Pans
One of the most common questions I’m asked on Twitter is what pans I use and what I’d recommend others buy. At the outset let’s separate dream from reality. My dream kitchen would be huge with a selection of copper and cast iron pans. I’d have the time to use them, wash them and treat them with the love and care they deserve. Back in the real world I have neither the time or money to do either so this post will resist the urge to play fantasy kitchen and stick to reality.
Over the years I’ve used pans at both ends of the price scale. Cheap and sometimes cheerful to an investment that you’d expect to last several years. What have I discovered? Really cheap pans are poorly made and don’t last very long. Expensive pans can potentially last a lifetime if you treat them well, but often that means hand washing and drying which depending on the time and your own laziness, can be an impediment.
Where then have I found my sweet-spot? Ikea. Ikea pans are the right blend of affordable and durable. They are cheap without being flimsy. Most of them can go in the dishwasher and importantly almost all of them have metal handles which means they can go in the oven. They won’t last forever even if you treat them well but given their price, you won’t begrudge buying a replacement. Ikea pans are the best value in my view.
While I could buy all my pans from Ikea, there’s a few things they don’t do so I’d look elsewhere.
Here’s what I’d buy if I for some reason needed to replace all my pans in one go. Perhaps there was a pan related disaster. Perhaps hallucinating through inadvertent consumption of goats cheese I’d mistakenly yeeted them all into a brook? Who knows.
Frying pans
You need the right size frying pan for the task in hand. Large where you want separation between two pieces of meat or to spread mushrooms around a pan so that neither steam, but do fry. Small where you want intense heat on a small amount of food that is easier to achieve and hold across a smaller surface area. I always have two of each of the 24cm and 28cm versions of the Ikea 365 range frying pan in my kitchen. Sometimes more. I am prone to ridiculous recipes that require more pans than is seemingly sensible.
Ikea 365 frying pans (UK site)
Grill pan
Whether it’s vegetables or meat, there is something quite enticing about grill marks on food. Equidistant deep burnished char next to softer yielding but cooked sections. Here is where I’d say you need to buy according to your budget. I have an Ikea grill pan and a cast iron Le Cruset grill pan. There is a significant difference in price. Cast iron on the Le Cruset produces a harder, deeper mark but at a price and cast iron needs TLC so take your pick.
Le Creuset Grill pan (UK site)
Saucepans
In a similar vein to frying pans, you want the right sized saucepan depending whether you are making a small amount of sauce or boiling vegetables. Two each of the 1l and 2l pans will give you options and save a wash mid cook. Oh and they have glass lids so you can see what’s going on.
Pasta / stock pot
No amount of oil in your pasta water will stop it sticking together. What keeps your pasta from sticking is a large pot of water for it to cook in. 100g of pasta needs a 1 litre of well salted water. This pasta pot is 5 litres and doubles as a stock or soup pot.
Cast iron skillet
The closest way to achieve a deep crust on a piece of meat similar to that you find in a restaurant, is a cast iron pan. They need to be looked after, not put in the dishwasher or submerged for long in water and stored with a thin layer of oil rubbed into the surface. The longer you keep and look after a cast iron pan, the better it cooks as a patina builds, layer by layer. At the affordable end, I’d recommend one made by Lodge. At the ‘splash the cash’ end, Le Cruset.
Lodge cast iron pans at Borough Kitchen
Le Cruset cast iron pans (UK site)
Wok
Until I own an industrial wok burner capable of heating a wok to the fiercely high temperature it deserves to reach, I will not own a wok. I am wokless. I am not wok.
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Photo by Heather Gill on Unsplash