Cast iron is the best. The hardest part of cast iron is all of the nonsense people believe about cast iron, leading them to think it's inconvenient and, worse, that gets them to actively make cast iron problematic.

I still have a cast iron skillet, but I mostly stopped using it once I got some carbon steel pans. In my experience they beat cast iron in nearly every way. I only use my cast iron now if I need a huge amount of thermal capacity (like pre-heating it to make pizza on or something) or for the presentation value.

It’s hard to talk to cast iron zealots. They’re usually people that never seriousky cooked before and went from cheap, thin steal pans to cast iron and assume all pans are like the thin pans they had before.

Cast iron is fine for certain applications but not many others. I’d fry and egg in one but you can’t make a great matter in one due to the thermal capacity properties they have.

Steel lined copper is the king. But yes they are cost prohibitive for some. Carbon steel is nice too.

"It’s hard to talk to cast iron zealots. They’re usually people that never seriousky cooked before and went from cheap, thin steal pans to cast iron and assume all pans are like the thin pans they had before."

Maybe they are the same people who praise Apple and Tesla products for the same reason?

I'm trying to figure out what a "great matter" is meant to be but I can't.

Ha sorry, weird auto-correct. Was meant to say “great omelette”.

Yes, carbon steel pans are great as well.

It is incredibly difficult to damage cast iron and not hard to clean. I love the stuff.

Cast iron is so easy I honestly have no idea why people think it's hard. Even the people who claim you can damage the seasoning. They're not wrong. You actually can. You know whats great though? You just reseason it by cooking in it with a lot of oil.

The pans are magic. I even take my pans camping for cooking on a fire. Truly amazing things

I’ve never seen eggs not stick to cast iron.

Same here. Judging from other answers, I wonder if it is because we are not dropping them into hot oil?

It must be, because I know the pans were seasoned in all cases.

Hot pan , cold oil is the trick

Oh! Very grateful for the correction. I do feel that’s a third-degree burn waiting to happen. Are you saying heat the pain to high, then put on the oil? Doesn’t that splash painfully?

Nope since the oil is cold and will take a bit to heat (it doesn't act like water does due to the higher temperature it can handle).

For reference it is how wok cooking is done and they use extremely hot pans/burners. If you're using gas switch off the heat for a second.

Damn I love HN. Thanks for clarifying and basically reading my mind. Have bern choosing my next cooktop for the big honking wok burner.

If you have cast iron and you’re having a lot of food sticking issues then you may need to reseason it. As a person that uses mostly cast iron, I prefer it, but I think it does require a bit more care.

Let the eggs develop a crust on the bottom before doing anything with them.

Absolutely. Hot pan, hot fat, let the egg set enough not to tear before you try to turn it.

At that point I could just cook in stainless steel. The hope is to not have crusty eggs imo

I don't get why it seems like people are all of a sudden talking about "crusty" eggs. I've seen it so much online in videos in just the last year. It definitely feels like some kind of fad. Eggs that have browned to the degree to which I'm seeing on YouTube would have gotten me fired at Waffle House.

That said, at Waffle House, we used carbon steel pans for eggs. There was a point where every pan would start to stick, no matter how it was heated. Those pans, we would clean with oil and salt, which is very abrasive. I'm not sure exactly what the effect was: either cleaning off accumulated dirt or filing out scratches and dings that would develop. I'm not sure because the salt should have created more scratches, but there was definitely a "worst" pan that had a deep scratch in it that always had some sticking problems.

But I don't want a crust on my eggs. I want them pale and fluffy, especially my scrambled eggs. Any brown spots on my eggs and I consider them ruined. If you tell me I won't be able to make eggs the way I prefer them in a cast iron pan, then cast iron is not for me.

I am not used to be around the kitchen but I actually did an omelette two days ago with a cast iron. I was worried it would stick. I used a small amount of oil and pre heated the pan at high temperature. After putting the eggs I lowered the heat to medium low. The idea is to have a thermal shock on the outside of the egg so that it solidifies. And then cook it at lower temperature. It worked wonders.

I’ve managed it.

1) Amazingly smooth, clearly old cast iron pan in an Airbnb. Perfect surface.

2) Cook some of the breakfast sausage they left in the fridge for us (it was a farm)

3) Cook the eggs in the sausage grease.

No sticking at all.

I can’t do this nearly as well in the pan I have. Yeah, yeah, I’ve seasoned it a dozen times. Doesn’t do much, really.

I fried some this afternoon:

- hot pan

- high smoke point oil

- high heat

- hot oil

- move it once it’s got the brown crust

I’ve made scrambled eggs in it before too but these were the things I did today and I’m not expert enough to minimize them without experimentation. I frequently eat eggs and don’t have much trouble.

I make eggs all the time in mine, no sticking. It just needs butter or something.

You need way more oil than you think.

Carbon steel is better in every way. There's zero objective reason to cast iron over it.

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