save me from buying teflon (or tell me it's not that bad!)

[lnitti]

We have no teflon pans. I got rid of them a few years back.

but, I can't make pancakes, or fried eggs very well with my stainless steel.

I am not going to buy a cast iron skillet unless it is coated with some enamel and is smooth on the bottom so as not to scratch my glass cook top.

I have put oil in the pan and everything still sticks, or comes out uneven, etc.

So I am so close to buying a teflon pan to use for eggs and pancakes.

Any thoughts? Is it not really that bad since it wouldn't be used all the time? Is there some other way to make nice fluffy even pancakes and eggs?

Oh, and I want to make waffles too, and so I guess I would be buying a non-stick waffle maker too.

[allnaturalmom]

Oh mama.... Don't give up on the stainless. There is a learning curve w/it, but you can do it!

IMO, the secret is the temperature of the pan or griddle.

Here is what I do: (Have your batter all ready to go.) Put the empty pan on the burner and set it to a medium/slightly less than medium heat (my cooktop burns hot so I usually go less than medium). Wait a minute or two for the pan to heat up. Don't put the burner on high to heat up the pan and then think you can switch it down to medium when you're ready to cook - for some reason this just never works. Once your pan is warmed up, put in your oil. Now wait for the oil to warm up and show signs that it's ready. It will move around the pan easily (depending on how much you've added) and get a little sheen to it. You can test a few drops of water on the surface... they should sizzle, not just sit there and should take a few seconds to evaporate. Add your batter and cook as usual. I only flip once. If they're not cooking evenly around the edges, maybe it's the pan.? You may have to turn them around in the pan to get even browning. Some stainless pans have copper or aluminum that doesn't go up the sides, it's just in a disk on the bottom and sometimes that disk doesn't go all the way out to the edges of the pan. Not a big deal, just another step. Spin the pancake around so the outter edge is toward the center of the pan where there's more heat for browning that half of the pancake. For eggs, heat the pan the same way.

This is how I do it. It was trial and error at first, but now it's easy. I use both stainless steel and cast iron for pancakes and eggs.

As for the waffles, you can buy a cast iron waffle iron to use on the stovetop. I have found different models available. I currently have a thread about it down in MH forum.

gl
hth

[tinuviel_k]

I have a nice set of stainless steel, a cast iron skillet, and an enameled dutch oven. I prefer to use them over non-stick when I can.

However, I just CAN'T get any of that to work for eggs and fragile fish. I've tried, I've ruined batch after batch. And if I cook fish in the cast iron, the pan gets SO stinky. So I have a non-stick small omelet pan, a larger skillet for fish, and a griddle for pancakes (cast iron griddle won't work on a flat-top stove). I don't use them every day, and I use them carefully, but they work for us.

[cristeen]

I have to ask - what are your eggs doing that it "doesn't work"?

Personally, I love my cast iron, and would figure out a way to make that work long before using teflon - even if that means investing in enameled CI. We make eggs in our CI every morning, and I just made pancakes in it this morning.

But even stainless can work with some adjustments. The first one is realizing that you really do have to use oil, and you have to use more of it than you're used to with teflon. The second is that both pan and fat have to be hot before adding your food. The third is that the tools that you use for teflon don't work so well with stainless (wooden or nylon tools) - both stainless and CI work better with metal spatulas if you're trying to turn something.

Without knowing exactly what issue you're having though, it's difficult to give you any more details on what you may be doing wrong.

[blueridgewoman]

I use a Cuisinart PFOA/petroleum free nonstick pan for eggs. It works great. Still perhaps not the healthiest solution but better and really convenient.

http://www.amazon.com/Cuisinart-Gree...ref=pd_sim_k_2

[mamadelbosque]

I always read about how you 'cant' use cast iron on glass top stoves, and I really, really don't get it. I have tons of cast iron (including a big griddle) and it all works peachy fine.

I honestly don't know how I'd cook w/o cast iron... but maybe its just that I never learned to cook w/ non-stick??

[Ammaarah]

I use hard anodized aluminum for stuff like pancakes, and my waffle maker is teflon. Since that only gets dragged out about twice a year, I'm not concerned. The anodized aluminum doesn't chip or scratch easily like Teflon, and I'm not particularly concerned about it. I use cast iron and stainless too - they are great for some stuff but if I'm making something like crepes, I really want nonstick.

[beanma]

I, too, use cast iron all the time on my glass stove top. Maybe you're pickier than I am, but I've never had an issue with it. I'd much rather have a scratched stove top than cook in teflon, though. That's totally a no-brainer for me. I don't think I have scratched my stove top, though, and it's probably about 5 years old. It's black and hard to tell anyway. I have about 3 cast iron pans that regularly live on the stove top. Nothing sticks very much in them at all and if it does stick I just give it a scrub with a dish rag and it comes right out. I regularly cook eggs (scrambled and sunny-side-up and omelets) all the time.

[Bluebird9]

v

Edited by Bluebird9 - 11/27/11 at 10:08am

[Magelet]

The biggest help I had for learning to cook in cast iron and stainless steel is this:

The reason you want the oil hot enough (and it really does have to be hot, and enough of it, there just is no cheating) is that you want the bottom of the food to cook before it hits the pan. That is, the food hits the oil, cooks, then hits the bottom of the pan. Because it is already cooked before it hits the pan, it doesn't stick.

It takes a little layer of fat, but it works really well for eggs. (I don't cook pancakes, DP is pancake papa around here, I couldn't sucessfully cook them even when I used teflon, however it's the same thing. plenty of hot fat.)

If you have to get enameled cast iron, get enameled cast iron. I feel that teflon really is THAT bad. I'll use it at someone else's house, the rare times that no one has anything else, but quite frankly, I wouldn't even consider buying a teflon frying pan.

[dentmom]

What about those Green pans from Target?

[Arduinna]

I personally hate stainless steel for most cooking pans. I use regular cast iron and enameled cast iron almost exclusively. I use regular cast iron for eggs and pancakes all the time and it never sticks. And I LOVE my cast iron waffle iron, it's an antique griswold that is used on the stovetop ( it's not electric)

[cristeen]

Originally Posted by dentmom

What about those Green pans from Target?

Honestly, they're almost as bad. Cook's Illustrated reviewed them a few months back, and they discussed the fact that only 1 of the harmful chemicals had been removed from the new "green" nonstick pans, the other one is still being used. Plus the simple fact that not a single one of them performed well or was the slightest bit durable - either the pan was so thin to be laughable, or the coating started flaking during the course of the tests. IOW, a waste of money.

[dentmom]

Originally Posted by cristeen

Honestly, they're almost as bad. Cook's Illustrated reviewed them a few months back, and they discussed the fact that only 1 of the harmful chemicals had been removed from the new "green" nonstick pans, the other one is still being used. Plus the simple fact that not a single one of them performed well or was the slightest bit durable - either the pan was so thin to be laughable, or the coating started flaking during the course of the tests. IOW, a waste of money.

That's what I needed to know-thanks. Unfortunately my grandma and mom use them.

[mnnice]

Originally Posted by cristeen

I have to ask - what are your eggs doing that it "doesn't work"?

Personally, I love my cast iron, and would figure out a way to make that work long before using teflon - even if that means investing in enameled CI. We make eggs in our CI every morning, and I just made pancakes in it this morning.

But even stainless can work with some adjustments. The first one is realizing that you really do have to use oil, and you have to use more of it than you're used to with teflon. The second is that both pan and fat have to be hot before adding your food. The third is that the tools that you use for teflon don't work so well with stainless (wooden or nylon tools) - both stainless and CI work better with metal spatulas if you're trying to turn something.

Without knowing exactly what issue you're having though, it's difficult to give you any more details on what you may be doing wrong.

I'm not the OP, but I can't make a good over medium egg in either cast iron or stainless. I can't get it to flip without the yolk breaking unless I use so much fat that it's really poached in oil instead of fried. I use a flexible metal spatula to flip with. DH just bought a large flat cast iron griddle and I think it will work for over medium egg because you can flip easier without the sides of the pan to fight with, but I haven't tried it yet.

It's not an especially big deal since DH is the only one that eats them anyway, but we still have one nonstick pan despite both of us being philosophically opposed to it for food safety issues.

[mamadelbosque]

I cook over-medium eggs in cast iron all the time... and I make crepe-like things that we've always called skinny pancakes (I have a round griddle that I bought with the exclusive use of making them in . Just get it hot, add some butter and let it melt then pour in your batter or crack your egg, let it cook a minute, and then slide your spatula all the way around, then flip... works peachy fine.

[joyfulheart]

We use something called a scanpan, which is suppose to be safer than teflon. They are kinda expensive, though, but we had a gift certificate to use, so that helped. http://www.scanpancookware.com/

I should add that the scanpans are non-stick.

[Juvysen]

[chaoticzenmom]

I have a few non-stick Pampered Chef pans. I also use stainless and iron pans. I think that if you don't make non-stick your main pans or use them on higher temperatures, you should be fine. They release harmful chemicals at around 450 I believe. If you swallow any of it, it's an inert,non-digestible material that will pass right through you (unless you're like 400 degrees inside).

Find a well-made pan, non cheap non-stick. I have loved my Pampered Chef ones. Use it on low heat items such as pancakes and eggs. I also have a wok pan for quick defrosting of chicken breasts since I don't have a microwave.

I also have a t-fal non-stick crepe pan that I love.

I wouldn't use non-stick on anything that has lots of fat in it or that needs to be cooked on med to high heat.

[ltlmrs]

I love my blue steel crepe pan for eggs and pancakes. I couldn't figure out how to use ci or ss for eggs/pancakes either, but the blue steel, oh my! I don't think I've ever been more inolved with a piece of cookware.