I FINALLY remembered to pick up my Great Grandma's cast iron cookware! I am soooo excited to start using it. The only problem is that it has been in Mom's crawlspace for at least 10 years. They have rust and crud (that's a technical term) all over them and need to be cleaned.
First I wiped them down with a dry towel to get the dust and cobwebs off. Next I heated the pan up to medium heat with a generous amount of oil until the cast iron was hot to the touch. At that point I turned off the heat and added enough salt to the oil to create a paste. I scrubbed the pans with a wad of paper towels until they were clean and then rinsed them with hot water and soap. Immediately after I dried them down with a dish cloth so they wouldn't rust.
First I wiped them down with a dry towel to get the dust and cobwebs off. Next I heated the pan up to medium heat with a generous amount of oil until the cast iron was hot to the touch. At that point I turned off the heat and added enough salt to the oil to create a paste. I scrubbed the pans with a wad of paper towels until they were clean and then rinsed them with hot water and soap. Immediately after I dried them down with a dish cloth so they wouldn't rust.
(Sorry about the blurry picture, I think I had smoke inhalation)
I think that they are still seasoned pretty well, but I gave them a little rub with canola oil and put them in in the oven for an hour at 500 degrees. Turns out my smoke detector that goes off at the slightest bit of heat doesn't go off when the house is full of smoke. Looks like I am going to have get a better SMOKE detector!
Ahh, there is something so nostalgic about cooking with cast iron. Makes me feel all warm and fuzzy inside!
Ooohh, what are you gonna cook for us?
ReplyDeleteMy dad loves his cast iron pans. I'm not much of a cook so I really don't know the difference. I saw a recipe for pan fried chicken that looked really good made in cast iron.
ReplyDeleteI adore cast iron. When I got married that was one of the first things I had to buy was a cast iron skillet. One night I fried potatoes (my own secret recipe) for a large crowd. They wouldn't all fit in my cast iron skillet so I used a stainless steel skillet to fry the second batch. The potatoes cooked in the cast iron skillet were delicious. The ones I cooked in the stainless steel skillet were not nearly as good. They didn't have the intense flavor and actually tasted bland. There are certain things now that I refuse to cook in anything other than my cast iron skillet
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