Tell us what you have cooked lately (that's interesting)

That’s mostly what I was complaining about; just was feeling lazy today and not typing a lot :). My (poorly remembered) understanding is that a lot of older cast iron was blasted fairly smooth, while modern brands generally leave a very unpolished, pitted surface that makes seasoning marginally more difficult than it might be otherwise.

I hear ya. Lapping is slapping a paste on a surface and grinding it down. It is superior to blasting because you don’t inadvertently drill a hole.
All of it means you are removing material.

I also don’t have an externally-vented hood. There’s supposedly a fan, but I firmly believe it’s just a button and a speaker that makes noise that sounds like a fan.

Cast iron retains heat much better, so it gives a really hard sear, and that does generate more smoke. Of course it’s also a better sear, but I don’t think it’s worth the extra trouble.

You can buy new smooth cast iron pans these days, there’s a whole micro-industry of kickstarted ones. The Finex pan is particularly attractive. They cost a shitton more money than a Lodge, even though there’s no real “technology” to them, they’re just raw cast iron sandblasted smooth.

https://finexusa.com/product/cast-iron-skillet/

We wound up buying a pretty decent air purifier for the kitchen in the end. Our porch is covered in wasps’ nests and we don’t have any other openable windows to the outside, plus the shitty non-vented hood. Anything I cooked would smell the place up for hours/days.

Also we actually have a little $$ these days but definitely not “drop $135 on a skillet to replace the one you already own” money.

No room for any of that stuff. I usually just crack a window, and don’t hard-sear steaks on both sides, instead searing one, flipping, then finishing off in the oven.

$135 is really excessive for a cast iron pan. That’s what I paid for my 5-layer all-clad pan, admittedly on sale, and that does have some real technology to it.

I wind up opening the windows when I cook steaks to try to get the smoke out. Wheee!

I do the same. It sounds like we are all stuck in the crappy overhead re-vent land. Then again, I don’t do a heavy sear often, just after sous vide or similar. For just a quick browning, I actually prefer my stainless pans, more stuff stuck = more fond.

On the cast iron smoothness, it’s a difference for sure. This is the bottom of an old Griswold when they ground them down. Note that it’s also had many years of use:

And this is a Chinese knock-off, not much different than a Lodge though:

I have pics of one that I ground down, but I need to find them. It helps a ton. Safety goggles and a grinder and 20 minutes will get you a lot, you just have to clean and season it afterward. And I’ve done both that cheap knockoff you see, as well as a lodge.

It’s just plain cast iron, the cheap knockoff should be perfectly fine so long as it doesn’t have any impurities which would cause it to shatter when facing temperature changes.

It did not, no shatter issues at all, they are very hearty. I dug up pics of the Lodge. This was grinding, and please note this was the first time my friend and I tried it.:

And post grinding, note the uneven grinding. The next one (no pics) looked a lot better.:

After several seasoning passes, in-oven:

I don’t have a current pic, but the sides and pour lips have darkened up, which don’t look that way here.

Huh, I experimented a little with cast iron but gave it up when I moved into a place with a glass top stove. I might need to check that Finex pan out.

I really don’t like cast iron, because my wife is really into throwing everything possible into the dishwasher. Almost all my pots and pans are stainless steel, with the exception of the dutch oven, which is mercifully too big to fit into the dishwasher easily.

I just use soap on my cast iron like a god damn rebel because I just don’t give a heck.
I only use it for my steaks and I use bacon grease on the pan before every use.

You make bacon every time you have steak? That is pretty hardcore. Anyway, thanks for supporting Lipitor.

Or he just reserves bacon grease in a jar in the fridge like I do!

In the fridge? My grandparents laugh at you. :)

I bought a jar of lard at the store today. I don’t know why, but it seemed like the right thing to do.

Italian-esque cuisine this week at girlfriend’s request!


Three-Cheese Tortellini baked in a five-cheese red sauce covered in provolone, parmesan, asiago, and romano (the topping, at least, was all fresh cheese).


Bruschetta with fresh mozzarella, cherry tomatoes, basil, salt, pepper, olive oil, and a reduced syrup of balsamic vinegar.


The above things plated together!


Tonight:


Her plate of my take on Cheesecake Factory’s Chicken Bellagio: parmesan-crusted chicken breasts fried in olive oil on top of a pesto-cream-sauced bed of angel hair pasta, topped with prosciutto and a light arugala salad with oil, lemon, and fresh parmesan and romano.

She doesn’t like fresh tomatoes, so her bruschetta has sundried tomatoes on it!


My plate of the same, albeit with fresh tomatoes :)

So we recently put in an outdoor shed and we were wiring it for electrical. We had Dig-Right come out to mark the lines, pipes, etc. The people putting the wiring in for the electricity followed Dig-Right but still hit our gas line.

So the gas company comes out and does their thing, but also checks our gas stove. Uh-oh, dangerous leak, so it’s shut down. We have service on the stove but it will be a week before they get the part. So we decide we still want to be able to cook, so we buy an air-fryer. And we love it!

It’s better for re-heating than a microwave because it doesn’t make everything soft and mushy. It works like a small oven, but better. The air circulates and cooks more evenly. Bacon is great. Grilled cheese sandwiches are great. Frozen foods like pizza rolls are great, as are pizzas if you get one small enough to fit in the fryer.

What I really like is it has the simplicity of a microwave. Put your food in, set the temp and time, and walk away and do whatever. We’ve cooked chicken, steak, and hamburger in it and they turn out great. As good as or better than frying pan or stove. The grease drains off so healthy, too.

So does anyone have any good air-fryer recipes?

If you like Indian cuisine, one of my favorite Youtube chefs, The Vahchef, did a series of air-fryer recipes as part of a sponsorship promotion with Philips a couple of years ago. There’s some decent stuff in there!

edit: I think the very first recipe in this playlist doesn’t use one, but the rest should.

This. Every time I make bacon I set the grease aside in the fridge, it adds a great flavor to the steak. Also it is allegeldy less bad for you than butter.