Congratulations on your purchase of a brand-new Cottage™ twelve-inch cast-iron skillet! For more than a hundred years, Cottage™ has been a leading manufacturer of quality pans, free weights, and kettlebells. And, for just eight dollars (plus a one-dollar-per-pound shipping fee, so $48 total), cast iron gives you the most skilleting pleasure for your cookware buck. Just keep these basic guidelines in mind, and your pan will never rust, break, or allow you to suffer from any sort of iron-deficiency-induced anemia.
Before you use your pan for the first time, you'll need to "season" it. Luckily, that process couldn't be simpler:
Join your neighborhood food co-op. If your neighborhood doesn't have a food co-op, you may want to reëxamine your life choices before continuing.
Put your pan on the stove and turn your burner all the way up to high. You do have a gas range, don't you? Did they have electric stoves on the Oregon Trail? Then why would you think that you could use a cast-iron pan on one?
O.K., now let it sit there until it gets good and hot. Twenty-nine hours should do the trick, but you may have to leave it for up to thirty, depending on your altitude.
Take a towel and rub some oil on the hot pan. You'll know you've added enough oil when the towel you're using has completely disintegrated into a pile of ash.
Repeat this process eleven or twelve times and you're good to go!
Fried
Fried
Fried
We bought Anna a small skillet last week. Cast iron. Which is to say, Jane bought Anna a small skillet last week.
Cast iron.
I’m not sure what she was thinking.
But I’m thinking she’ll need to read this classic piece of advice from The New Yorker.