The Ultimate Guide to Skillets | Gear Heads

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No points for guessing the winning brands.

👍︎︎ 2 👤︎︎ u/TedInATL 📅︎︎ Sep 18 2021 🗫︎ replies
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- When I cook in this, I feel like Jacques Pepin. I'm like, wow, look at that. Look at those, you know, things coming out golden and perfect and you know, way over my normal skill level. - (upbeat electronic beat) - Here at ATK, we know skillets. We have tested almost every size and type from cast iron to carbon steel, to non-stick and more. - Did you ever wonder why there's so many kinds of skillets, every type of skillet has its own superpower. Some perform better than others in certain methods, situations, and recipes. - So, which skillets should you stock in your kitchen? Lisa and I are going to give you a crash course in skillets. so you can decide for yourself. - First up, Hannah. - (upbeat electronic beat) - All right. So first up today is nonstick. I'm going to talk about this skillet. We call this the easiest skillet choice you can make. If you follow us. You know, we have a lot to say about nonstick. We talk about them all the time. I can tell you about it in my sleep. You know, these pans are really are easy to use. There are two different kinds. They're traditional PTFE nonstick, and then there's ceramic non-stick. The ceramic pans have a higher temperature. You can use them to a higher temperature before they start off gassing. Ah, really high something that you wouldn't hit on the stove. But the ceramic pans aren't quite as durable and they're not quite as non-stick, these pans have more durable coatings, and they're more non-stick, but you can't keep them as high. You know, they start off gassing at 500 degrees, which is possible to do on the stove. So you really have to be careful to use a traditional pan only on low or medium heat on the stove top and watch it, don't ever heat it when empty. So there are pros and cons to each style. What I have in front of me is our traditional winner from OXO right here. - What makes this pan non-stick is a very thin coating of plastic on it. - This one, won our testing, because it is supremely non-stick. - Even at the end of testing, after we put it through hell, it still released eggs perfectly without any fat in the pan. - It had also won because of its shape. It has this long cooking surface, low flared sides, really easy to get in there and move around. Super comfortable handle. - Our winning ceramic nonstick pan is made by Greenpan and also showed the same qualities as the Oxo, as far as shape handle good balance. All of that, just a slightly different coating style. - We reach for non-stick pans when we're dealing with something really sticky, eggs, seafood, anything really delicate. It's also a pan if you don't want to flip around a heavy cast iron, they don't have care. - You don't have to season this pan. - You have to be kinda careful. You don't wanna get in there with a metal spatula. (stabby, squeaky noise) You don't want to do that. You wanna to use plastic or wood on these. (whispers) I use a little metal, it's fine. Just don't, don't stab it. - But you want to be gentle with them. And these pans don't last forever. - We're not going to tell you to buy a $200 non-stick pan, 'cause this is not a pan you're passing down to your kids. - You know, this is a pan, if you're using your non-stick pan regularly, this pan will last about two to three years. - So, you know, 40 bucks, two to three years, that's a pretty good investment. That's pretty reasonable. And again, these are always, like, these are the easiest of the bunch. - These will help you cook better food. They're going to release everything nice and easily. - They're a great option for folks that are just starting out or for someone that doesn't want to deal with any pan maintenance or any weight to their pan. - It's a nice light pan. It's really easy to use. - So there are some things to look out for with these pans. You know, you want to watch for a bad shape, really high cupped sides, make it hard to get in there and flip over, uh, fish filets or eggs. You also want a good quality coating. This is the highest quality coating we tested. Some of these. I had one pan, you know, those like copper pans, they're copper colored. They're not real copper. I tested one of those. And the copper, "copper", started flaking off around the rim. Like it's just gnarly. Those are not high quality pans. So a solid, good, durable coating is really key for non-stick 'cause you do not want to be eating your coating. All right now, to demonstrate the non stickability of this pan, I'm going to cook some fish. I chose some nice, thin tilapia they had because it looked a little tricky to flip. So I'm going to show you how good this pan really is. - (upbeat jazz music) - All right. So I've got my gorgeous filet of fish right here. Like, look at, look at that release. I mean, it's just wild. These really are beautiful for fish. Nice browning. You can see not a speck of fish on here. Beautiful release. That is really what nonstick is all about. This is really the easiest option on the block, and it's a good entry style of pan, or if you don't want to deal with any pan care or hefting and cleaning a heavy pan, non-stick, it really is a great option. All right. So next up is carbon steel, which is my personal favorite. This is, uh, really common in restaurants. - Carbon steel is a really cool material. It conducts heat really well. - It retains heat well. Not quite as much as cast iron, but it's also a little lighter than cast iron. You don't quite have the same heft with a carbon steel pan. - So you get nice heat retention, beautiful browning, beautiful searing, but at a slightly lighter weight. - The other benefits of carbon steel are, they're naturally non-stick. This is a huge benefit for me. - This is one reason why this is my favorite material. - They build up a seasoning, just like cast iron. They require some maintenance on that front. So to take care of a carbon steel pan, you have some work to do first when they arrive, you know, they arrive often coated in wax. This is to protect the surface during transit. So it doesn't rust. You know, they are reactive. - After you scrub off the coating, the wax coating, you saute around oil, salt, and potato peels. The potato peels are really just something. You need something in the pan. You know, I've heard people doing it with scallions, for woks. You know, there's all different things you can do. Um. But when you saute the potato peels around and that builds the initial seasoning. You know, we recommend doing this, even if your pan comes pre-seasoned, we recommend doing this. - So once you've got your potato peels step done, then it's just about maintenance. You know, and this part is very similar to cast iron. You really, you know, you're drying it after use. You're warming up a little bit and you're oiling the surface. That's it, nice and easy to keep that protective layer on there and build your seasoning. - Once you do, you get non-stick beautiful release, like eggs, fish, everything. - Beautiful release, naturally without any plastic coatings, which I really love that. This an omelet pan. Uh, carbon steel is a classic material for an omelet pan. This is an eight inch carbon steel pan. This is Eddie. This is my pan. I use him every day. I absolutely love Eddie. And this is our winners. This is Matfer Bourgeat. It's this absolutely beautiful pan from a French company. This one, won our testing for a lot of reasons. - First of all, shape, you know, it has that broad cooking surface, low flared sides. That means it contains things well, but you also have easy access. - Um, it has a super comfortable handle set at a really nice angle for the tossie-toss. Uh, it's also really durable. You know. - It's not quite as durable as cast iron, which is basically like a rock, you know, but it's really, really durable. - This is a pan that you will pass down. This is a 50 year pan, if you treat it right. I am going to make some charred green beans in this, to show off that, like, that really beautiful searing that this pan can do. So, let's go. - (upbeat jazz music) - All right. So I have my gorgeous green beans here. Look at this char. That is really one thing I love about carbon steel. You get the char without the weight of cast iron, you know, both are great options. I use both on the regular, but that's kind of the cool part about skillets, right? There's like a skillet for every situation. If you're just starting out, you know, think about how many of your people you're cooking for and think about what material you gravitate to most. And then build from there, start with one and then build from there. For me, my one would be carbon steel. - You know, there is a little bit of care and maintenance, but for me, that's worth it to get that naturally nonstick surface and not have to deal with traditional nonstick. - So I love carbon steel, but you know, I'm really curious to see what you all love. Like, please, let us know what kind of skillet you use or skillets you use in the comments. Now let's go to Lisa. Lisa is going to tell us all about cast iron. - (upbeat clicky music) - Cast iron. One of my favorites. Here's their superpower. They are heavy and they retain heat. So you get this amazing browning, - or this ability to keep hot oil, hot while you're frying, or to bake in them and get a beautiful, crisp crust on a, very moist, cornbread or pie or anything like that. - So they are fantastic in the kitchen. And they're one of the most versatile skillets you can buy. - I just recently tested 10, 12 inch cast iron skillets of all different types. - And I have to tell you, I love them more than ever. Even though there was, you know, a lot of work involved in the testing. I love them so much. Even within the category of cast iron, there's a few types. This is your classic black cast iron. It's uncoated, you have to season it. - The Lodge is there, a longtime favorite. Recently became our best buy. - Everyone knows about those, but there's also, this which is our favorite enameled cast iron pan. This one's by Le Creuset. It's beautiful comes in all kinds of colors. The interior looks black, but that is a black enamel. And the beauty of this is that you never have to season it. - It's already sealed. Seasoning, just seals the pan from rustin', from reacting to acidic foods. - One thing you do need to know is, it's never going to get better, like, a plain cast iron pan. - It's going to start out the way it is, and over time that enamel may wear off a little. It may become less nonstick with time. It can't acquire seasoning, but if you want lower care and a beautiful pan, you can bring to the table. Gorgeous. The other thing to know, artisan cast iron. This is something that's happened within the past five to 10 years. Artisan makers have sprung up around America, making some beautiful pans. And what they're doing is they are picking up techniques from old vintage pans. A lot of them are polishing the interior after it's made. So all cast iron is literally cast in sand, - which gives it a pebbly finish. - The older pans, they used to hand polish the interior. That takes some time, it costs some money. - So larger companies like Lodge and a lot of the other cast iron that you can find now, they're not polishing. - And some of them are pretty rough. Um, they take longer to acquire seasoning - and you got to do a lot more care before they get up to that level of vintage pans or these artisan pans, - which start out super slick and glassy. But I have to tell you artisan pans, because they're slower to make and they've got some hand finishing and you know, they're start-ups, those pans are kind of expensive. This is our favorite cast iron pan right now. It's the Smithey Ironware from Charleston, South Carolina, costs about $200. Our best buy from Lodge, caught up to it within a few rounds of cooking in terms of the release of food. As you can see, they're almost the same proportions in size and they perform the same. We love supporting artisans, and this is a terrific pan by Smithey Ironware. Most people are going to be able to get this Lodge it's in stores and it's very easily available. So, let's talk about that one. So what are you looking for in a good cast iron pan? This is our favorite for a couple of reasons. One, it's heavyweight. We have seen lightweight cast iron pans on the market, and honestly, they're not worth it. - They're thin and they don't hold as much heat. The lightweight doesn't really cut it. I'm sorry. If you want lightweight, pick another style of skillet. - The other thing we love about this is its size and shape. - It has a nice broad cooking surface. It has sides that are just over two inches high. We like at least two inches high sides for more versatility, - because if you are going to shallow fry chicken or make homemade doughnuts or anything like that, which we have great recipes for, you need a little bit of depth here and hold the oil in. - This finish on this it's pre-seasoned in the factory, which means that they spray it with a light coat of vegetable oil and they bake it, and they do it a few times. And this gives it a beautiful pre-seasoning that you can - just take this out of the box and start cooking. And it will get more and more nonstick as you use it. - You're gonna to hand this thing down for generations. You can do all kinds of things in it. So like I said, it becomes almost as non-stick as a non-stick pan naturally. So of the things that we love to make in cast iron, because of that great power of holding and retaining and reflecting a lot of heat is steak. If you're going to make beautiful, gorgeous brown steak with a nice pink interior, but a gorgeous brown crust on the outside. Cast iron is the way to go. I'm going to be searing some strip steaks in this pan. And we start by putting the pan in the oven at 500 degrees. We're going to put it in cold and heat it up to 500. When the oven hits 500, we're ready to go. That ensures that the heat spreads throughout the pan. And it all is 500 degrees when you drop that steak in. One of the things people often say, which is not quite accurate, is that cast iron heats evenly. It really doesn't. It's not about evenness. It's about the retention, but it needs time to kind of bank up all that heat to spread it throughout the pan. So that it's ready to go. So if you just pop this on a cold stove top and turn it on and put your stake in, you are not going to see that gorgeous browning that we're going to get. Okay, this thing is red hot. I preheated my oven at 500 degrees empty, um, and it is hot end to end, got to keep these potholders on And I'm going to keep the heat going by getting it up to medium high. I'm adding two tablespoons of oil. And as soon as it starts to smoke, I'm going to add my steaks. There goes, it's smoking your come the steaks. - (upbeat jazz music) - My steaks are done. They're rested. They, I put them under some foil and I put some herb butter on there. That I made with some fresh herbs, and garlic, and shallots and let that melt on there, while the steaks rested. Slice it up to show you how beautiful and pink it is inside with that gorgeous brown crust. You can't get that with a pan that isn't as heavy and as heat retaining as a good cast iron skillet. And I know a lot of people worry about the maintenance involved with cast iron. Here's the thing. Take your food out, before that was even done resting. I got some paper towel. I wiped out the excess food and oil. I rinse this under hot water, pat it dry, put it back on the hot burner. It will dry a couple drops of oil, wipe that around. Really, only half teaspoon for a 12 inch pan. Wipe that around the interior. That's all you have to do. You have to rinse it, dry it, heat it and oil it and let it cool in place. And it's going to be great. So quick, so easy and that pan will never do you wrong. Another type of skillet I love is stainless clad. There are a lot of misconceptions about this type of pan, and I'm here to clear that up. Thing you want to know about a stainless steel skillet is that they're not all created equal. Stainless steel, is how we kind of refer to it because that gives you this picture mentally. But this is a clad skillet, and there's a big distinction. A clad skillet is made of three layers of metal or five layers of metal or even seven in some cases. This one is simply three. It's called tri ply. Those are three layers and it stainless aluminum stainless. The beauty of that is that those two different metals behave differently with heat and between them, they're more than the sum of their parts. It makes gorgeous even heating and browning. If you get a pan, that's only stainless, it's going to be sluggish, aluminum, a little over-responsive in either case, you're going to get hotspots. Sometimes you see something called the disc. We call it disc bottom pan, because literally they put a disc on the bottom of a thin stainless pan that has those three metals in. It has stainless some aluminum and stainless. And it's only on the bottom. Which makes them seem attractive. But those, those discs don't behave like what's a fully clad pan will. Which means that the entire pan, those three layers of metal are bonded. And then they stamp the pan out of that. They don't try to stick them onto the bottom. Which you can imagine it doesn't work that well. This is our winner by All-Clad the D3 stainless 12 inch skillet. This is my personal copy. I have used this for over 10 years. The thing that really throws a lot of people is that it's not nonstick. When you cook in this pan food sticks. And that is okay, it's going to stick. And that creates fond. It's the brown and blackened bits that stick to the pan. That is the secret of flavor. And you're going to lose it if you just wash that away. So one of the solutions is to make a pan sauce, Which is literally what they call deglazing the pan. You're adding some liquid and you're bubbling it up, and you're reducing it. And that lifts all the stuff right off the bottom beautifully. And the pan washes like no problem. I'm going to make some chicken breasts. And then, I'm going to make a pan sauce. Which will show you how beautifully it cleans that fond right off the bottom of the pan. So anything that was stuck goes into a delicious sauce. Win-win. - (upbeat jazz music) - So that was it. I made the pan sauce. We used some beautiful butter to make it thick and delicious, um, super easy. I will show you. Wow. And look at this. This pan is clean. There's nothing stuck in there anymore. And we've saved all that flavor for our chicken. And if you had like potatoes or rice with this, it's terrific. It's got fresh herbs and all kinds of delicious things. And your pan, she is clean. I definitely recommend a stainless clad pan, be part of your arsenal. - So as you can see, there are tons of skillets to choose from. You've got the carbon steel, which is the Jack of all trades. Good at a lot of different things. You've got cast iron, super heavy. Super tough and durable. You've got stainless steel, beautiful browning. And then you've got, non-stick. Super easy to use all around. Whichever you use, you probably will land on a combination of these, you know, anywhere from one to three skillets in different sizes and materials can give you greater flexibility when you're cooking all different recipes in your kitchen. - So for more information on all the products we talked about, checkout the links below. - Yes. And please ask us your skillet questions in the comments. Make sure to like this video and hit that subscribe button. - (soft upbeat outro music)
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Channel: America's Test Kitchen
Views: 396,198
Rating: undefined out of 5
Keywords: kitchen equipment, equipment reviews, gear heads, americas test kitchen, cooks illustrated, cooks country, skillets, cast iron skillet, stainless steel skillet, all clad skillet, carbon steel skillet, nonstick skillet
Id: 9TH0kEjezXs
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Length: 18min 20sec (1100 seconds)
Published: Fri Sep 17 2021
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