If you are cooking with Teflon pans, do yourself a favor and throw them away. Those flimsy pans are terrible conductors and create hot spots that prevent your food from being cooked evenly. Additionally, their Teflon coating is not very durable, even on the highest quality pans. It is easily scratched, scarred, and can be burned at high enough temperatures, all of which ruin the "non-stick" characteristic of the surface. Most importantly, even if you:
- Get a quality Teflon pan that distributes heat evenly
- You only use silicone and soft plastic utensils
- Never bring the pan over 450 degrees so it doesn't burn
- Only wash it with something non-abrasive
TEFLON IS TOXIC. Why would you want to cook with something coated in a toxic chemical?
https://www.cancer.org/cancer/cancer-causes/teflon-and-perfluorooctanoic-acid-pfoa.html
https://greenlivingideas.com/2012/06/13/how-toxic-is-teflon/
Do yourself a favor and get some cast iron. It was the material of choice for generations, and for most applications it will do a better job, and give food a better flavor than any other option. Sure its can be a little heavy, and you can't just throw it in the dish washer when you're done using it, but it will create great flavors, seer better than any other pan, and if taken care of it will last a lifetime.
Heirloom cast iron skillets can be very sought after, but if you are willing to invest the time, you can make a new cast iron skillet perform even better than the old Grizwolds and Wagners your grandparents cherished. Those skillets are sought after because they are thinner than today's models and they had smoother surfaces with fewer imperfections (because they were hand sanded). Because they were thinner, they weren't quite so cumbersome and they would heat up faster. A smoother surface also meant that they would develop a non-stick coating or "season" more quickly.
So what can we do to make our new skillets perform as well as one of these old piece? That really depends on how dedicated you are to creating great cookware. You could easily go find yourself a palm sander and sand down any major imperfections and re-season the skillet the skillet and it will be just fine, but if you really want to go all out you'll need a few things.
First off, don't forget to wear a mask, it will get pretty dusty! You'll need an angle grinder with a "paint and rust remover" or "stripper" wheel.
If you don't have access to and angle grinder you can find a drill bit with the same wheel (seen in the picture below) it will just take a little longer with a drill.
Then go over it for a few minutes with a coarse sand paper (80 grit works well). Then finish it off with a fine grit. Once you've dedicated some time to sanding it with a 220 grit sandpaper it will begin to really shine.
Now you just need to get it back in the kitchen to season it in the oven a few times and start cooking. Once you've gotten a good season on your skillet, if you cook use it properly scraping burnt on food will be a thing of the past. When frying eggs, they will slide with ease, and the skillet will only get better with age.
If you are new to cooking with cast iron, or don't know how to season and care for it, let me know and I'll make a follow up about it. I hope this helps you get some of the harmful toxins out of your life, and inspires you to create great food in the future.
Happy Cooking
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