Cleaning an Iron Cast Pan

I hope you guys enjoy my tips and tricks, because I have quite a few I'd like to share. Here's an other one:

How To Clean An Iron Cast Pan



My boyfriend has recently gone on a kick of cooking with the iron cast pan. Might have to do with the fact that he just found out that my grand-ma gave me an old one.

Now, my parents cook with an iron cast pan, so I've been washing these things for years. BUT we've been doing it the wrong way all this time. They use a specific cleaning product(cannot remember what just now), and it completely removes the seasoning.

My boyfriend likes to read up on things, and he was telling me that the seasoning of the iron cast pan is the most important part, and he forbade me from washing it with any kind of soap.

So in that case, what was I to do?!?! I started washing it with water only... Wasn't working too good, let me tell ya! And I always forgot to check on the internet when we had access to it.

Finally, finally, one day I remembered. What I found was that you could wash it with big grain salt (or kosher salt). I couldn't find any pictures proving this (pictures are worth a thousand words aren't they?!) but I had to try it.

And it worked beautifully!! And so, I am sharing this advice, with pictures, so you can see just how well this really works.

Edit: Just a quick note, this method of cleaning is for after you've actually cooked in the pan, not for old and rusted pans! Check out this post for more information on that!

After a yummy stir fry that the boyfriend made, I had a dirty iron cast pan to work with! Not the dirtiest it's ever been, but you can still see the majic :)



First, remove what you can with a clean sponge (as in rinsed out so there is no soap in it), or with paper towels.



Then, all you need to do is pour a bit of coarse salt in the pan and scrub away!



I use a plastic scrubbing pad or sponge to help with this part. DO NOT use metal scrubbing pads on cast iron pans!! And you'll want to rinse the pad or sponge out to get all the soap out again. Leave a bit of water in it, but not too much, just enough to help scrub.



Get up on the sides, too. I like using the sponge to move the salt around so it stays as a pile as much as possible. Works much better.



When you'll be done, your salt will be kinda gross... but you can see the clean pan underneath already! 30 seconds of scrubbing and you are good.



You'll just rinse out the pan with water, and you'll be left with a nice and shiny, still seasoned iron cast pan!

See how the water just glistens on the surface? That's a sign that it's still seasoned and you didn't remove the coating.



Once in a while, you'll also want to reseason it with a bit of oil after washing it. If you don't see the water bead on the surface after you rinse, reseason it. I think we reseason every 5 times we wash it.

Did you like this tip? Already know about it? If you have tried it out, let me know how it worked out for you in the comments!!




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No mess trash cans with binder clips

I dunno about you, but I personally hate wrestling with the trash bag when it's getting full so the flaps stay put around the trash can and so they don't fall inside the trash bag and get all yucky.

It didn't help that our trash bags were too small for our trash can, either; don't ask, long story short: wasn't us who bought them. But with a box of 100 bags, I didn't want to let them go to waste.

I'd try a few things to remedy our problem, but nothing was very effective, until I found this VERY useful trick. It was part of a list of different uses for binder clips. Those things don't just hold papers together, see the list for more ideas.

My trick today is this: use binder clips to hold up your trash bag inside your trash can! Simple: yes! Effective: most definitely YES! Seriously, it has saved a bit of my sanity.



Not showing you exactly how awesome this trick is in use, because I'm sure you all don't want to see my trash, am I right?



I got the 3rd smallest binder clips at the dollar store. The 2nd smallest fit too, only had 2 of that size on hand, which worked ok, but figured 4 would work better. When I went to buy more but this size was the only ones that were colourful :) And color wins over black for me any day.



This size also fits fine between the 2 layers of the trash can: the removable can and its container if you will, if you can see from the picture above. Any bigger and I dunno if they would work.

If you're wondering how you can remove the binder clips once the trash is full without getting your hands all yucky, well for me, I know I can't fill it more than the height were the binder clip arms reach, or else I can't tie the bag. So it's really not a problem since nothing should reach or touch them.



Hope this trick is useful to someone else!

Thanks for reading :)



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Alternative Use for the Electric Kettle

How many specialty appliances do you have in your kitchen, those that are only really intended to do one thing? Chances are you have many, and they take up a relatively large amount of space in your kitchen, either on your counter or in your cupboards.

Wouldn't it be great if you could get more out of those items? Most of the appliances I have I've found many uses for.

One such item I have is my electric water kettle. Growing up, we didn't have one of these things, we only ever had the ones you put on the stove. But when I moved out of my parents' this was one of the first things we bought. I REALLY love hot chocolate! And it's so useful to have it STOP when it's reached boiling point. My dad has ruined quite a few kettles because he just went away to do handy stuff in his garage and forgot it was on. (He's stubborn, he does NOT want an electric one.)



I use it almost daily for the dishes now (hot water takes a while to get to the tap and so as to not waste too much, I boil it). For making coffee or tea or hot chocolate. It already gets a lot of use. But I've found one more way to make it useful for us.



I use it to make hard-boiled eggs! I think it's pretty genius of me hehe!

Have you read that to make the perfect hard boiled eggs you bring the water and eggs to a boil, stop it, cover, let rest for 15-20 minutes, and transfer the eggs to cold water? What if there was an appliance that would STOP the water boiling once it reaches boiling point FOR you? (ok, that sounds incredibly lazy now that it's written out lol)

So that's what I do, I just gently put the eggs in the electric water kettle (you don't want to chip them because cleaning this out is harder than a pot).



Now, our kettle is actually broken and won't turn off on it's own. But we make it work, the process goes faster actually since I boil the eggs 5 minutes, turn it off, and let stand 5 minutes before transferring to a bath of cold water.



My water bath is just an old mushroom container. I keep them around the kitchen and reuse them a lot, to thaw meat, to put my cut veggies as I cut them instead of a bowl (they are often all dirty lol), etc. They are a great size and shape, and I like reusing stuff :)

I also change the water in the water bath a couple of times. Alternatively, you can put the container in the fridge.

I use a timer because I'm super forgetful, and I'm used to having one in the lab so I don't need to think about times.

If you have a functional electric water kettle that will stop once it boils, then put 20 minutes on your timer when you turn on the kettle. You may have to adjust times if your eggs are still not cooked through.



Wasn't that pain free?! I like this method because it goes super fast. The cooking times makes it so that there's no yucky greenish-grey film around the yolk.

It takes total less than half an hour from the fridge to the finished product (in my case, devil's eggs). We often make eggs also to put in ramen noodle soups.



But wait! There's more!

I also want to share tips for breaking the shell of the eggs. There are some other tricks out there, keeping the eggs in the pan with a bit of water and shaking gently will remove all the shell pieces, but that's a little messy for me. I think it would be really great if you had a bunch of eggs, but for a few eggs I got a better way. I think...

What I do is I hold the egg horizontal and hit it staight down to make an indentation.



Then I roll the egg to make a line of broken shell.



I remove those pieces of broken shell, so there's a line in the middle of the shell. I always have a little trouble with removing the first piece... that's why there's a little nick in the egg.



Then I can just remove the 2 big pieces in one shot. You want your broken line big enough or else removing the big pieces is harder.





I've never seen anyone else break shells like this, but I like it. It makes it kinda fun, trying to remove the biggest shell piece possible!

So were my tips helpful? Do you think you'll try it or you got a better way?

Oh, and I cleaned my water kettle just for this post. I realized after taking the first set of pictures that having it that dirty just would not cut it.


Gross right?!

I don't think I'd ever have cleaned it this good if it were not for this blog post, but boy does it feel good to not see it all yellow inside!! I just boiled some diluted vinegar (1 part vinegar to 2 parts water) in it. But that didn't do much. Had to use my cleaning toothbrush...



There are still some corners that were next to impossible to reach, still. But better than before! Especially the nozzle!



Ahhh! So much better :)

Those of you on my Facebook page, where I shared a sneak peak that I was cleaning my water kettle for a post, did you ever think it would be about this?!

Oh and if you liked how I used my electric kettle to boil eggs, WAIT til you see how I use my rice cooker! Coming soon...

Thanks for reading!



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