Some things are always better in stainless or cast iron... I tend towards meats in cast iron and veggies in stainless, though it really depends.
Other things are easiest in nonstick, but can be learned in stainless, like eggs sunny-side up. Eggs overeasy without breaking the yolk is really hard though. You can do it, but it's not something you're gonna learn quick.
But there are still other things that you're basically insane to try in anything but nonstick, like thin light fish for example. Hence why professional kitchens still use lots of nonstick, even cooks who have all the technique you can have.
(And as wonderful as your cast iron patina may be, the idea that it's somehow equivalent to "nonstick" is utter nonsense. Obviously a patina is necessary, but it's not like frying eggs is ever any easier in cast iron than it is in stainless. As with stainless, any and all non-sticking is due to using lots of oil on top of a flat surface.)
This is strange to hear from a professional chef. I cook eggs overeasy on my cast iron all the time. What works for me is preheating the pan on moderate heat for a minute or two, putting in a bit of butter, and using a metal spatula. Haven't had a broken egg in forever.
I've certainly found you need less oil to prevent sticking on a well-seasoned cast iron compared to others. It really is a semi-nonstick layer. I've made eggs on mine with no butter just to test it out and with the right heat they didn't stick.
But I guess if you have other tools that are easier for the same result, there's not much reason to learn the harder one. Personally I like having a small collection of cast iron I can do anything with, one part saving space and one part just having a thing for cast iron.
Cast iron is great in a professional kitchen. It wears well. And it benefits from frequent use. Most home cooks won't use their cast iron cookware daily, let alone multiple times a day. That affects the seasoning.
Cast iron isn't compatible with that approach.
You have to be the type of person who can appreciate and capitalize on the fact that cleaning off eggs immediately after cooking takes 1 second while chiseling them off tomorrow can take 5 minutes.
Part of why I do this is because I have 3 kids. They are off playing while I cook, and I take the extra few minutes to get the kitchen in a decent state before calling them to the table. Otherwise I'm never gonna get it done because once they have my attention it's difficult for them to let go of it.
But the whole “clean eating” thing seems to vilify any kind of cooking fat, and guests often give me the “guess we’re not on a diet today”. But from what I recall, cooking oil is not the thing driving the obesity pandemic, and the innocent muffin they had at work would easily be several multiples of the cooking oil, calorie-wise.
I have a cheap 10" Lodge skillet that we use for everything. It pretty much lives on the stovetop. We make omelets every morning, wash it off, and put back on the stove to dry. Quesadillas at lunch. Red sauce for dinner. Potato gratin. Pineapple upside-down cake. You name it, it goes in the skillet, often without any oil.
The only time I ever have trouble with stuff sticking is after several days in a row of tomatoes or similar. Acidic stuff like that does damage the seasoning, and if you let it sit it will stick. Other than that, stuff comes right off even after hours of sitting around.
So many people seem to think you have to baby these skillets, and that's just not been my experience at all. It's not as nonstick as a brand-new teflon pan, but it's better than that same pan will be after 6 months, and if I damage the seasoning on my cast iron it really does repair itself through normal cooking (with a bit of extra oil in the meantime).
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gYlKkG1A7yk
In Jaques Pepin's well known video on making classical french omelets, he laments that he uses a non-stick pan because his carbon steel omelet pan isn't in the proper condition to make a proper french omelet. I guarantee you that Pepin has better pan and utensil technique than damn near anyone you'll meet in your life, but a surface for that dish requires babying.
There are good reasons that the only place you'll see cast iron skillets in a commercial kitchen is for cute presentations. They work decently for home cooks in many circumstances but they're too inconvenient to replaces the trusty commercial aluminum sautee pan as the classic blunt instrument, and not precise enough to perform the more specialized duties of commercial nonstick and carbon steel pans.
Citation?
If you do, and you take the ‘first hit’ for the truth as parent suggested in a reply (it says it is not safe), does that lead you to believe that this issue is so simple as ‘don’t let your pan get hot’, or could there be other factors to consider, like, for example, exposing the pan to other chemicals, abrasion, etc?
If you then put fish / eggs in it after heating up a generous amount of oil to >boiling, it effectively acts nearly as good as a brand new nonstick pan.
Mirrored finish is worse for some things (browning vegetables) but great for delicate tasks like French omelettes.
It’s significantly easier to fry eggs on seasoned cast iron vs stainless. I routinely use both.
[0] the trick is getting the pan hot enough for a water flick to jump and dance before putting oil or butter in.
1) Put drop of vegetable oil in stainless steel pan
2) heat until oil begins to smoke
3) quickly spread oil with paper towel or silicone brush, or by tilting the pan, then remove pan from heat
The pan now has a thin non-stick film, but it is too hot for butter or eggs, so...
4) let the pan cool down a bit
5) add butter
6) add egg
If I do that the stainless steel pan works almost as well as a teflon pan.
Getting sunny side up eggs perfect is still hard, in my experience. In a hotel, I've seen the cook carefully spread out the egg-white with a spatula so it cooks faster, while leaving the yolk liquid.
Also I realised that I mixed up step 2 and 3 -- I spread the oil before it starts to smoke.
Also, sometimes I cool the pan by holding it under the tap with a dash of water. Then it cools down instantly and stops smoking.
I think what's happening is that the oil polymerizes due to the heat and creates a thin film on the stainless steel pan, similar seasoning cast iron cookware. Afterwards you can cook the egg on low heat and it doesn't stick. But the film comes off when washing, so you have to do it again every time.
I don't cook anything that causes me a problem using stainless steel but I accept there may be cases where non-stick is essential.
My earlier point could be expanded to:
Make stainless steel your primary cookware and only fall back to a non-stick option when absolutely necessary. In doing so, you're risking far less exposure than someone who uses that stuff for everything they cook.
However my preference is typically cast iron. A good seasoned coating (and a couple decades of use that results in a polished surface) is typically much better than any non-stick I've ever used, but again depending on temperature (get it hot enough but not too hot), and having a lightly wiped on fresh oil coating too.
Anyone using stainless cookware should be using Bar Keepers Friend, it's like magic on stainless steel.
The oxalic acid in it removes calcium buildup and helps passivate the stainless steel, the surfactant in it somehow dissolves browned oil stains (even the nasty burned in ones on the bottom of the pot) and the feldspar dust in it provides a bit of abrasive action. Smells funny though. And wear gloves.
The only extra work is it really needs to thoroughly rinsed off or the feldspar dust leaves white residue when it dries.
But seriously it makes stainless look like new.
"a coating system based on sol-gel technology, made without PFOA and PTFE"
but I haven't yet found out with any more detail what it actually _is_.
https://www.amazon.com/dp/B09SS34H3K?psc=1&ref=ppx_yo2ov_dt_...
Any time there is incomplete combustion of carbon compounds like cooking oil, carcinogenic molecules like benzo-a-pyrene are formed, which appears to cause or contribute to skin, lung, and bladder cancer.
Could be wrong.
One of the studies and highlighted paragraphs from the video:
"There was a significant and constant decrease in FMD 3 h after each meal intake ... independently of the type of oil used for the preparation of the meal ... or the deep-fry level..."
(I don't know what that means but it was cited in the video as bad, and the research is from 2007)
https://www.culinarymd.org/uploads/2/0/4/0/2040875/olive_soy...
This makes very low-temp or delicate cooking in non-teflon pans a lot tougher, of course. Or anything for which starting from a low temp and slowly increasing is a nice thing to be able to do (tempering chocolate, for example)
[EDIT] Basically the value prop of teflon pans is that they can do just about everything at least well-enough (if not always being the best possible option) with just one type of pan, and that they are much more forgiving of lazy/untrained use or mistakes than stainless or cast iron. They can't do much that's impossible elsewhere, but it may require better technique and closer attention, and maybe having multiple types of pan, if you don't have a teflon option available. The above is one of the ways in which you have to apply some extra care and technique to avoid bad results, which can be all but totally ignored if you're using (undamaged) teflon.
Their main down-side (any health concerns aside) is that they are easily damaged by hard tools. With stainless and cast iron you can scramble your eggs with a metal fork, in a pinch, and it'll probably be entirely fine. Do that in teflon and you'll ruin the finish before long.
See also: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leidenfrost_effect
https://youtu.be/CB-SCA1reqE?list=FL4AL7iVYshdIk6899Kgomug&t...
Almost everything else doesn't require particular consideration on stainless steel IMO. Potatoes can be more difficult than others though. Hash browns are easy, but little stir-fried potato cubes tend to stick.
With meat, generally, the food will unstick when it's sufficiently cooked, which is a handy coincidence if you ask me.
I'd love to get any pointers, too.
Carbon steel is a really good deal. In Europe it’s pretty much the professional standard for all the reasons you mentioned.
When we switched to an induction hob we replaced all our frying pans with Samuel Groves carbon steel.
It was just a much better vault all round compared to the alternatives.
We still have tri-ply stainless steel sauce pans (things like tomato based sauces are too acidic for carbon steel or cast iron).
Watched his cacio pepe. He doubled down on reminding to always use dry pasta. Not bad. Subscribed.
I've not seen any that were nonstick at low temp and with no fat in it, as teflon pans are. I can cold-start eggs in a bare teflon pan with no butter or bacon fat whatsoever, and make totally fine scrambled eggs while keeping the temp very low the entire time. I've seen some extremely well-seasoned cast iron pans (and they are damn nice, and quite nonstick, compared to steel or new cast iron) but they couldn't do that. Not without leaving a mess to clean up after and losing half your eggs to sticking. You could cook eggs in them and nothing would stick, but you had to start fairly hot and add a layer of fat first.
They also leach flavors into everything, which really comes through if you cook anything delicately-flavored in them, and even well-seasoned ones are vulnerable to anything acidic and will leach a ton of unwanted flavors if you cook with e.g. tomato sauce.
I still like them for lots of things, but they're not magic. Teflon... kinda is magic.
[1] https://campfiresandcastiron.com/are-cast-iron-pans-sanitary...
Get stainless steel cookware and you’ll quickly learn how to avoid sticking by controlling temperature.