Pots and pans

19 February 2004 by
Pots and pans

Pots and pans come in hundreds of shapes and sizes and perform hundreds of different cooking tasks, but when construction is stripped down to the basics, cooking pans fall into just a few types:

Black iron

The simplest and cheapest cookware, made from mild steel. While cost is on its side, rusting is a risk. Pans made from black iron are not particularly easy to clean and, if not thoroughly dried, can tarnish overnight.

Black iron frying pans are notorious for sticking items such as fish and eggs, so the pan should be seasoned before use. A layer of salt is put on the inside base and heated up. This seals any surface imperfection in the base. The salt is removed, replaced by cooking oil and heated till it smokes. The pan is then ready for use. However, if it is washed in soapy water, the whole seasoning process has to be done again. This is why Chinese chefs seldom wash their black iron woks and seem never to be troubled with food sticking.

Aluminium

The workhorse of many kitchens and still the predominant pan metal for institutional kitchens on a tight budget. The advantage of aluminium is that it is cheap, does not corrode and is a superb conductor of heat. This makes aluminium pans good for boiling and, on cost grounds, suitable for very big pans such as stockpots.

Cheap aluminium pans are made from a single sheet of metal, but the best professional aluminium pans have a thicker, layered base to spread the heat more evenly. Medium-duty aluminium pans with a base thickness of 3-4mm are suitable for open-top cooking ranges, but with the more intense heat of a solid-top range, or for hard use, a heavy-duty pan with a base thickness of 7mm will perform better. The downside of aluminium is that it cannot be used with induction heating, and frying pans made from it are prone to sticking.

Stainless steel

Fast becoming the material of choice for hotels and restaurants, because it doesn't tarnish, stainless steel is easy to clean, hygienic, hard-wearing and less prone to sticking than other metals, and it looks good. Because it is so popular, there is wide variation in quality on the market. As with aluminium, the base of the pan will be layered. This usually takes the form of a three-layer sandwich with stainless steel on the bottom, aluminium in the middle to give good conductivity, and stainless steel on top. Some top-of-the-range pans will have up to seven sandwich layers.

Cheap pans might look the part but are unsuitable for the professional kitchen. The thin gauge of the metal gives poor heat distribution; they will tarnish easily; and because the metal surface is poorly polished, sticking can be a problem.

On workplace safety grounds, cheap stainless-steel pans can also be dangerous: the tack welding that holds the handle on could be poor and snap without warning when the pan is full of hot liquid.

Non-stick

Most kitchens now have a small selection of non-stick cookware. It is perfect for frying delicate fish such as sole and plaice, omelettes never stick, and it can be part of a low-fat style of cooking. The cheapest non-stick is coated on aluminium, but because of the relative softness of aluminium, the non-stick layer will not last as long as it would when coated on steel. The main cause of damage to the non-stick coating, apart from the obvious one of using metal utensils, is getting the temperature too high. While normal frying is done at 200°C, flash-frying over a fierce heat can send the base temperature way over 250°C, which can cause splitting of the non-stick coating.

Copper

Once the material of choice in the classic professional kitchen, its use is dwindling in the face of stainless steel. The traditional construction would be copper, for the conductivity, lined with tin to protect the food from copper contamination.

It is still possible to buy copper-tin pans, and they can still be re-tinned, but copper lined with stainless steel is the growing part of this market for all the qualities that stainless steel has, combined with the conductivity and good looks of copper. One downside of copper pans is their solid metal handles, which can get far hotter than the tubular handles found on most other pans.

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