The acidity of tomatoes makes them challenging to cook in cast iron. Anyone who's ever eaten a tomato or cooked with tomatoes can verify that this fruit is quite acidic. As it happens, the tomato's acidity is precisely why doesn't work well with cast-iron cookware, especially for long cooking stretches.
Never cook acidic foods in a cast iron skillet.
Acidic ingredients like tomatoes, lemons, and wine can be cooked in a well-seasoned cast iron pan for short amounts of time. You can sauté cherry tomatoes in cast iron, but don't try making a long-simmering tomato sauce.
Yes, you can season the pans for frying, sautéing, or baking in cast iron cookware like pans, pots, or skillets with butter, but it's not the right choice to season it for the first time. Butter immediately starts to smoke when added to a heated pan because cast iron can withstand a lot of heat.
Acidic foods (unless you make it snappy)
Acidic foods (like tomato sauce, wine-braised meats, etc.) enter the red zone when they spend too much time cooking in the skillet. It's particularly important to not marinate anything in a cast-iron pan, as many marinades are quite acidic in order to tenderize the meat.
You can generally use whatever oil you prefer, as long as the cooking temperature is below the smoke point of the oil. Olive oil, vegetable oil, sunflower oil, and grapeseed oil are all great multipurpose cooking oils—you can use them for everything from sautéing to baking.
Any eggs that require a flip — over easy through over hard — are also far more likely to end up on your plate with a broken yolk. Finally, since cast iron retains heat so well, any style of eggs are more likely to brown and overcook. Avoid cast iron altogether with eggs and opt for a thinner, nonstick skillet.
Cooking two medium onions or one large onion sliced in a cast iron skillet after seasoning will do wonders to enhance the surface.
With a few simple tricks to choose the right oil and get your pan to that just-right temperature, you'll get eggs with crispy edges and runny yolks every time (if that's your jam). But don't worry, cast iron makes the perfect egg no matter how you like them done!
You should avoid cooking acidic sauces in cast-iron pans for two reasons: first, the acid loosens trace amounts of molecules from the metal that can then leach into your foods, imparting a metallic flavor. While perfectly safe to consume, these metal flavors can be unpleasant.
So the cast iron pan can also be used to make other delicious one pot Indian curries like Butter Chicken Recipe - The Classic Indian Chicken Gravy and Baked Fish In Coconut Milk Recipe.
Cast iron pans can leach a sizeable amount of iron into your food, exceeding dietary intake in some cases. Acidic foods will contribute to much more leaching while an old, heavily-seasoned pan will leach much less iron than a newer one.
Most often you can clean a cast-iron pan by simply wiping it down with a dry paper towel or cotton dishcloth. If the pan is well seasoned, bits of burnt, stuck-on food will come right off. If any stubborn bits remain, scrape them off with a plastic spatula.
Occasionally food may stick to your cast iron cookware. This can happen for a variety of reasons, such as not using enough fat or oil when cooking, using cookware that isn't well seasoned, or when breaking in new cookware that hasn't built up additional layers of seasoning.
If you try to season the cast iron with olive oil, it will not only burn but will send carcinogenic fumes into the air. Olive oil also has low smoke points. Its smoke point is 350°F which is lower than canola oil which has a smoke point of 400°F.
Unsaturated fats have a chemical makeup that is more optimal for polymerization, the process that needs to occur to develop the perfect cast iron seasoning. So steer clear of oils with a higher concentration of saturated fats, like coconut oil and palm oil.
Whenever cooking with garlic in a cast-iron skillet—particularly if you're risking it with minced—there are two very important things to heed. First, pay close attention to temperature. Garlic is finicky and will burn quickly. Keep the temperature low and slow.
The Myth: You can't cook wine, tomatoes, or other acidic ingredients in a cast-iron pan. 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.
How often should you season your cast iron skillet? Generally, we recommend seasoning your cast iron about once per month, but after every time you use it works as well if you find that it could use some seasoning. What type of oil is best for seasoning a cast iron skillet? Canola, vegetable, or coconut oil are best.
Should I Oil My Cast Iron After Every Use? After each use, to get the most out of your cast-iron skillet, it is best practice to apply a thin layer of oil on the surface. Regularly oiling your cast iron skillet will provide a protective layer to the surface and help keep it from rusting.
Bake for 1 hour
Place the cookware in the oven upside down. Place a large baking sheet or aluminum foil on the bottom rack. Bake at 450-500 degrees F for one hour. Allow to cool.
Cast-iron cookware is porous, and the oil works to fill those pores and create a smooth, nonstick surface. Enough oil soaks into those pores during the initial coating, so you can go ahead and wipe off as much as you can. Leaving too much oil on is a common mistake that will leave your skillet sticky.