Saucepans

[lala]

There are many excellent stock pots. Why tempt fate, get something you'll cherish. I've got LeCruset mom got as a wedding gift still doing the job.

I like the even heating of the LeCreuset stuff but, for us cyclists, it has one fatal flaw: our puny bodies simply do not have the upper body strength to lift the damn stuff. TT, you are superhuman so you do not have this issue.

Seriously, I had to buy my mother a new set of SS pans when I found her struggling to carry a LeCreuset pan of boiling water. I saw an accident waiting to happen.

[Ben]

I like the even heating of the LeCreuset stuff but, for us cyclists, it has one fatal flaw: our puny bodies simply do not have the upper body strength to lift the damn stuff. TT, you are superhuman so you do not have this issue.

Seriously, I had to buy my mother a new set of SS pans when I found her struggling to carry a LeCreuset pan of boiling water. I saw an accident waiting to happen.

A good son would have installed a pot filler behind the stove.
;)

[lala]

A good son would have installed a pot filler behind the stove.
;)

Touché! but the problem is not filling it with water, it was with her trying to strain the boiling water out of the veggies ... So she was trying to hold the (amazingly heavy) pan of boiling water/veggies with one hand.

[JitteryJoe]

This is a pretty good survey of a bunch of different sets, domestic and foreign, at various price points, which you may find helpful.
Traditional Cookware - Kitchen Cookware Reviews - Good Housekeeping

[cement shoes]

cast iron, Lodge, made in the USA. Lodge Cast Iron Cookware - America's Original Cookware - South Pittsburg, TN USA. I have their wok, which I love. Awesome if you have a gas stove. Very heavy of course.
enameled, Le Creuset, cooks really nicely, oven proof (remove the lid knob), super easy to clean.
copper, Le Mauviel or similar. I have a 12 inch skillet. Really saute, pan sauces, etc. Easy to clean also. Nothing sticks to it.

[Nathanrtaylor]

For saucepans I second the advice already posted here regarding heavy gauge restaurant supply aluminum pans. Season them thoroughly on the inside using a hard drying oil and heat, like flaxseed oil and they will clean up easily and you will be minimizing any impact that acids have on leaching aluminum. I have a 2.5 qt saucepan that I've used nearly every day for the past 6 months and the originally applied flaxseed seasoning has held up to everything I've thrown at it.

3mm thick aluminum pans won't warp easily (especially at saucepan temps), conduct heat far far better than stainless, weigh nothing, and cost around 15 bucks.

Stock pots. Cheap, thin walled stainless. Done

Saute pans: mild steel pans like a De Buyer or something similar. Heavy. Fond sticks when you want it to for pan sauces but releases well when you want it to.

Frying pans: cast iron. I can't imagine using anything else for this purpose.

Best part is all of this stuff lasts forever and is cheap. Save your money here and spend it on knives and/or food.

[RIHans]

Agree with NT above.

I use a nice set of wearever sauce / saute pans. SS with heavy alu bottoms. Work just fine at home.

I use the cast iron for a nice char on a center of the plate protein.

In restaurant kitchens you see wearever alu pans / pots, and some large SS roundeau braisers. Copper is not used much.

SS is nice working with foods that react with alu.

[jitahs]

Touché! but the problem is not filling it with water, it was with her trying to strain the boiling water out of the veggies ... So she was trying to hold the (amazingly heavy) pan of boiling water/veggies with one hand.

One hand? Two + chinois.

[rowdyhillrambler]

Like cement shoes said, LODGE is made about 40 miles south of me in South Pittsburgh, TN. If you are into gawking at industry being done, it is an awesome place to visit. I went down there a few years ago to the National Cornbread Festival, and while i was there toured the facility. I love to watch shit be made..

Le Creuset, as has been said 50 times here, is our go to. We have about 15 pots and pans of all shapes and sizes. My wifes grandmother left about 5 of them to us, which got us started.. We cook a lot, and even though they get a little pricey, if you break it down over the next 40 years it seems cheap.

[DrLogik]

Have a Mauviel stainless pot and love it. Been using commercial aluminum cookware for years with good results but looking to buy a Mauviel or DeHillerin saute pan. Lodge is great stuff to and so is the really old cast iron stuff one can get cheap on eBay. Not too fond of porcelain cast iron cookware though.

[WadePatton]

You are ingesting that tin.

i'd rather ingest tin than teflon. but most days i ingest ss and 100-year old cast iron.

sidestep:

have no use for a cast iron saucepan, (since all the CI comments) but started with cast and later learned of the good _old_ cast and now collect and use that. my main ride (again this is cast and skillets, not saucepans) is OVER 100 years old. my main collection is at least 100 years old. the stuff is difficult to wear out and i love old things that still work as good as new-or even better.

I put this in here because Lodge of South Pittsburgh keeps getting mentioned...yes they make current stuff. but it's way heavier and is no longer ground after casting. Better than no cast iron, but the old stuff is so much nicer. If you were put off by the weight of Lodge (and most all post-1957 cast), you should get a piece or two of the old stuff. the very earliest stuff (pre 1900) runs a bit light, but from 1900-1950's is all pretty good.

beware that you can etch SS with acidic foods. get all acidic foods away from metal as soon as practicable. i'll go tinned copper when i go.

[summilux]

I've got some cast iron fry pans but copper really shows its stuff when you fry an egg. I like nice crisp lacy edges on my sunny side ups and the best way to do this is have the egg hit a hot surface and then immediately turn the heat down low. This doesn't really work on cast iron or stainless because they retain much more heat than copper and the temp doesn't drop as quick on the pan. Cast iron is for the bacon frying on the other burner.

[adamdoesit]

Check out Regal's American Kitchen line. 18/10 stainless with a thick aluminum-cored bottom. Very even heat distribution, even on smaller burners that tend to hot-spot. Tempered glass lids, so you can see what you're cooking. Easy maintenance: scour-able, dishwasher-safe. Those thick bottoms resist warping, too -- nice if you're on an electric stove. Long steel handles somehow stay cool -- unlike cast iron, you can move them around without a potholder. It won't fry or sear like cast iron, but it doesn't react with acids, either. Made in the USA, and very attractively priced: about 1/2 to 1/3 the price of an equivalent All-Clad. The Caad9 of saucepans? Maybe.

[dang]

So here's just a bunch of opinions:

Non-stick can be an advantage for a rice pot, for those who don't have a rice cooker, or for a small skillet for a quick grilled cheese sandwich that doesn't need much butter at all, but I don't think it's very good at all for a sauce pan or a saute pan -- you'll have to be precious as hell with a special plastic-coated wisk or spoon, you'll never have a decent fond to work with, you'll want to be careful about high-heat searing in the pan. Makes perfectly good sense for a couple of non-lifetime pieces for this or that purpose, but otherwise . . . feh.

For a real saucier . . . I'd go stainless, unless you are going with a really good heavy copper pan that you're willing to maintain. For certain things, like a butter warmer, enameled cast iron can be nice.

All-clad makes excellent sauce pans. Personally, I don't see any advantage to the ones with the thin (very thin) copper layer -- the multi-layer steel pans conduct heat well and evenly. Get the real ones, from PA. If you wait and look around, you can find relative bargains on what are otherwise somewhat pricey pans. And get "barkeepers friend" to keep them nice and shiny. Calphalon also makes a decent multi-layer stainless pan that's considerably less expensive -- some of them are made in France, and some in China, and they are labeled as such. Demeyer is good, but at least as expensive as AC. Same for Mauviel (known initially for nice heavy copper, but they make ss too).

The AC skillets are also very good -- they have a large sort of "utility" pan that's great for many things and is often heavily discounted by the chains. Cast iron also can be very good for a skillet. Not a quick-response type of pan, and it's heavy, but nothing holds heat better than a huge chunk o' iron and for some purposes it's really hard to beat. Lodge makes some pretty darn good pans right here in the US (not the enameled ones) that can be had for a song at places like Target.

[jitahs]

i'd rather ingest tin than teflon. but most days i ingest ss and 100-year old cast iron.

sidestep:

have no use for a cast iron saucepan, (since all the CI comments) but started with cast and later learned of the good _old_ cast and now collect and use that. my main ride (again this is cast and skillets, not saucepans) is OVER 100 years old. my main collection is at least 100 years old. the stuff is difficult to wear out and i love old things that still work as good as new-or even better.

I put this in here because Lodge of South Pittsburgh keeps getting mentioned...yes they make current stuff. but it's way heavier and is no longer ground after casting. Better than no cast iron, but the old stuff is so much nicer. If you were put off by the weight of Lodge (and most all post-1957 cast), you should get a piece or two of the old stuff. the very earliest stuff (pre 1900) runs a bit light, but from 1900-1950's is all pretty good.

beware that you can etch SS with acidic foods. get all acidic foods away from metal as soon as practicable. i'll go tinned copper when i go.

Your choice bro wade. Be aware its about amounts. Tin wears extremely quickly - I've seen pans show copper after 5 years (commercial use but you get the point) that have been tinned but my ss French copper looks brand new, 20 years later. Well inside; outside looks like shit.

With the amount of carbon you ingest from all the meat you smoke all trace metals otherwise are trivial.

Hey how come you disappear, like, all the time now?

[jitahs]

i'd rather ingest tin than teflon. but most days i ingest ss and 100-year old cast iron.

sidestep:

have no use for a cast iron saucepan, (since all the CI comments) but started with cast and later learned of the good _old_ cast and now collect and use that. my main ride (again this is cast and skillets, not saucepans) is OVER 100 years old. my main collection is at least 100 years old. the stuff is difficult to wear out and i love old things that still work as good as new-or even better.

I put this in here because Lodge of South Pittsburgh keeps getting mentioned...yes they make current stuff. but it's way heavier and is no longer ground after casting. Better than no cast iron, but the old stuff is so much nicer. If you were put off by the weight of Lodge (and most all post-1957 cast), you should get a piece or two of the old stuff. the very earliest stuff (pre 1900) runs a bit light, but from 1900-1950's is all pretty good.

beware that you can etch SS with acidic foods. get all acidic foods away from metal as soon as practicable. i'll go tinned copper when i go.

Reread this. Yeah those new guys at Lodge don't seem to know anything about porosity. Wtf?

[rowdyhillrambler]

Yessir, just like most shit the concept of building for longevity is non-existent. I was at a tradeshow this weekend, and Lodge had a booth there. I had it fresh on my mind because of this thread, so i talked to the rep for about 30 minutes or so. They have a line of enamelware, similar to Le Creuset, but about 1/8th the price. It seemed to be well constructed, heavy, and priced right.. But, after finally getting him to give me an answer, same old story.. Made overseas, we own the plant, we have engineers that live there, to expensive to produce here blah, blah.

They did have a nice line of SS pots and pans with aluminum core. Don't know anything about them, but looked right.

I wonder if they are so much heavier now because of the quality of modern pot metal? You would think they would be lighter now.. I don't know, but can aready tell what i will be researching for the rest of the day. Knowledge is King YO! however, to much of it makes you a real dumbaSS.

[Ben]

To add to the Tennessee colloqy here, yup, lots of Lodge's stuff is now made overseas. Sad. And while I use a couple of China-made Lodge enameled pieces, I would be veddy veddy concerned about the Lodge Logic "pre-seasoned" stuff. Pre-seasoned with what? Used motor oil from junked Trabants? Hydraulic fluid from Soviet tractors? Lead paint? I'll stick with good old-fashioned American cholesterol, thanks.

[blackers]

The only non-stick pan I'll ever by again is Scanpan. They are made of titanium and ceramic and the non-stick finish is guaranteed by most retailers for life. This pan is heavy, heats up slowly, stays hot and cooks evenly. You can sear your food on the stovetop, then put the pan in the oven to finish banking it. It's a lot like having the best qualities of cast iron and teflon in one pan.

Scanpans are expensive (I think I paid about $150 for my 10 inch skillet). I replaced a $125 Calphalon non-stick pan after about 18 months with a scan pan few years ago and my new pan shows no signs of wear.

[WadePatton]

i'm coming back...gently