What can you do to keep the pan from burning? Cast iron pan sticks - what to do? Avoid using metal spatulas and spoons

Nagar, rust and old fat in a frying pan have always been a problem familiar to many housewives. And cast-iron cookware has always been considered the most durable. Surely, each of the housewives in the kitchen will have pans that they got as a dowry from their grandmothers. But do not be afraid of this blackness and soot, because such problems are easily removed on their own with the help of proven means. Here we will tell you how to clean a cast iron pan from various types of dirt.

Benefits of cast iron cookware

The advantages of cast iron cookware have made it truly popular. It has been used for many centuries, because characterized by increased strength, the ability to retain heat. Nagar, be that as it may, acts as a non-stick layer, as it appears due to oils and fats that are heated to a high temperature.

Cast iron cookware will last forever if taken care of properly. A frying pan that is passed from mouth to mouth may seem scary and uncleanable, but in fact, it requires special care.

Cast iron pans were used long before modern times. Their advantages have helped them become popular in the household.

The "old" frying pan prevents food from sticking. Naturally formed carbon deposits protect the pan from corrosion and liquid attack.

Cleaning an old cast iron skillet

So, you've decided to clean out your old cast-iron skillet that your grandmother gave you. Her appearance can be intimidating, but do not worry. To achieve the perfect look, there are several recipes:

boiling method;
mechanical cleaning.

For boiling, you will need laundry soap 72% (1 piece), silicate glue (or liquid glass) ½ cup and soda ash also ½ cup, a metallized sponge and a scraper or knife. Of course, it is difficult to get rid of ten-year-old soot, but then your dishes will please the eye with cleanliness and novelty.

First, draw water into a basin and send it to the fire to boil. At this point, rub the soap. After boiling the water, reduce the heat, pour the soap into the water and stir. Then add glue and soda. It is important to open the window and turn on the hood.

Now lower the pan into the solution, removing the handle from it. If it is not made of wood or plastic, then send it to the solution. Now wait a few hours, it depends on the level of pollution.

Add water from time to time and check the hardness of the carbon deposits. After you notice that it has softened and the water has become dark, then remove the dishes and start cleaning the pan with a scraper or knife.

Even if you have old soot, you can clean it with proven methods.

And to make the process go faster, after softening the soot, apply oven cleaner to the pan. Then put it in a bag for half an hour. Such manipulations will simplify the process of cleaning the pan.

Mechanical cleaning of a cast iron skillet

Mechanical cleaning of a cast iron pan is the most radical method. It will help eliminate rust, grease, soot quickly and effectively. But in order to use this method, you will need a special wire nozzle for a drill or grinder.

Remember to wear a respirator and special protective clothing. Remember that such cleaning requires care and caution.

Cleaning the frying pan. Effective Recipes

Often required. In this case, the latter is of varying degrees of complexity. Consider recipes for removing such a nuisance from your favorite dishes:

the first method will require a mixture of 9% vinegar, soda and water. The pan is put in the oven, 2 tablespoons of salt and vinegar are poured into it in order to cover the bottom. Let the liquid come to a boil, and then lower the heat and add ¼ cup of baking soda. Most will evaporate, after which the dishes are removed and washed from all sides. Similarly, grease and rust are cleaned. But be careful, because a lot of steam is formed in the process;
Do it yourself with activated charcoal. In order for the cleaning of the frying pan to become effective, about 10 tablets are required. Coal is crushed and poured into a frying pan moistened with warm water. After an hour ;
how to clean burnt food without damaging the bottom? This again requires boiling. But 3 presses of soda and detergent are added to the water for 3 liters of water. In this composition, lower the pan and boil for 30 minutes;
there is still a method based on borax and ammonia. This composition requires you to clean the pan from time to time. For 1 st. heated water is taken 10 g of borax and 1 drop of ammonia. The mixture is applied to dirty places with a sponge;

There are many folk recipes for cleaning cast iron pans. Each of them has been tested in practice.

another helper is lemon acid. 1 tsp the powder is diluted with 1 liter of water, then it is important to boil the composition and soak the pan in it for 60 minutes. If the dirt does not immediately leave, then the action is repeated;
to get rid of soot inside, you will need to make a gruel of vinegar and coarse salt. It is applied to a washcloth and the pan is thoroughly rubbed. Residues can be easily removed with a normal wash.

Frying the pan on charcoal will help eliminate soot. This is worth doing on the street. If this is not possible, then use the oven. The baking sheet is covered with foil, the dishes are laid upside down on it and sent to the cabinet. If there is a self-cleaning function, then turn it on, if not, then heat the cabinet to 250 degrees. And after 2 hours, look at how the dishes are doing. Get ready that everything will be filled with fumes and smoke, so do not forget about the hood and windows.

If this does not clear the soot, then let the pan cool. After that, send it to a solution of water and vinegar in equal proportions. Pour 2 tablespoons of detergent into this. After a couple of hours, wash thoroughly with hot water and rub with a brush.

If the pan is cleaned after each use, then you can easily get rid of thin layers of dirt. In this case, you do not need radical methods. Thus, it is better to clean the pan immediately after cooking.

Food sticks to the pan. What to do?

So, we cleaned the dishes from soot, but what if food sticks to the pan? How to return that "non-stick" coating after such an intervention? In order to avoid burning and sticking of food, you need:

calcine the dishes on low heat for about a third of an hour, pour salt on the bottom;
when the salt starts to crackle, stir it, and touch the bottom with a spoon. This is required to be done within 20 minutes. After that, pour the salt and wait for the pan to cool. By the way, salt can be used again for similar procedures;
after cooling the dishes, it needs to be rinsed from salt and heated again;
when the pan warms up well, take any vegetable oil and grease the bottom with a spatula or brush;

If after cleaning the food began to stick to the pan - it does not matter. There is an effective method for restoring coverage.

when the oil starts to burn, gently wipe off the excess with a paper towel and then refill it. Then wipe again and pour a new layer. This procedure is repeated three times. As a result, you will get a shiny surface that needs to be protected. The bottom should not be rubbed when cleaning with chemicals. If necessary, these steps are repeated.

During the heating process, the pores of the cast iron expand, they are filled with oil. After lowering the temperature, the pores become narrow again, but the lubricant remains in them. It does not allow water and food particles to penetrate microscopic cracks, which cause the formation of rust and soot. Such protection does not like utensils, therefore wash such surfaces with ordinary warm water.

Also remember that a cast-iron pan cannot be washed in a dishwasher, otherwise rust appears on it and the layer with a “non-stick” coating is washed off.

Rust cleaning

The process of putting the pan in order involves not only removing carbon deposits, but also cleaning off rust. So the rules are:

first clean in the standard way, removing carbon deposits. This will help to detect rusty areas;
then dry and put in a preheated oven for 40 minutes;
now take it out and grease with oil, then send it to the oven now at a high temperature by 2 times. Leave there for an hour. Cover the bottom of the oven with foil;
take out the dishes and let cool, brush with oil.

Another method requires the use of vinegar. Mix the ingredients in equal proportions and soak the pan in the composition. After a couple of hours, rinse the dishes and remove plaque by using a gruel of vegetable oil and salt. But remember that a frying pan that is too old cannot be completely cleaned.

If the rust is severe, then you can try another method. First, rub the surface with a powdered soda product. After that, work hard with a metal brush. The rust removal process is completed by applying medium grit sandpaper. Another option is cleaning with a wire drill attachment. After that, rinse the pan with a simple dishwashing detergent.

Rust is important to clean so that it does not continue to spoil the metal.

Remember that it is much easier to prevent new cookware from sticking by roasting. This will help in the future to use the pan without thinking about soot. To do this, the bottom of a new frying pan, which has not yet been used, is covered with salt and left on high heat. The salt is heated until dark brown. Then remove the dishes from the stove and clean with slightly cooled salt. Then grease with oil and send to the oven. The use of this method will eliminate the sticking of food and the burning of products.

Caring for a cast iron pan is not too difficult. For this reason, it is better to spend time washing after cooking than to put in remarkable efforts or use extreme measures later.

It is unlikely that any housewife can imagine her life without kitchen utensils, which are simply necessary in the house to cook food for the family. Sometimes the dishes begin to “act up”, for example, the pan often burns, what to do, how to eliminate food sticking to the bottom of the container and cook without problems? The way to solve such a trouble will depend on the material from which the pan is made and its outer coating, we will consider all the tips.

Food begins to burn and stick to the bottom only in those pans that are made of porous materials: cast iron, aluminum. The enamel coating also has a microporous structure. To avoid problems with such dishes, they must be properly processed before use.

Usually, the operation of pans with a special non-stick coating does not cause difficulties. They do not require any preparation and on some you can fry food even without oil.

How to handle pans

We have already figured out what needs to be done so that the pan does not burn - properly prepare it. Cast iron and aluminum utensils are well calcined before you start using such utensils.

• And for that, and for another metal, the processing method is the same - the pan is first washed under warm water, dried and put on a slow fire.
• Pour vegetable oil on the bottom of the container and heat it for at least 40 minutes.

• Then the dishes are cooled, the oil is drained, but the pan is not washed, but only wiped with paper towels to remove excess fat.
• In this form, the utensils should lie down for several days, after which it should be washed and it is ready for work. When heated, the metal expands and oil clogs into the pores. This creates a protective layer and makes the bottom of the cast iron or aluminum smoother. Food stops sticking and burning.

The procedure must be repeated from time to time, as the protective fatty film is destroyed during the operation of the pan.

You can also ignite the dishes with salt: the procedure is carried out in the same way as with oil, only instead of it, salt is put on the bottom. It is also not necessary to wash the utensils after calcining with salt for a couple of days.

If what to do? Enamel-coated dishes cannot be fired. The only way to prevent the problem is to clean the bottom of the pan well with detergent or soda, dry it and rub it with a piece of fat or lard. It is recommended to rub the bottom with fat before each cooking, this will help close the pores and the food will not stick. It is also better to fry foods with plenty of oil in enamel dishes.

Learn how to properly process a pan, learn from the video.

The pan burns what to do: video

If a non-stick pan is burnt

It is a completely different question when trouble happens where it, in general, should not be. If a pan with a non-stick coating began to constantly burn, most likely there is only one reason - the protective layer has thinned, it's time to send the utensils for a well-deserved rest.

Well, if such dishes served for a long time. But if it’s very small, then it’s highly likely that the non-stick layer was too thin or you misused the container: you used metal spoons, you cleaned the bottom with abrasive products. In any case, it is no longer possible to restore the coverage.

But do not rush to throw out the pan:

• Try first boiling water in it with the addition of grated laundry soap and a small amount of vinegar or citric acid.
• Boil the liquid for 15 minutes, then drain, and rub the bottom with a sponge.
• Dry, rub the bottom with oil and try frying food in a pan.

If the problem persists, then it's time to change the utensils.

If the grill pan burns

The grill is a frying pan with a corrugated bottom. The uneven surface structure allows the meat to be fried so that it retains more juiciness and forms a crispy crust. Grill pans are made from the same materials as conventional grill pans. Accordingly, the care depends on the metal.

• If your grill pan is made of cast iron or aluminum, then heat it as described above: with oil or with salt.
• Enamel dishes can only be rubbed with oil, fat, lard, but not heated.
• Teflon, ceramics and other non-stick coatings must not be heated or cleaned with abrasive products. If such dishes start to burn and stick, it is already difficult to prevent the problem, it is easier to buy a new pan.

If the middle of the pan burns

When you encounter food sticking and burning mostly in the middle of the bottom, this is due to the heat source. The problem is much more common among those who cook on gas burners. The flame raises the temperature directly above itself, and at the edges, if the pan is wide, the temperature remains slightly lower. In the middle, food cooks faster and starts to burn.

The problem can be solved if you use a fire divider. It allows you to evenly distribute heat throughout the bottom of the dish.

Recommendations on what to do so that the pan does not burn are time-tested. Unfortunately, there is not yet a means by which it would be possible to treat the utensils and thus solve the problem. We have to act in the ways of the people.

To avoid difficulties, try to buy high-quality utensils: cast iron should be heavy and polished as much as possible, a layer of Teflon, enamel or ceramics cannot be visually seen, but Chinese cheap pans are mostly guilty of thin coatings. it is better not to use it at all - this is the worst material for frying. The thicker the bottom of the dish, the more resistant it is to deposits.

Now you know what to do if the pan burns. Focus on what it is made of and act in accordance with the above recommendations. Don't forget to take good care of your dishes. Each metal and coating requires special care and maintenance rules.

After acquiring such a necessary thing as a kitchen, many are disappointed because its surface sticks. The weak point of all cast iron products is the presence of pores that appear during the manufacture of products from this material. If the pores are not filled with vegetable oil, the contents of the pan get into them, it begins to stick, and as a result, cooking becomes a torment. It is not knowing why it sticks to a cast iron pan and what to do about it that makes us vulnerable when handling such utensils.

What to do if cast iron pan sticks?

In order for cooking to be enjoyable and the cast iron pan not to stick, it is necessary to properly prepare it for work, especially if you are using the product for the first time.

The most reliable and surest way to avoid trouble is to ignite the pan. The only thing we need to buy is refined.

We put the washed and dried frying pan on an open fire and ignite it until the emission of smoke is no longer observed. After the procedure, the dishes that have not yet cooled down are washed again with water, dried and filled with salt.

Salt is an important ingredient when a new product is purchased. It perfectly absorbs excess odors and moisture. We heat the pan with salt until the color of the salt changes, rinse again, dry it and proceed to the main calcination procedure.

To do this, the dishes must be greased with oil, let the excess drain, and then place the pan in the oven, turning it upside down. One hour at a temperature of 180 ° C will be enough for us, although some increase this period by two or even three times.

If the food sticks to the pan, it is the burning in the oven that will give the desired non-stick effect.

Baking a pan: 3 ways

If you notice that everything sticks to a cast-iron pan, then you can’t do without calcining it. To do this, you can use one of three methods: conventional calcination, with salt or with vegetable oil.

Method 1. Conventional calcination

This is one of the easiest and most inexpensive ways, because its price is only a little of your time.

• Preheat the oven. Let it heat up to 200 degrees.
• Put a frying pan in the oven in need of processing.
• Wait 3 hours without changing the temperature.
• Turn off the oven and wait until the pan cools down.

After such processing, the exclamations “burning potatoes” will be forgotten like a bad dream.

Method 2. Calcination with salt

To prevent burning a cast-iron pan, you can use regular table salt.

• Wash the pan and wipe it dry.
• Sprinkle salt on its surface. Do not be afraid to overdo it, salt should cover the bottom of the pan with a layer of at least 1 centimeter.
• Ignite the product. You can do this on the stove or in the oven, the main thing is that the procedure does not take less than one hour. Remember to stir the salt occasionally.
• Remove salt residue and brush the surface of the pan with vegetable oil.

This option is also suitable if the pancakes burn on a special pancake pan, which is very fastidious to care for. Remember to always heat the product thoroughly before baking.

Method 3. Ignition with oil

In order for the care of cast iron pans to be complete, an additional protective layer must be created on their surface. In this case, vegetable oil is the best help.

Instruction:

• Preheat the oven let it heat up to 220 degrees.
• Put the cast iron into the oven, wait until it reaches the same temperature.
• Take out the pan and grease its surface with vegetable oil. Be very careful not to burn yourself.
• Put the item back in the oven.
• Wait until the oil burns out.
• Turn off the stove and let the product cool down in it.

Pan cleaning: 4 products

In order not to encounter the problem in which the cast-iron pan burns in the future, you need to know how to properly clean it. Here are some simple recipes:

Illustration	Instruction
	Remedy 1. Citric acid If the pan is burnt due to oil or improper cooking, citric acid will come to the rescue: Wash the product under running water. Sprinkle its bottom with citric acid. Wait 4-5 minutes for the acid to soak into the porous structure of the cast iron. Remove acid residues with a damp sponge and rinse the vessel.
	Remedy 2: Mustard Powder Another option is how to care for a cast iron surface. It will cope with even the thickest layer of fat: Heat the rest of the fat to melt it. Drain the resulting liquid. Sprinkle damaged areas with mustard powder. After 25 minutes, rinse thoroughly with hot water.
	Remedy 3: Baking soda and table vinegar With your own hands, you can create an effective cleaner that is great for cast iron surfaces: Mix equal proportions of baking soda and vinegar. Rub the resulting paste over the entire surface of the dish. Wait 30 minutes. Remove any residue with the hard side of the sponge.
	Remedy 4: Soap and glue Not sure what to do to remove burnt food residue? Use the old tried and true method:

If nothing sticks to your pan while frying, then you just never fry. Vegetables and fish, for example, are guaranteed to stick to almost any pan, if you do not follow some rules that many do not even know about.

In general, there is a certain pattern in what food sticks to the pan and why, as well as a few simple ways to help avoid this. However, do not panic if the chicken breast or cutlets still stick to the pan, because the situation can always be corrected, and we will share with you all the main secrets.

Why does food stick

It is important to understand that during the frying process, certain chemical processes occur, as a result of which the molecules on the surface of the food and in the hot pan react. This is a completely natural process that has nothing to do with your culinary skills, so don't blame yourself for being clumsy.

But let's not bore you with a crash course in chemistry, but let's just say that high-protein foods, such as meat or fish, stick more to the pan than vegetables. Sticking vegetables are easier to deal with, but more on that later, but for now let's talk about the relationship between the pan and the degree of food sticking to it.

Which pan does food stick to the least?

Of course, the safest option for beginners in the culinary business is a non-stick pan. Just do not think that you need to fry on it without oil at all, because this is not so. It is necessary to add oil, only in the case of a non-stick frying pan, you can literally use a drop and not much monitor the temperature to which it has heated up.

A cast iron skillet must be calcined and lubricated with oil. Yes, just lubricate. Oil should penetrate into all pores and cracks, forming an absolutely smooth surface, to which food will no longer stick. But the most difficult thing is to fry in a steel pan. It heats up quickly, but not always evenly, and even if everything is done correctly, food can still stick. For cooking in a steel pan, you will need more oil, and it is especially important to heat it thoroughly here.

How to avoid food sticking to the pan

The easiest way to keep food from sticking to the pan is to use oil. You may have noticed that cold oil is quite viscous, and when heated, it becomes more fluid, which allows it to fill all the microcracks on the surface of the pan and reduce the contact area of ​​​​the food itself with the pan.

From this follows the first rule - always heat the oil. It should practically smoke, but still not boil. As soon as you put food in a hot pan, the temperature of the oil drops instantly, so remember that it's best to always fry in a heavy-bottomed pan and don't skimp on the oil, especially if it's a steel pan.

Try to fry your food in small batches to avoid over-frying and sticking. It will certainly take a little longer, but the likelihood that you will get a beautiful dish with a delicious golden brown crust is much higher. And one more secret: blot food with a paper towel before frying. This simple method will help remove excess moisture and facilitate the frying process.

Remember, at the very beginning, we said that fish, due to its molecular structure, is guaranteed to stick to the pan during frying? It's time to talk about a very simple way to avoid this. By the way, it is suitable not only for fish, so take note. Before you start cooking, cut out a circle of parchment the diameter of the pan, put it on the bottom, and then heat the pan, pour in the oil and fry as usual. Your favorite dish will no longer stick.

What to do if food sticks to the pan

Even if you did everything according to the instructions, the food may stick. But don't panic. If at the first moment a piece of meat or a chicken breast sticks, then there is a high probability that as soon as these products are slightly browned, they themselves will come off. You can also rock the pan a little to speed up the process, or move the pieces around while frying with tongs.