Pans that last

A pan does two things with heat: it spreads it and it keeps it. Metals are usually good at one or the other, so each material behaves a little differently at the stove.

• Cast iron: heavy, slow to warm and uneven (a flame scorches one spot and leaves the edge pale). What it has is mass: once hot, it stays hot when cold meat goes in. For searing and the oven.
• Carbon steel: the same kind of metal, rolled thinner, so it’s lighter than cast iron and heats and cools faster. Restaurants use it for omelettes and searing.
• Stainless steel: doesn’t rust, doesn’t react with acid, goes in the dishwasher. On its own it conducts heat badly, so good pans have an aluminium core.
• Seasoning: iron and carbon steel get their non-stick surface from oil baked on until it hardens into a slick film. You can strip it and redo it as often as you like, which is why these pans last.
• Care: dry on the hob, a thin film of oil, no soaking. Long tomato or wine sauces wear the seasoning away, so those go in stainless.
• Induction: all three work on it.

If you want one pan for everything except sauces, we’d start with carbon steel: lighter, and it gets better with use.

Cast iron is what you reach for to sear and bake, and for anything that goes from the hob into the oven. It heats unevenly, so let it warm up slowly before the food goes in.

In 2024 Germany’s ÖKO-TEST put cast iron pans through a citric acid test, and three of six uncoated ones released metals above the Council of Europe’s non-binding guidance values. The free summaries don’t name Lodge or Skeppshult, so we can’t say how they did; it’s one more reason to keep long acidic simmers out of them.

Carbon steel asks for the same care as cast iron and gives you a lighter pan. The first eggs will stick. After a few rounds of cooking it turns slick, and America’s Test Kitchen found that smoother pans get there sooner. It also found that thick pans resist warping, and steel warps if you take it from a hot hob to cold water, so let it cool.

Both of these have an aluminium core in the base, the usual way to make steel spread heat. America’s Test Kitchen found that pans clad all the way up the sides cook better than ones with aluminium only underneath. Stainless isn’t non-stick: preheat, add the fat, then the food, and let it release by itself. In return it goes in the dishwasher, and the browned bits left in the pan become the sauce.

Low, sloping sides make it easy to slide a spatula under a crêpe, and thin steel answers the burner quickly. Owners also use this kind of pan for eggs, sausages and the odd steak.