Your choice of oven broiling pan for cooking steaks and vegetables?

Yeah, stainless is not non-stick, you need to use oil. But being non-non-stick is what allows the pan to build up the little brown bits, which the french gastronomie call “fond”. Those little brown bits are what makes the pan sauce taste good when you deglaze with wine, stock, or balsamic vinegar. Stainless steel is nonreactive and tough, so you can soak it in hot soapy water, put in the dishwasher, and even scrub with steel wool. A good stainless saute pan will last forever.

Re vegetables, do try the cauliflower. Roasted cauliflower is amazing.

Fun point on being non-reactive: cast iron is not non-reactive, so when you cook very acidic foods for a long time in it (e.g., a tomato-based or citrus-heavy sauce), you’ll leach non-zero amounts of iron into the food. Now, strictly speaking, that’s not bad (hey, iron’s good for you!), but it can definitely affect flavor in ways you might not find pleasant.


Roasted cauliflower is simply amazing. If you’re really down for it, jpinard, I’d recommend the following recipe I shamelessly stole from somewhere:

1 head cauliflower, chopped into ~1.5" florets
1 butternut squash, chopped into 1-1.5" chunks
1lb of brussels sprouts, washed, stemmed, and halved
~4 medium carrots, peeled and then sliced on the bias to about .25 - .5" thickness
2-3 medium parsnips, peeled and then sliced on the bias to about .25 - .5" thickness
1 1/2 cups of halved or roughly chopped pecans
1/2 cup of olive oil
1/3 cup of maple syrup
1/4-1/2 tsp of nutmeg
2" piece of ginger, peeled and minced or grated
Salt & Pepper to taste


Toss the chopped veggies with the olive oil, salt, pepper, and nutmeg and roast @ 425 for ~30 minutes or so, spread across enough pans that they’re not piled up in heaps (then they’ll steam instead of roast). For the last five minutes or so, toss the pecans in there in a separate pan to toast a little. Remove, cover with the ginger, pecans, and syrup, and, if possible, stir in the pans a little.

Roast another 20-25 minutes till done (the brussels sprouts’ outermost leaves will be dark and crispy, the cauliflower will be browning, and the squash will have a consistency similar to baked sweet potato).


Since it makes a lot, I’ll give a small secret I’ve picked up: actually DON’T toss the pecans onto the dish, but instead reserve them to sprinkle on each time you serve. Otherwise when you refrigerate the leftovers, they tend to get soggy, even when toasted.

The dish is amazing. It’s roasty, toasty, nutty, sweet, spicy, complex, and most of all, surprisingly healthy (half a cup of oil spread across 10-12 servings really ain’t that bad in the end). I’m now essentially required to make it every Thanksgiving and Christmas dinner at my parents’ place.

I’ve been happy with my enameled cast-iron Le Creuset. No seasoning needed and it’s been easy to maintain. The main downside is the cost, although All-Clad pans aren’t exactly cheap either. It’s also way, way heavier than the All-Clad which makes it a bit of a pain to maneuver around, although I assume the Griswolds and Lodges are similarly heavy.

That’s just the teflon ones though right? Not anodized aluminum such as Calphalon?

I do 80% of my cooking in a cast iron skillet and a stainless pot, they do cover a lot of ground if you like reducing your kitchen footprint. I don’t find the skillet difficult to maintain at all though it does take some forearm muscles to handle it in the sink. I just scrub it under hot water and dry, since most of my dishes are going to start with some sort of oil or butter I rarely bother to oil it, as it won’t sit around more than 24 hours before the next use. Often I’ll just scrape out the bits, give it a vigorous scrub under hot water, and whatever oil is left in the pan becomes the coating for the next time.

Please don’t za here, okay?

You can get good quality enameled cast iron without shelling out the Le Crueset prices. We picked up a large one from Costco for $70. The same sized Le Creuset would be about $200.

Cook’s Illustrated reviewed the Target brand enameled Dutch Oven vs. the Creuset and found roughly no difference, other than the $100.

Calphalon pans have a nonstick coating too. You anodize aluminum to eliminate its highly reactive properties, not to make it nonstick. From what I’ve been able to find in a quick search, no Calphalon pan is good over 500F either. Not appropriate for searing. The instructions all say to use “medium-high” heat. But when I sear, I leave the dry pan on high heat for 5 full minutes, so when I put in the oil it immediately shimmers and just barely starts to smoke.

Now as to the degree of poison and carcinogenic properties for teflon vs calphalon vs other brands, I dunno, I haven’t gone to tremendous effort reading up on it.

Regarding enameled cast iron, note that it is not nonstick like a well-seasoned raw cast iron pan. It is better for searing meat than even a nice stainless saute pan as its much greater mass retains a ton of heat. But I get a seriously beautiful sear on stainless, and the pan is much more comfortable to use.

I’m a sucker for stupid gimmicks and enjoy the T-Fal Thermo-Spot red dot.

I have a cockatoo. And after my first bird died I got rid of every non-stick (PTFE) pan in my house. So now I use either ceramic clad stuff like my off brand dutch oven. Or the two All Clad pans that I got on sale. Or my various cast iron cookware. And I don’t miss Teflon at all. The thing about cooking in cast iron or any other non-nostick cookware is to let the protein tell you when it’s time to turn it. If it’s stuck, leave it. Although you are allowed to kinda push at it. Sorta like asking it, You ready to move yet? If it’s stuck leave it for a minute or so. This even works for eggs and pancakes or crepes. Give it a second.

Of course if you have a killer seasoned cast iron skillet (or like I have, a flat round cast iron pancake thingie) it is easier.

It has recently come to my attention that you should never, ever use a Pyrex pan for broiling. Apparently they object to this application by way of shattering.

Honestly, unless your Pyrex pan is 30 years old and in perfect shape, I’d avoid using it. The new ones changed to a different material that’s theoretically superior in some ways but is generally mostly just better at shattering.

Well dang, guess I’d better just switch over to quartz.

Hmm, seems CorningWare did the same sort of thing in the late 90s as well. They used to be made of pyroceramic, which could go directly from red-hot to cold water without shattering. Now they’re almost all made of glazed stoneware, though it looks like they still offer pyroceram pieces. Pricey though.

Pyrex is generally fine at more moderate temps, but broiling can easily take the temperature up over 500 degrees. Quick temperature changes—e.g. hot dish from oven onto cold granite countertop—will kill them, too. (Wet the countertop first and you have a great heat sink! The Pyrex doesn’t like the exchange, though.) The older (US) Pyrex made with borosilicate is reportedly more robust than the newer soda-lime glass, but it’s not bulletproof.

I’m currently trawling the local Goodwill for #206 pie dishes, which are going for 10 to 15 dollars a pop on Ebay. Last manufactured in 1965, I think.

Why did they switch to a crappier formula?

There are only ever two answers to that question:

  1. Because the old formula kills people.
  2. Because the new formula is cheaper.

Which one do you think is the case here? You get one guess.

#2 - but it seems like there’d be plenty of people who would pay the premium price for the good stuff?

We had a Pyrex asplode a couple weeks back when moving from oven to stovetop. It’s quite a sound.

I thought I had read somewhere that the new formula for one of these companies was designed to shatter–when it “had” to do so–in a manner that was less dangerous, I think by bent of having fewer, less razor-thin pieces.

Then again, all the pics of busted-ass roasting dishes I’ve seen seem to show a large mound of sparkly feet-dicers covered in burnt food at the bottom of some poor bastard’s oven, so if that’s the “new and less deadly” shattering method. . .

Good point, beyond the usual advantages cast iron is altogether a more natural cooking surface, and as such tends to educate you on how to handle your food. If it’s sticking, you didn’t get it hot enough, your food was too cold, or you wait a bit. When things start smoking, you’re over the line, Smokey! Plus it’s dirt cheap and you can use it to hammer in nails in a pinch with no damage. Hell, as a third or fourth advantage (I’ve lost count) it also lasts literally forever. Treat cast iron correctly, keep it seasoned, and I would guess the constantly-regenerating seasoning will keep the cast iron core intact until the sun explodes.