Emile Henry Flame cookware

[JAZ]

Does anyone have any of this cookware? It's Emile Henry's new line of ceramic stovetop-safe cookware. I got a piece but haven't used it yet. The instructions say that boiling a small amount of milk in the pan for three minutes is "suggested" but doesn't really give a reason for that.

I'm wondering if there are any other "tricks" I should know about. I'm looking forward to using it but I have to admit I'm a little apprehensive, too.

By the way, here's the piece I got -- a 5.5-qt. round stewpot.

It's really beautiful; I hope I like cooking with it as much as I like looking at it.

[fiftydollars]

It looks great in your picture. I also saw an ad and I've been curious about these since then.

Is it porous? Like, would I have to keep soap away from it and whatnot?

[JAZ]

Is it porous? Like, would I have to keep soap away from it and whatnot?

←

No, the glaze is hard and looks to be pretty durable. It's dishwasher safe as well.

[JAZ]

An update on this.

I found out that the reason for boiling milk in the cookware before using has to do with the bonding of the casein in the milk with the ceramic, making it more resilient (at least that's the way the EH rep described it).

So, I boiled the milk, and used the pot for a lamb curry. In the recipe I used, you don't brown the meat first, so I didn't get to try that out, but you do saute onions, so I started with it at a pretty high heat. Then I added the meat plus marinade, which was cooler than room temp, but not quite refrigerator temp. No problem adding it to the hot pan. I did the entire braise on the stovetop, with the burner on low. The dish turned out great (It's pretty foolproof), but I started to notice some sticking on the bottom about halfway through. My stove is a fairly cheap gas model, so the "low" setting is a small circle of flame in the middle. If I'm cooking anything for a long time on low, I usually use a diffuser, but I wanted to see how this did without it.

So, as I said, the curry was great, despite the sticking. I've had the same sort of thing happen with my Le Creuset, so it wasn't the fault of the cookware.

However, whereas cleaning up a LC pan is a breeze, even with stuck or burned on food, this was horrible. I soaked it overnight, used my plastic pot scraper and virtually nothing happened. I made a paste of dishwasher powder and water and left that on overnight. A little progress, but I still had a big black spot on the bottom. I used Barkeeper's Friend; I used more dishwasher detergent; I even resorted to steel wool. I did finally get it off, but it took five days of soaking and scraping.

I've read, in various topics here, that cooking in clay imparts a better flavor to braised dishes, and I suppose that a side-by-side comparison is in my future. But unless there's a big difference in the taste, I'll stick with LC for stovetop cooking.

[Carolyn Tillie]

Was given the Tagine as a SanFran house-warming gift (it IS gorgeous!) and will look forward to trying it out this weekend. I have been told that a diffuser is not needed specially since I cook on electric. Interesting about the cleaning issues but since browning meat in a tagine is never part of a recipe, I wonder if I'll have the same issues...

[Smithy]

I've read, in various topics here, that cooking in clay imparts a better flavor to braised dishes, and I suppose that a side-by-side comparison is in my future. But unless there's a big difference in the taste, I'll stick with LC for stovetop cooking.

←

I hope you do try the side-by-side cooking and let us know the results. I've been curious (idly so, in light of my jammed cabinets) about this cookware. I'd expect some benefits from the thermal characteristics of the clay. However, since the clay isn't porous I've wondered whether the flavor benefits would be the same.

Uggh. I haven't had problems with sticking in my clay pots. That sounds like a nightmare. You have my sympathy!

[JAZ]

It just occurred to me that back in March during my Foodblog, I promised to report on cleaning the Emile Henry pot the second time. Oops.

I did follow through with my idea to do a side by side comparison of Le Cresuet and EH -- I made a sort of cassoulet, which started out on the stove top and ended in the oven. (click here if you're interested in the comparison.)

Anyway, this time the Emile was much easier to clean -- there was a ring of cooked on food around the pot, but it came right off.

Interesting to note: A guy I work with had an experience similar to my first one with his pot. He actually burned the milk when he was seasoning the pan, and only got it clean after soaking and scrubbing, and finally boiling water in the pot several times. This leads me to wonder if it's something in the milk that's so hard to clean, since he had his problem with milk and I had mine with a yogurt-based sauce.

As I mentioned in my blog, I did find the clay EH to be superior to the le Creuset for retaining liquid, which was great for the cassoulet. I think I'll continue to experiment with it. And it'll definitely be my bean pot from now on.