, but I didn't like that it warped so easily. I can easily see how the warped pan on a gas stove not would be critical and in a restaurant would be fine. I had an electric stove at the time so I didn't buy one for myself.

I noticed De Buyer's crepe pans sold in quite a few places. These pans where heavy gage and would be warp resistant. I finally found a saute pan that looked exactly like the standard restaurant pan but the steel was very thick and I knew would not warp easily. I bought one.

Between my iron pan and the DeBruyer steel pan Who needs teflon pans or All clads that even the most care free of cooks would cry if it has a slight discolouration. The iron and steel pans demand not to be too clean.

[mrbigjas]

Here is a link with information about De Buyer steel pans.

OK I finally looked at that link, and as near as I can tell those are the steel pans I bought at Dehillerins--specifically the carbone plus line. They're really amazingly good for omelettes, among other things.

Edited December 20, 2003 by mrbigjas (log)