![]() As the flour browned in the hot pans, it essentially created a map of how each skillet heated up. We spread 1 tablespoon of all-purpose flour in both our favorite cast-iron skillet and a traditional stainless-steel skillet and heated them over medium heat until the flour started to toast. To see just how the pans reacted when placed over heat, we designed a test that would give us a visual indication of the way heat traveled through the cast iron. THE TESTING: We were interested in this cast iron myth because it would affect the way we went about preheating our skillets for cooking. The Myth: One of cast iron’s greatest advantages is that it heats really evenly. If you do accidentally oversimmer an acidic ingredient, you may have to throw out the food, but you can simply reseason your skillet and get back to cooking in it again. We use tricks like shorter simmering times, diluting the problematic ingredients to make the pH less of an issue, and waiting until late in the recipe to add the acidic ingredients. (These rules do not apply to enameled cast-iron skillets the enameled coating makes it safe to cook acidic ingredients for any length of time.)Īll of our cast-iron recipes have been carefully developed to work in cast iron, even when they use highly acidic ingredients like vinegar, wine, tomatoes, cherries, and stone fruits. You should also be careful to remove acidic dishes from the skillet after they finish cooking don’t let them sit too long in the warm skillet and transfer any leftovers to an airtight container. An acidic sauce can afford a brief stay in a well-seasoned pan with no dire consequences. First, make sure your pan is well seasoned seasoning keeps the acid from interacting with the iron-to a point. So, while you can definitely cook with acidic ingredients in your cast-iron skillet, you have to be careful. THE TAKEAWAY: In the end, our tasters could detect metallic flavors in the tomato sauce only after it had simmered for a full 30 minutes. To test how fast this happens and how noticeable it is, we made a highly acidic tomato sauce and simmered it in a well-seasoned skillet, testing it every 15 minutes to check for off-flavors and damage to the pan. Although these minute amounts are not harmful to consume, they may impart unwanted metallic flavors, and the pan’s seasoning can be damaged as well. THE TESTING: When acidic ingredients are cooked in cast iron for an extended amount of time, trace amounts of molecules from the metal can loosen and leach into the food. The Myth: You can’t cook wine, tomatoes, or other acidic ingredients in a cast-iron pan.
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