I used cast iron in my apartment for five years. My range was even electric.

The cast iron community of the internet overthinks its care and usage. To season, just use it. To use it, don't restrict yourself (some recommend against tomato sauce because of the acidity, for. example). To clean it, get yourself as scrubber [1] to remove the high spots and wipe the remaining residue with a paper towel. Done.

It's a hearty hunk of metal that's been in kitchens for generations. It can withstand a lot.

[1]: https://www.amazon.com/Cleaner-Stainless-Chainmail-Scrubber-...

This is so true. I guarantee my ancestors out in the woods of Pennsylvania didn't spend any time deliberately seasoning their skillets. They were tools to be used, not decorations to be delicately and painstakingly maintained.

So much this. Forget all the weird voodoo rituals and what-not. Clean the skillet, and fry a pound of bacon (or two) in it. Now it's seasoned. It isn't much more complicated than that.

Animal fats are better than vegetable oils. Vegetable oils polymerize into a sticky substance. You don't really need to season a cast iron pan. Just keep it oiled, use a metal spatula, and wash after use(deglaze if needed). The metal spatula helps keep the cook surface smooth.

Flax seed oil works great for seasoning. http://sherylcanter.com/wordpress/2010/01/a-science-based-te...

There's unfortunately no published scientific research on what oil should be used for seasoning, but this source is pretty convincing to me that flaxseed is bad:

https://www.reddit.com/r/castiron/comments/5owtnm/why_i_dont...

I am about to move into a new-construction apartment in California which means no gas stove.

Ditched my cast iron in anticipation because the one I have has a rough bottom that would definitely scratch up the glass cook top of the electric stove.

Since I ditched the cast iron, honestly haven't seen much of a difference in how well I can cook things using a regular nonstick pan - my main use is cooking/frying up chicken thighs so the skin is nice and crispy.

Buying the cast iron did give me the original inspiration to start making these recipes though.

Really the only advantage of cast iron is it is cheap, lasts forever, and you can bake with them. Other than that any pan works about the same. Your choices are about a compromise of weight, how long it lasts, and price. I do once make in my cast iron once in a while, but other than that any pan I have works. I keep the cast iron on the stove though because it is my favorite.

Regular non-stick works just as well for about 3 years or so (very much depends on how much you use it, and how careful you are), then the non-stick wears out and they stick worse than anything else.

I have stainless pans that work just as well as cast iron, but they cost more. They end up spending most of the time hidden away but I do use them and won't get rid of them.

Yeah—-I bake sourdough and cornbread in our skillets, sometimes one upside down over the other for steaming.

I cant recommend this enough for great heat in small spaces. Extremely portable as well.

https://www.ikea.com/us/en/p/tillreda-portable-induction-coo...

We use a couple cast-iron skillets on our glass-topped electric-coil stove (likely from the 90s?). One skillet has a bump on the bottom that I haven’t filed off yet. The glass surface seems fine, but if you’re renting it makes sense to be cautious.

> would definitely scratch up the glass cook top of the electric stove.

I'm imagining the size of your phone case right now.

You can just use it like a normal, heavy duty pan. The difference in use and flavor between seasoned and unseasoned is pretty minor, IMO.

The real advantage is that they're so cheap relative to their utility. They heat evenly and stand up to incredible abuse at a fraction of the cost of a normal pan.

Note that seasoning cast iron has nothing to do with flavor. It refers to the coating that develops after seasons of use. The primary benefit is that it prevents rust. A very nice side effect is that food tends to stick to it less. Seasoning is best accomplished in a controlled environment, but it's also fine to just start using it (with oil) and lightly clean without soap after use. Eventually, it might start to develop a useful coating in key areas.

I steam clean it (hot water + hot pan + stiff brush), then back on the stove to dry off and apply a light layer of avocado oil.

Leave it shiny on your stove and ready for next use.

The important thing with cast iron is to clean it immediately, before you've started eating. But this is actually pretty easy because steam cleaning is so effective and cast iron is really durable.

It takes about 30 seconds to clean it and rub with oil.

Or let it cool down, and use chain mail.

For seasoning to form the oil needs to turn into plastic. A wet layer of oil that isnt heated wont do that.

Heating evenly is a benefit of aluminum not iron.

Clad steel is a nice middle ground, either with aluminum or copper. More even heat distribution, long lasting without the care regimen of cast iron. They arent expensive either.

Huh, TIL. I had assumed the thickness of the iron would have lead to better heating, but it looks like both aluminum and steel heat much more evenly.

I still argue that the care regimen is overblown, you can scrub with soap and a sponge and as long as you're not just grinding at the surface it will be fine. You can soak it, it's fine. We treat our cast iron like any other pan and it's really not a big deal - we just add appropriate oil if we took off too much of the bonded oil the last time we cooked.

Totally agree. They are not easy to clean and need to season properly with a bit of oil and mine always smells of cooking oil that is stuck on it and never comes off how much I wash it.

Edit: The cooking oil we mostly use is Ghee (clarified butter) to cook vegetarian dishes on our cast iron skillet.

Baking soda will remove the polymerized oil. What type of oil you use is important. Animal fats don't polymerize like most vegetable oils do. If your pan smells like the last thing you cooked wash it, dry it with heat, and wipe a thin layer of oil to store it.

A metal spatula is necessary as well. Plastic and rubber aren't stiff enough to scrape the cook surface smooth.

I also use salt as an abrasive for stubborn bits.

I love my cast iron skillet for some things (and have a house), but I can’t see how having a house made the seasoning process any different than if I’d done it it my old apartment. It smoked the same and the kitchen exhaust fan did an OK-not-great job of pulling it outside, just like it would have in my old apartment kitchen which also had a range vent that went outside (and frankly worked better than my house one which is downdraft due to fancy-kitchen design shenanigans).

I think the main difference might be that in your house, if you season a pan and end up with lots of lasting smoke everywhere, or even an errant fire alarm, you own it so you can elect to not care. In an apartment, neighbors might complain.

> my old apartment kitchen which also had a range vent that went outside

Not everyone lives in an apartment with a range vent that goes outside. I've personally never seen that in my life.

Not everyone’s house does either, though (making it not a house vs apartment thing).

You can get enameled ones you don't need to season. Le Creuset makes expensive examples. I love mine. I like that works well in both the oven and stove.

I'm guessing it is a vent hood over the stove you are missing in the apartment? That allows us to season our cast iron skillets without any headache.

Picked up a chainmail-like "dish rag" (it is truly just a swatch made up of links of metal) that beautifully cleans the skillet after meals but preserves the seasoning.

Yeah, iron skillet is our go-to now.

Do you not have a standard hood over your stove? Seasoning has never caused issues for me in the 4 or so places I've lived and done this. Usually keeping the oven door shut fixes 98% of the issues, and the fan above on high sucks up anything else.

Live in an apartment and it’s not been a problem, if it was still sticky you probably used too much oil. And once seasoned you can just quickly wash with soap, dry, very lightly coat and with oil and toss on the burner till it starts to smoke.

> Personally I think these are a waste of money unless you live in a house

They’re not, and if seasoning is a concern, you can get preseasoned; you should almost never need to reseason with proper care.

How does the ownership structure of your residence affect your ability to clear smoke from a room, or your ability to effectively season a cast iron skillet?

The apartments that my friends and I live in have small windows and only on one side, and one door. Not to mention that venting smoke out into a hallway can just trigger hallway smoke alarms.That's not really a scenario where I want to deal with a lot of smoke.

In houses (notice I never said anything about ownership, don't know why you brought that up), you can open up windows on all sides and generally have at least two doors, which allows for much better ventilation than what's possible in the apartments that I've been in recently.

Apartments are leased - this is what I was responding to. You're right that I created a false duality of apartment=lease vs house=owned.

Some apartments you can't open the front door or the smoke will set off the whole building. You also have a harder time turning off fire alarms since the building doesn't want people disabling them as they are all entwined.

If they do this again they might risk someone calling the super or the landlord. I have heard it's pretty easy to get evicted in the US, even using a loud blender can get you in trouble.

No it's not. It's not that easy. It's actually hard and annoying to evict someone. You can stay in an apartment for months in California while paying no rent.

Three days of non-payment does it in Iowa. Not suggesting it's right, but that's how it is.

Depends on the state