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Equipment & Gear: Common Materials of Cookware
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Marco
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PostPosted: Fri Nov 17, 2006 4:21 am    Post subject: Waterless Cookware Reply with quote

Maxam has a great set of waterless cookware. To be honest there are alot of waterless cookware out there, REMEMBER one thing you need at least a 5 ply to cook waterless. Store sets are 3 ply and dont work as well.
I have cooked waterless on 18/10 and t304 and t316L its all about cooking on low heat and haveing atlest a 5 ply cookware.
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GaryProtein



Joined: 26 Oct 2005
Posts: 535

PostPosted: Fri Nov 17, 2006 11:18 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

What exactly is waterless cooking and why do you need 5 plys?
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chiantra
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PostPosted: Sat Nov 25, 2006 3:44 pm    Post subject: waterless cookware Reply with quote

just wondering how those maxam waterless 18/10 stainless steel cookware are, in quality? Has anyone tried them? I know they are supposed to be healthier to use but I've also been looking at buying a set of Cuisinart Multiclad Pro.
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Elgog
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PostPosted: Sun Dec 03, 2006 6:45 am    Post subject: Cusinart Chefs Classic cookware Reply with quote

I use the Cusinart Chef's Classic cookware and like it a lot. It is 18/10 stainless with the 4mm aluminum disk in the bottom. The warrantee is void if you cook with high temps. I assume it's because of the material they use to bond the disk to the botom of the pan. Probably some high temp epoxy or something. In any case, these pans are reasonably priced and work well. I do have several non-stick Farberware egg pans for eggs and other sticky stuff.

The thing I don't like most about teflon is that if you cook at high temps with teflon, it loses it's non stick properties. For instance, if you cook bacon in a teflon pan, over a very short period of time, that pan will loose its non-stick properties. Teflon is not a long term solution for cook ware. As for multi-clad cook ware, I was a chef for many years and cooked on pans that heated from the bottom. I am not sure I want a pan where the sides are as hot as the bottom. I need places in the pan that are cooler so I can bring the food to the heat and when its done, rotate it up to the top and bring more food to the heat. I could have bought another brand of multi-clad cookware that was significanlty less expensive, but I wanted cookware that I was used to cooking on. My 17 piece set cost $249 at Chef's Catalog. If I would have purchased them separately it would have cost more than $700. So I defeinitly recommend buying a set rather than one at a time. Also, make sure the set has what you need. The All Clad set, 9 pieces for $800, has a 3 1/2 qt saute pan. This is a very small pan. Also, things like a vegatable steamer insert typiclly get very little use unlike, say, a pasta cooking insert. I would also not get a copper set because copper is so soft that the pan dents and will not make contact with electric cooking surfaces.

A friend of mine has a Calfalon anodized aluminum set and he has sent several pans back for warrantee coverage because that pans failed over time. I don't want to be shipping cookware every few months.

Finally, I bought a set of Calfalon cookware (about $3000 worth) and took it back because everthing I cooked in it stuck to it. I could not get some of it off when I retuned the set. Also the care instructions for the Calfalon are draconian. Apparently normal use of this cookeware leads to performance failures.

In summary, the Cusinart Chef's Proffesional cookware performs very well, cleans well. You can use oven cleaner on it if you have a major burn, unlike aluminum. I have had trouble with Calfalon as well as some of my friends and I don't think I would like the multi-clad cookware because it changes the way I am used to cooking.

Thanks for listening.
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GaryProtein



Joined: 26 Oct 2005
Posts: 535

PostPosted: Sun Dec 03, 2006 6:00 pm    Post subject: Re: Cusinart Chefs Classic cookware Reply with quote

Elgog wrote:

The thing I don't like most about teflon is that if you cook at high temps with teflon, it loses it's non stick properties. For instance, if you cook bacon in a teflon pan, over a very short period of time, that pan will loose its non-stick properties. Teflon is not a long term solution for cook ware. A friend of mine has a Calfalon anodized aluminum set and he has sent several pans back for warrantee coverage because that pans failed over time. I don't want to be shipping cookware every few months.

Finally, I bought a set of Calfalon cookware (about $3000 worth) and took it back because everthing I cooked in it stuck to it. I could not get some of it off when I retuned the set. Also the care instructions for the Calfalon are draconian. Apparently normal use of this cookeware leads to performance failures.


I have always felt (and you can see other posts of mine here) that Calphalon is a well advertized, high priced, low quality rip-off.

The likely reason you have had sticking with teflon is because you probably have "seasoned" the grease on it which is preventing the teflon from acting as a releasing agent. There might be other reasons, but try really cleaning the pot VERY well and see if the problem goes away.
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PostPosted: Mon Dec 11, 2006 1:08 pm    Post subject: Materials Reply with quote

Hi Michael,

I was wondering if you know the exact material used for wok pans. I know that there are many variations for its manufacture, but do you know what exact type of cast iron? or carbon steel, or aluminium?
thanks

Mish
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Michael Chu



Joined: 10 May 2005
Posts: 1654
Location: Austin, TX (USA)

PostPosted: Mon Dec 11, 2006 5:43 pm    Post subject: Re: Materials Reply with quote

Anonymous wrote:
I was wondering if you know the exact material used for wok pans. I know that there are many variations for its manufacture, but do you know what exact type of cast iron? or carbon steel, or aluminium?

Traditional Chinese woks are made of thin cast iron. As to the type of cast iron, I don't know - most likely some form of grey cast iron. You can give The Wok Shop a call or send them a message asking if they knwo the specific type of material used in their cast iron woks. Also, during the last several decades, carbon steel has become more popular as a material for woks both in China and in the U.S. The specific type of cast iron or carbon steel is dependant on the manufacturer.
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PostPosted: Tue Dec 12, 2006 1:03 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

thanks for your help
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Matt and Anna



Joined: 28 Dec 2006
Posts: 1
Location: Murrumbateman, Australia

PostPosted: Thu Dec 28, 2006 12:33 am    Post subject: Zinc Coated Fish Kettle Reply with quote

Hi, great site.

We have a large fish kettle that has a generous coating of what appears to be zinc inside and out. We used it for the first time last night over our stove's gas burner to poach a trout. The poaching water had stock, wine and onions, and the resulting poached sea trout was delicious. We boiled down the poaching water ain the kettle to a seriously good-smelling stock.

On emptying the stock the next morning we were horrified to find that the zinc lining on the inside had been melted away above the burner jets and there were small blobs of zinc loose in the bottom of the kettle.

We ditched the stock. We don't appear to have any of the usual symptoms of zinc poisoning.

I have been trying to reproduce the melting effect this morning. Over an hour or two of boiling, there is no melting but there seem to be some new small loose blobs of zinc (qty 3 @ 1mmx2mm) forming again, indicating a dissolution/precipitation process. Why would this be happening? Why wouldn't any zinc in solution plate back out onto a cooler part of the vessel wall? Isn't zinc a safe coating for cooking vessels?

A Canadian government food health site warns against cooking or storing in zinc any foods or liquids with a pH below 4.5. I suppose its possible that the poaching water was made acid by its constituents, and more so by the reduction, but we have no means of measuring pH.

Our water comes from a series of rainwater tanks - a main concrete tank with some other plastic and galvanised tanks. We also have a galvanised roof and tend to have leaf litter in the gutters. I imagine that the leaf litter may acidify the water, but the concrete tank walls should neutralise that.

Do we need to be concerned about zinc migrating off the kettle into the fish? At what point would the vessel stop dissolving zinc into the hot water? Would this happen with perfectly neutral water?

Thanks,

Matt and Anna
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Something Fishy?
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PostPosted: Tue Feb 20, 2007 10:46 pm    Post subject: eGullet Link Reply with quote

I love this site, but isn't this article awfully derrivative of the eGullet article Shalmanese linked to back in 2005? Given that the eGullet article predates this one by some two years, and given the extreme similarities in structure, data and information presented, this seems to be just a shorter rewrite of the eGullet article. That's all well and good, but shouldn't credit be given where it's due?
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GaryProtein



Joined: 26 Oct 2005
Posts: 535

PostPosted: Wed Feb 21, 2007 4:42 am    Post subject: Re: eGullet Link Reply with quote

Something Fishy? wrote:
I love this site, but isn't this article awfully derrivative of the eGullet article Shalmanese linked to back in 2005? Given that the eGullet article predates this one by some two years, and given the extreme similarities in structure, data and information presented, this seems to be just a shorter rewrite of the eGullet article. That's all well and good, but shouldn't credit be given where it's due?


If you look at any blog site in any topic, everything has been discussed before someplace, but times change, technology moves on, different people have more varied viewpoints, and sometimes the answers to questions change as more data becomes available. In some topics, we have links to other references, giving them credit where it is due. So, in view of the fact that we are not plagiarizing other blogs, no credit is due anyone, as we all have original writings on the topics we discuss.
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Mista Rajaz
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PostPosted: Wed Feb 28, 2007 4:55 am    Post subject: I prefer copper Reply with quote

because of its high therman diffusivity thickness which distributes the heat evenly and it is also very resonsive
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PostPosted: Fri Mar 16, 2007 2:47 pm    Post subject: A couple things i have found out Reply with quote

Now here, i disagree with your results. I'm different, making me instantly cool, dangerous, rebellious, forward thinking, creative, and stupid at the same time. I think aluminum is the better cooking material. Aluminum looks better, and it's cheaper. But what I've discovered, using the thermal response is that while copper pans may be able to respond 20% better, Aluminum pans can get the same heat distribution, 68% lighter. I took the diffusion numbers and plugged them into the relative weight of copper and aluminum. To get the pot diffusing on the same level, you still only need 32% of the weight. That's 68% lighter, if you don't care about weight it can be used to make the pot 136% thicker. And 136% thicker seems more important then 20% faster heat response to me.

Tell me if i horribly screwed up somewhere, because these numbers seem a little one sided to me.
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PostPosted: Fri Mar 16, 2007 3:07 pm    Post subject: Re: A couple of things to keep in mind Reply with quote

paulr wrote:

For sauteeing... ...nothing is better than copper, for its fast response.

Really? I don't have a saute pan, but i assumed aluminum was better, since it's significantly lighter. So is copper so much better that the huge weight is worth it?
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PASSBY
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PostPosted: Mon Aug 06, 2007 4:05 am    Post subject: about wok Reply with quote

Most woks that are made in China are cast iron. There are wrought iron and pig iron. Pig iron is regarded to be suitable for slow stew and braised. suitable for old people and long last. wrought iron is suitable for quick stir fry, and for young people.
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