hey everyone I'm lordy and welcome to ask 40 I have one of my favorite cast iron pans here today because that is our topic we are talking about cast iron what's the best way to receive in it and also how do you know when it's time to receive in it and how to go about that so welcome this is ask 40 the weekly show where I answer your questions about traditional cooking and I'm so thrilled you're all here we meet at the same time every Wednesday 10:00 a.m. Pacific 1:00 p.m. Eastern and if you're with me live great if you're not no problem - because all the recording and the transcript and links are all ready for you at a squirty TV so while you're coming on live I want to welcome you to ask 40 and let you know a couple things first as you're coming on you're joining me on Facebook please do post in the comments with what you're sipping on where you're from and your first name so I can welcome you and also know that if your lies Millie is right there in the comments answering questions and posting links no matter what though everything is ready for you to ask for tea TV all you do is look for episode 52 that's today's episode about cast iron alright and I don't think I told you who I am I'm warty from traditional cooking school we're all about traditional cooking and a really fantastic tool in our traditional cooking is to get rid of the un-- some of the unhealthy pans that people have been using for far too long like Teflon and we use cast iron instead and if you do your cast iron right you have a healthy nonstick amazing surface for cooking it's every bit as good as nonstick but it's healthy and we're going to talk about how to do that right today so again look below the video for links and more and all the notes in the transcript for this episode are asked for DTV so let's jump into today's question it comes from Emily she's asking for help with her cast iron the issue is that cast iron if it's done right is a huge blessing you have a healthy nonstick surface for your cooking it's fun and it's healthy if cast iron is done wrong then you have a big mess you have food that sticks you have just a mess to clean up you have burned this in your food and it is just not a fun experience so we really want to get it right I'm sure you all agree Emily wants to get it right also here's what she said I started using cast iron more often how do I know it's time to receive and how do I go about that great question Emily in our home we use cast iron as often as we use our instant pot it is pretty much the pan that goes on the stove I mean other than we're boiling pasta or something then we've got a big stockpot but cast iron is what we cook and what we fry in and this is actually one of our favorite pans everybody uses this to fry their eggs just about every day it holds three to four eggs perfectly in any way it gets used a lot so I'm really thrilled to have it here as an example and I'm going to be showing you another example today too as we talk through this issue Emily and that is the example of a pan that is ready for a reasoning which is part of your questions okay so let's get into it I think it's fantastic Emily that you're using cast iron for anybody who's not on the same page with cast iron in this term that I'm using seasoning you might be going seasoning what's that well if you have a cast iron pan it's cast iron and if you just try to cook on it you're going to have a sticky yucky mess no fun you probably want to throw it away and never touch it again because stuff's going to burn it's going to be hard to clean so seasoning our layers of fat it's like a coating that's on the pan that makes it wonderful to use basically but there's a good way to do your seasoning and well I should say I have a preferred way of doing the seasoning that's what I'm going to share with you today so seasoning is very important seasoning can make or break whether or not you ever want to touch cast iron again if you get the seasoning right I promise you you will love using hyoeun if you get the seasoning wrong you will hate using cast iron so seasoning really is the layers that are on the pan then make it usable and we or I would say 100% of the time it's fat its oil makes it gives it a ideally a nonstick surface okay so that's seasoning and it is essential so you said Emily that you're beginning to use cast iron I don't know necessarily if you're using my method for seasoning cast iron if you are great just in case you're not and for everyone else who's listening here I want to go through quickly the basics of my favorite method for my favorite method for seasoning cast iron and I had to laugh it because all asan's are saying either you're really strong or your pan is really light okay this is a small pan it's like a six inch or an eight inch so it's just a small one and it's heavy but you know if you think I'm strong that's great so it's not too heavy okay so the method let's talk about the best method for seasoning cast iron I have to give credit where credit is due this is a method that was taught to me by my dear friend Jamie in Oregon and we have a post on it at traditional cooking school calm Millie will paste that link below this video in the comments or just go to a sporty TV to get it it's a fantastic method and what it involves is organic high lignin flax oil okay and I'm going to walk you through the basic process but I'm going to keep it very simple for the purposes of this podcast so if you want the full details and all the extra things that Jamie has shared be sure to follow link to the original method okay and by the way this method for seasoning your cast iron is truly I could say life-changing but it's at least kitchen changing it will make cooking with cast iron amazing for you it's an amazing seasoning okay so the first thing you're going to do is you're going to have a cast iron pan and if you've purchased a new one it may come with a seasoning from the manufacturer if you picked one up at a thrift store it may have a donkey seasoning on it so your first step no matter what is to prepare your pan and that means strip it down the manufacturers seasonings today are often soy based oils which I don't want anywhere near our food and then of course if you buy a thrift store pan you don't really know what's on it and oftentimes people send them to the thrift store because they're really messed up so you know 99% of the time you're going to have to get your pan stripped bare okay and so that could be elbow grease I mean I have spent hours on pans just scraping with a knife if you have an oven with a self-cleaning function my daughter has done it successfully where you put the pan in when you're cleaning your oven and you may have to do it a couple times and the self-cleaning oven will strip your pan for you once well you know I have a self-cleaning oven right now but I've never had one before and I had a pan once that no matter what elbow grease I put into it I could not strip it just too much work so I relented and bought an oven cleaner industrial-strength oven cleaner and I went outside and I wore you know a mask I didn't want to breathe anything in I went outside so there's good ventilation and I sprayed that pan with a thick layer and I put it in a plastic bag and I let it sit for 24 hours so pretty much minimize the toxicity of it but took advantage of its power and then the next day I opened up the package again I was wearing a mask and I was outside for ventilation and you know like 99% of the gunk came off from that cleaner so there's various ways that you can clean your pants but it's really important that you strip it bare and that is step one okay step two now we're going to get into you know actually doing the seasoning step two is to warm your pan up you're going to stick it in an oven at 200 degrees and it just warmed up the metal and opens up the pores you may not know it but the metal has pores it has openings and so you just want to prepare it to receive the seasoning and that's by warming it up for like about a half hour and if the pan is wet at all it'll dry out but anyway it prepared to receive the seasoning then what you do is you get your flaxseed oil and I know everybody says flaxseed oil goes rancid when heated that is true we are not using the oil in that manner here this flaxseed oil is actually going to be heated so hot during the seasoning process that it's going to change completely and get baked and seared into the pores of the pan and create a nonstick surface that is not the same as cooking flaxseed oil okay it goes way past that and it creates this nonstick surface in your pan that's natural and healthy so step three we've prepared the pan by stripping it we've warmed it up and now what you do is you squeeze a small amount of this on your pan you rub it all over the inside you don't need to do the outside of the handle because you're not cooking in there but you rub it all over and then you take a paper towel and you wipe off as much as you can you can't wipe off too much you really do need to wipe off as much as you can I'm not exaggerating you really don't want to be able to have any oil pooling on the pan at all because what you've done is you put the flaxseed oil on it's in the pores of the pan and you've wiped off all the excess it's really important to wipe wipe wipe wipe wipe I'm not exaggerating here wipe it all off there will be a tiny bit left it'll look a little bit dull and then you're going to put it in your oven upside down and it's going to be between 400 and 500 degrees so hot really as hot as your oven can go and do it for an hour and when the hour is up you just turn your oven off and let it all cool down including the pan then you take your pan out when it's cooled and you're going to repeat the process of putting oil on rubbing it rubbing it off like five or six times and as you do it it's going to get shinier and shinier every time as this flaxseed oil turns into a nonstick surface just very thin layer at a time it'll be baked into the lake pores of the pan now this pan was done a few years ago actually so it's still quite shiny but when you freshly do a cast iron seasoning it will be even shinier than this by the sixth coat okay the first coat just not going to look as shiny that is the seasoning method for cast iron it takes some work upfront but it is so worth it because then as you begin to use your pan it's going to be like a nonstick pan caveat though pay attention in just a bit I'm going to give you some tips for cooking with it because we don't cook with it exactly like your Teflon nonstick pan it can function is nonstick but you still have to do some yourself to cook with it cook with respect for the cast iron if that makes sense and I'll tell you about that in a minute okay so let's get into some care and cleaning tips and I'm going to quote to you from my friend Jamie she's the one who came up with this method just going to quote you how she cares for and cleans her cast iron okay she says most of the time I only have to wipe out my pan with paper towels she's referring to you know after after you use it in your cleaning up for best results always clean your pants while they're warm just after using and I feel that's true as well and what I try to do is get the food out and actually put some water in while it's still warm so it can begin soaking and it does most of the time just scrape right clean like no problem at all she goes on to say when sticky sauces and such have been cooked run hot water over the pan and scrub it with a nonstick pad or brush at the same time I actually don't know what nonstick pad means but I'll tell you what I use a scrubber here okay so and a scraper so scraper scrubber with water then place the pan back on the still-warm burner and wipe dry with a paper towel she looks for a semi shiny finish with no dull spots which is basically what this looks like got it okay at times you may see some dull areas on the bottom of your pan I'm still quoting from Jamie this is a very small amount of cooked on food oil and you can remove this by scrubbing your pan while it's still warm on the burner with a steel kitchen scrub pad or one of these scrubbers or a green one the green ones are a little bit rougher than these blue Scotch scrubbers and you can scrub with some oil if the food was cooked in oil you can leave some of it in the pan and use that oil while you're scrubbing or you can add some oil and you strop really scrub until it's must sliding smoothly over the surface and you don't have that little bit of burnt on Ridge there on your pan you don't want to see or feel any raised areas and then you wipe completely with your kitchen towel or paper towels and you allow it to cool and dry and when you're done the finish should look semi glossy again no dull spots and it's smooth or at least as smooth as cast-iron can be so here's a side note if you are shopping for cast irons and there's a link below this video to a podcast where I talked about you know what to look for when you're shopping for used cast iron and brands and such one thing I'll just say is if you're in a position to shop for cast iron see how smooth this is the new cast iron pans that I've seen from lodge and elsewhere they have a bumpy surface I know you can get those to work I don't care for those bumpy surfaces so I just avoid those and I look for smooth just like this I feel that smooth works it works especially if you're baking things in it like a cornbread or something it tends to just stick much less and if you're doing pancakes or scrambled eggs or fried eggs your spatulas just smooth under the food to flip and turn or or you know slice your cornbread and pull it up anyway I really prefer smooth cast irons so I just finished talking you through you know Jamie's tips let me add some tips of my own I just did one what kind of purchase but here I'm going to tell you some other tips about care and cleaning so when you're cooking with cast I keep the heat low this is really important you would use lower heat than you do with other pans it's just really important you just don't go as high with cast iron you can still fry you still like we do fried chicken we sear hamburgers we steer steaks and cast iron you just you know I rarely go over medium and I know that depends on what kind of stove you're doing our previous electric stove I rarely go over medium high this gas stove were using currently I rarely go over medium the point is you don't need to go as high and if you want it to perform as nonstick you the lower heat than you would with another pan second is to be generous with the fat so this is one of those things I was telling you this pan will act like nonstick but you still have to be smart and respect the cast iron and the way to do that is to use generous amounts of fat this will boost the nonstick functionality of your pan it will really perform like nonstick if you have plenty of fat and then next is the types of fat so choose traditional fat so you're using butter and ghee and tallow lard and all of these that I mentioned well I guess I should say the ones with higher smoke points are going to work better for you at higher temperatures but in general use traditional fats now the fourth thing I want to talk about is cleaning and the issue of whether or not to use soap so as I was telling you when I was reading Jamie's tips to you you know we most of the time just have to wipe or scrape it clean you know just use water but I want to say that I don't think you need to be afraid of using soap and please nobody shoot me okay I know it's controversial I know there's people out there who say never never never never use soap on your cast-iron pan and they act as if it would be a sin or a travesty or they just like some great tragedy to do so well what I want to say is I think you really have to take into account the kind of seasonings that you've put on your cast-iron pan and a lot of people seasoned cast iron slowly over time by cooking in it so they're using normal cooking temperatures on the stovetop and whatever fat they're cooking in they're just adding layer upon layer of their cooking fat and if so if they're going to use soap that maybe would be a tragedy because that's going to strip away the seasoning that they're building we however are not doing that kind of a seizing we have pre-seasoned around six layers of that flaxseed oil that is baked into the pores of the pan it's not really layered up on the surface here it's in the pan and so soap is not going to ruin that so that's what I wanted to say that you don't need to be afraid of soap if you're using my seasoning method and sometimes soap is necessary for cleaning and so if I feel like I'm not getting the pan clean like I want to with water scrapers and plunges I'll add a dot of soap and I'll scrub with water with my sponge and then I dry it clean I do dry pans clean with a towel every time when I'm done cleaning I never let it dry or rust I never let it air dry or it rough okay so hopefully you guys will still come back even though I've told you not to be afraid of self in the case of this seasoning you don't have to be afraid of folks using soap so we've talked about how to season cast iron using the method that I prefer that I think is amazing we talked about tips for care and cleaning and now I want to talk about Emily's final question which is how do you know when it's time to receive in and how do you go about that okay and to talk you through that I have a pan here and Alessandra this one is much heavier I don't think I can stand here holding it the whole time I don't know if you can see on the camera but it is not as shiny and it has these patches that almost look brown on it and has some raised surfaces and to be honest this pan I and other members of family have not been as careful in cleaning it and caring for it as we go so we have stuff here but we also have on just it just needs to be Reese's inand it's been I want to say it's been five years since this one was receive them so it's due it's been due and I just haven't made the time to do it so we don't use this pan a lot because it's just not functioning well which leads me to telling you how do you know when it's time to receive it well several things it could not be returning to that shine after you use and clean it it could have they found stuff that you're just not getting off when you're cleaning it and it's just not working as well when you cook in it even when you use low heat and even when you use plenty of fat it's just not working well so then it's time to receive in it and to receive in it you basically do the seasoning process you did in the beginning except you don't necessarily need to strip it clean you may need to do a little bit of cleaning with a steel wool to get surfaces smooth again but you don't have to strip the entire pan additionally when you first season a pan that's like new to you you would do like six layers of the flaxseed oil and bake that on at high temperature one one layer at a time but if you're reasoning a pan that you've already given that treatment to maybe you only have to do one or two or three more layers of the flaxseed oil basically what you're looking for is when it restores to that beautiful deep shine so that does that makes sense I want to look at my notes and make sure I've covered everything here yeah I did I mean basically it's not working for you not returning to shine and so you clean it up you don't necessarily need to scrip it and then use the same seasoning method to restore the seasoning to the right thickness to make it function again with that beautiful you know nearly nonstick finish that makes cast iron so fun so fun to work with let me finish up by telling you a couple things first of all if you haven't yet to checked out traditional cooking school I have a free video series for you and you'll find a link below this video or at a sporty TV look for episode 62 I point that out to you because it's a series of five videos it gives you a peek inside traditional cooking school without any obligation just to see how we do things and one of those videos is a skillet dishes formula where I tell you really how to dive in your pantry and create a one-dish meal in a skillet from the foods that you have on hand in your pantry and memory serves correct this is the pan and has that I made that video in and of course it was seasoned well at the time because it was a while back anyway grab that video series so you can see making a skillet dish in a cast-iron skillet also below this video you'll find some other links I'll just quickly go through the list here because I kind of put together some resources for you if you want to go further with this cast irons of course what I've already mentioned is the the you know complete instructions in depth instructions for the method I've shared with you today look below this video for the link or go to ask for DTV episode 62 why we love cast-iron so now if you're wondering what the big deal is with cast iron beyond what I've shared today check that out I mentioned there's a podcast there where I answered a listener question on how to shop for a used cast iron so I went to some brands and what to look for reheating foods without a microwave so we use cast iron a lot for reheating foods so there's some tips there for how to use cast iron for that and finally there's a link to sourcing flax seed oil hi leg length height lignin flax seed oil and it's very important should have said this already it's been very important to just be fresh so your bottle will have a use by date on it or a sell by date and so buy a small bottle because you're not going to use a lot of it maybe you know maybe going with friends or family all receives in your cast iron at the same time so you make use of the bottle but you just don't want it to be expired it's important that it be fresh oil all right we've covered a lot of ground and Emily I did see you in the comments on Facebook so I'm really glad you made it and I hope this was helpful and answered your questions about cast iron and when to receive in it and how to go about that I spent a lot of time collecting these resources and of course sharing them with you but it's it's really not hard you put an investment in time to prep your pan and then season it but you will get years of fun use of cast iron if you season it the way I've told you and then if you use it and clean it in the way that I told you Jamie as well it is such a blessing you'll have a confidence that you're using a healthy cook surface for your family's foods but you also just won't have the sticky burns on math hard to clean it just really really works when you when you set yourself up right and follow our tips thanks so much for joining me everyone it's been great to visit with you again I'll wrap up by telling you that the transcript links and more you can find it at 40 TV you can also find instructions for submitting your question to me there but you could do it like Emily did and she tweeted at TRADD cook school using the hashtag f40 and that's how I picked up her question and answered it today so add your question to the queue either by emailing me or by tweeting me and you'll find instructions at ask for tea TV and I'll see you all again right here same time same place it's a blessing to be with you so have a wonderful week and god bless you you