Best Food Writing 2015 (18 page)

Early the next morning, the Mexican radio station is back on, loud, and Smith is making a “quick false jambalaya” for a local charity, thrown together from assorted leftovers. Lopez-Leon cracks jokes about his broken phone, carrying on with Smith about who knows what. They speak such a personal Spanglish it's like one of those languages you hear of that twins develop and no one else can understand.

“I probably would have already retired if I didn't have these clowns around me all the time,” Smith says, stepping outside to catch some air. “Otherwise . . . it'd be like a coal mine.”

Huge, outlandish plants rise from oversize planters around him. The pig sculpture flies overhead. Mexican music pours through the screen door, carrying with it the scent of jambalaya and tamales. Smith leans on a fence. This world of his—a tasty muddle of family, Southern history, love, and food—is absolutely nothing like a coal mine.

At the Stove
At the Stove

The Truth About Cast Iron Pans: 7 Myths That Need to Go Away
The Truth About Cast Iron Pans: 7 Myths That Need to Go Away

B
Y
J. K
ENJI
L
ÓPEZ
-A
LT

From Serious Eats

          
The title of Kenji López-Alt's new book,
The Food Lab: Better Home Cooking Through Science
, perfectly describes his empirical approach to cooking. As managing culinary director of Serious Eats, he's become the food world's de facto Myth Buster. Here he takes on the “accepted wisdom” about cast-iron pans.

If you haven't noticed, I'm a big fan of the cast iron. When I packed up my apartment last spring and had to live for a full month with only two pans in my kitchen, you can bet your butt that the first one I grabbed was my trusty cast iron skillet. I use it for the crispest potato hash and for giving my steaks a crazy-good sear. I use it for baking garlic knots or cornbread or the easiest, best pan pizza you'll ever bake (just kidding, this might be the easiest pizza). I use it for a complete chicken dinner with insanely crisp skin and for crispy, creamy pasta bakes.

Point is, it's a versatile workhorse and no other pan even comes close to its league.

But there's also a mysterious, myth-packed lore when it comes to cast iron pans. On the one hand there's the folks who claim you've got to treat your cast iron cookware like a delicate little flower. On the other, there's the macho types who chime in with their
my cast iron is hella non-stick
or
goddam, does my pan heat evenly!

In the world of cast iron, there are unfounded, untested claims left right and center. It's time to put a few of those myths to rest.

Myth #1: “Cast iron is difficult to maintain.”

The Theory:
Cast iron is a material that can rust, chip, or crack easily. Buying a cast iron skillet is like adopting a newborn baby and a puppy at the same time. You're going to have to pamper it through the early stages of its life, and be gentle when you store it—that seasoning can chip off!

The Reality:
Cast iron is tough as nails! There's a reason why there are 75-year-old cast iron pans kicking around at yard sales and antique shops. The stuff is built to last and it's very difficult to completely ruin it. Most new pans even come pre-seasoned, which means that the hard part is already done for you and you're ready to start cooking right away.

And as for storing it? If your seasoning is built up in a nice thin, even layer like it should be, then don't worry. It ain't gonna chip off. I store my cast iron pans nested directly in each other. Guess how many times I've chipped their seasoning? Try doing that to your non-stick skillet without damaging the surface.

Myth #2: “Cast iron heats really evenly.”

The Theory:
Searing steaks and frying potatoes requires high, even heat. Cast iron is great at searing steaks, so it must be great at heating evenly, right?

The Reality:
Actually, cast iron is
terrible
at heating evenly. The thermal conductivity—the measure of a material's ability to transfer heat from one part to another—is around a third to a quarter that of a material like aluminum. What does this mean? Throw a cast iron skillet on a burner and you end up forming very clear hot spots right on top of where the flames are, while the rest of the pan remains relatively cool.

The main advantage of cast iron is that it has very high volumetric heat capacity, which means that once it's hot, it
stays
hot. This is vitally important when searing meat. To really heat cast iron evenly, place it over a burner and let it preheat for at least 10 minutes or so, rotating it every once in a while. Alternatively, heat it up in a hot oven for 20 to 30 minutes (but remember to use a potholder or dish towel!)

The other advantage is its high emissivity—that is, its tendency to expel a lot of heat energy from its surface in the form of radiation. Stainless steel has an emissivity of around .07. Even when it's extremely hot, you can put your hand close to it and not feel a thing. Only the food directly in contact with it is heating up in any way. Cast iron, on the other hand, has a whopping .64 emissivity rating, which means that when you're cooking in it, you're not just cooking the surface in contact with the metal, but you're cooking a good deal of food above it as well. This makes it ideal for things like making hash or pan roasting chicken and vegetables.

Myth #3: “My well-seasoned cast iron pan is as non-stick as any non-stick pan out there.”

The Theory:
The better you season your cast iron, the more nonstick it becomes. Perfectly well-seasoned cast iron should be perfectly non-stick.

The Reality:
Your cast iron pan (and mine) may be really really really non-stick—non-stick enough that you can make an omelet in it or fry an egg with no problem—but let's get serious here. It's not anywhere near as non-stick as, say, Teflon, a material so non-stick that we had to develop new technologies just to get it to bond to the bottom of a pan. Can you dump a load of cold eggs into your cast iron pan, slowly heat it up with no oil, then slide those cooked eggs right back out without a spot left behind? Because you can do that in Teflon.

Yeah, didn't think so.

That said, macho posturing aside, so long as your cast iron pan is well seasoned and you make sure to pre-heat it well before adding any food, you should have no problems whatsoever with sticking.

Myth #4: “You should NEVER wash your cast iron pan with soap.”

The Theory:
Seasoning is a thin layer of oil that coats the inside of your skillet. Soap is designed to remove oil, therefore soap will damage your seasoning.

The Reality:
Seasoning is actually
not
a thin layer of oil, it's a thin layer of
polymerized
oil, a key distinction. In a properly seasoned cast iron pan, one that has been rubbed with oil and heated repeatedly, the oil has already broken down into a plastic-like substance that has bonded to the surface of the metal. This is what gives well-seasoned cast iron its non-stick properties, and as the material is no longer actually an oil, the surfactants in dish soap should not affect it. Go ahead and soap it up and scrub it out.

The one thing you
shouldn't
do? Let it soak in the sink. Try to minimize the time it takes from when you start cleaning to when you dry and re-season your pan. If that means letting it sit on the stovetop until dinner is done, so be it.

Myth #5: “Don't use metal utensils on your cast iron pan!”

The Theory:
The seasoning in cast iron pans is delicate and can easily flake out or chip if you use metal. Stick to wood or nylon utensils.

The Reality:
The seasoning in cast iron is actually remarkably resilient. It's not just stuck to the surface like tape, it's actually chemically bonded to the metal. Scrape away with a metal spatula and unless you're actually gouging out the surface of the metal, you should be able to continue cooking in it with no issue.

So you occasionally see flakes of black stuff chip out of the pan as you cook in it? It's
possible
that's seasoning, but unlikely. In order to get my cast iron pan's seasoning to flake off, I had to store it in the oven for a month's-worth of heating and drying cycles without re-seasoning it before I started to see some scaling.

More likely, those flakes of black stuff are probably carbonized bits of food that were stuck to the surface of the pan because you refused to scrub them out with soap last time you cooked.

Myth #6: “Modern cast iron is just as good as old cast iron. It's all the same material, after all.”

The Theory:
Metal is metal, cast iron is cast iron, the new stuff is no different than the old Wagner and Griswold pans from early 20th century that people fetishize.

The Reality:
The material may be the same, but the production methods have changed. Some time in the latter half of the 20th century, cast iron manufacturers in this country shifted from using solid casts for their pans to sand-based casts. The result? Modern cast iron has a pebbly surface that looks like it was cast in, well, sand. Vintage cast iron, on the other hand, boasts a completely smooth surface to cook on.

The difference is more minor than you may think. So long as you've seasoned your pan properly, both vintage and modern cast iron should take on a nice non-stick surface, but your modern cast iron will
never
be quite as non-stick as the vintage stuff.

Myth #7: “Never cook acidic foods in cast iron.”

The Theory:
Acidic food can react with the metal, causing it to leech into your food, giving you an off-flavor and potentially killing you slowly.

The Reality:
In a well-seasoned cast iron pan, the food in the pan should only be coming in contact with the layer of polymerized oil in the pan, not the metal itself. So in a perfect world, this should not be a problem. But none of us are perfect and neither are our pans. No matter how well you season, there's still a good chance that there are spots of bare metal and these can indeed interact with acidic ingredients in your food.

For this reason, it's a good idea to avoid long-simmered acidic things, particularly tomato sauce. On the other hand, a little acid is not going to hurt it. I deglaze my pan with wine after pan-roasting chicken all the time. A short simmer won't harm your food, your pan, or your health in any way.

What you SHOULD do

These are the only rules you need to know to have a successful lifelong relationship with your cast iron.

       
•
  
Season it when you get it.
Even pre-seasoned cast iron can do with some extra protection. To season your pan, heat it up on the stovetop until it's smoking hot, then rub a little oil into it and let it cool. Repeat this process a few times and you're good to go.

       
•
  
Clean it after each use.
Clean your pan thoroughly after each use by washing it with soap and water and scrubbing out any gunk or debris from the bottom. I use the scrubby side of a sponge for this.

       
•
  
Re-season it.
Rinse out any excess soap with water, then place the skillet over a burner set to high heat. When most of the water inside the skillet has dried out, add a half teaspoon of a neutral oil like vegetable, canola, flaxseed, or shortening. Rub it around with a paper towel. Continue heating the pan until it just starts to smoke then give it one more good rub. Let it cool and you're done.

       
•
  
Fry and Sear in it.
The best way to keep your seasoning maintained? Just use your pan a lot! The more you fry, sear, or bake in it, the better that seasoning will become.

       
•
  
Don't let it stay wet.
Water is the natural enemy of iron and letting even a drop of water sit in your pan when you put it away can lead to a rust spot. Not the end of the world, but rust will require a little scrubbing and reseasoning. I always dry out my pan with a paper towel and coat it with a tiny amount of oil before storage.

There now, was that so hard? Now get out there and start cooking!

Roasting a Chicken, One Sense at a Time
Roasting a Chicken, One Sense at a Time

B
Y
R
USS
P
ARSONS

From
Finesse

          
A celebrated food writer and columnist at the
LA Times
for over 25 years, Russ Parsons is also the author of
How to Read a French Fry
and
How to Pick a Peach
. For this issue of chef Thomas Keller's glossy food magazine, Parsons thoughtfully deconstructs the kitchen process of a supremely mindful cook.

Here are the basic instructions for roasting a chicken: season the chicken; roast at 450 degrees for one hour. It's that simple. You could probably program a robot to do it. But any good cook will recognize that there's a lot missing. During preparation of almost any dish, there are hundreds of variables that come into play. Noticing them is the difference between being a good cook and being a machine that performs certain tasks.

And noticing them means being aware of what is going on in your kitchen on many levels. It means being engaged with what you are doing with all of your senses. It means paying attention to what you're smelling, what you're seeing, even what you're hearing. So put away your cellphone. Turn off the TV. Facebook will wait. Focus on what you're doing. Be aware. What does the food look like? What does it smell like? How does it sound? These are all important hints the dish is giving you. File the information away and remember it next time.

Not only will doing this make you a better cook, it'll make your time in the kitchen more enjoyable. By paying attention to your senses, and calling on your collected experiences of cooking, you'll be working
intuitively rather than just following orders from some dumb recipe. You'll more fully appreciate cooking as a process, not a chore.

If all of this sounds a little far out, let's go back to that chicken.

I like to salt my chicken a day before it's going to be cooked. I allow a tablespoon of salt for every five pounds of weight. But to tell you the truth, I don't remember the last time I actually measured. I can recognize the right amount of salt by the way it looks—like the chicken has been coated with a very light frost, maybe a little bit more over the thigh and breast, where the meat is thickest.

One of the things that's important to getting a crisp, well-browned chicken is having it well-dried before cooking. The refrigerator is great for this if you leave it uncovered for an hour or so. You'll know when you run your finger over the skin and it feels slightly stiff and papery rather than supple.

When you're checking on the bird while it's roasting, the first thing you'll probably notice is the smell. There's a perfume to a roasting chicken that is sweet and mellow. If the oven is too hot and the skin starts to scorch, you'll notice that smell turning acrid and harsh.

After 10 to 15 minutes of cooking, the skin will start blistering; that's the predecessor to browning. It'll start on the breasts and legs and gradually move into skin around the joints. That's how you know when you need to turn it to get the most even color.

Listen to the bird. That's a sense that isn't usually associated with cooking, but it can give you important clues as well. During the early roasting, you'll hear the rendered fat sputtering happily in the roasting pan. But at a certain point, usually around the 45-minute mark, the tone will change when the chicken starts to release its juices. The bubbles will come closer together and they'll be snappier, angrier almost.

That's the first tip-off that the chicken is almost done.

Now, grab a drumstick and wiggle it. Before the chicken is done, it will feel stiff and resist a twist. When it's done, the ligaments will have loosened enough that it will move more easily. You'll probably also notice that the skin has started to pull away from the bone and the “heel” of the drumstick. That's another good clue.

Now, just to be safe, you'll probably also want to be taking the temperature from time to time with an instant-read thermometer. But
when you plunge it into the thigh near the hip joint, notice the resistance and how the probe slides more easily into the muscle as it gets closer to done.

And that's just a roast chicken!

Think about it, and I'm sure you'll come up with hundreds of ways your senses are tipping you off if you'll only pay attention.

Smell, of course, is a key sense in the kitchen. It tells you when the nuts and grains you're toasting have hit the perfect golden note. It lets you know when pastry has browned. When the raw alcohol has burned off of a sauce.

And touch, too. You can feel the spatula scraping the fond from the bottom of the pan when you're deglazing a sauce. You can tell when a steak is done by pressing it with your finger or when a piece of meat is not done browning by the way it sticks to the pan and resists turning. When you are making jam, you can feel the change in viscosity as the fruit starts to jell. How would we ever make bread, pasta or pastry dough if we couldn't feel that perfect moment when it just comes together, baby smooth?

Still, smell and touch are obvious. For the most part, we're aware of them and take them into consideration already. But what about sound? How often have you paid attention to what you're hearing (or should be hearing) in the kitchen?

One of the surest signs rice is ready for broth to be added when you're making risotto is that it will make a light “singing” sound when it is stirred. Along the same lines, you can tell when pilaf rice is almost done because you don't hear the water bubbling the same way.

When you're whipping egg whites or heavy cream, pay attention to the sound the whisk makes when it scrapes against the bowl; it will be muffled and softer as the eggs or cream thickens.

There's that crackling sound meat makes when it has browned and is ready to turn. Or the soft susurration when butter starts foaming and it's time to add the eggs for an omelet.

The list goes on. The “crackle” bread makes when it comes out of the oven. The change in volume and timing of the bubbles in jam as it jells. The “ping” of a properly sealed jar of preserves. The change in sizzle when you're deep-frying as the moisture reduces in the crust. The
slightly muffled sound of a mortar and pestle when pesto or aioli starts to come together.

All of these things together, if you pay attention to them, add up to what we call intuition—that ability to sense what is about to happen in the kitchen before it actually happens. The way you know without looking that that tart crust has reached the right stage of brown, how you know from another room that that chicken is about to be roasted.

It's funny when you think about it. Your food is always talking to you when you're cooking. All you have to do is listen.