Corduroy Orange

I would love if you posted your cast iron seasoning and storage tips!

And I am glad to hear about the dutch oven and popcorn. Not only does the term “dutch oven” crack me up, but I have one and don’t have a popcorn maker and now I feel like the world is my popcorny oyster.

–Kari

Seasoning cast iron pans is about as painless a process as it gets, but taking the little bit of time to do it will ensure that your cast iron lasts not only for your lifetime, but your grandkids’ as well. Here’s how:

Rub your pan all over with vegetable oil so that it’s evenly coated, but not dripping. Then, put it in a 275 or 300 degree oven for several hours. You might want to put an old cookie sheet or something underneath it, just in case it does drip a little bit of oil; but, unless you’ve put way too much oil on, the process should be hassle free.

Always let cast iron cool before washing it. When you put water into a hot pan, you rapidly drop its temperature. Cast iron is a brittle substance and, if your pan is hot enough, it will break before your eyes when the water hits it. Chances are, unless you’ve had it on the stove all day, your pan won’t be quite hot enough for that to happen, but there’s no sense taking the chance that the unlikely may occur.

When you do wash your cast iron, never use soap. The grease-cutting powers of your dish soap will worm their way through the seasoning and expose the pan itself to the ravages of moisture and oxygen, thereby causing your pan to rust. Instead, use hot water and a stiff dish brush to get all food particles out of the bottom of the pan, then dry it thoroughly with a couple of paper towels or an old dish rag that you don’t mind getting smudged before putting it away. If you’ve got problems with high humidity in your kitchen, you might want to store your cast iron with a paper towel inside of it to absorb the excess moisture (I used to do this when I lived in New Orleans), but if your pan has been properly seasoned, you’re most likely going to be fine just stacking your various cast iron pans inside each other.

If you do notice that one of your pans is starting to develop a little rust, use a stainless steel scrubby to scrape out the rust, clean it well, and rub it with some oil before you put it away. Usually, the only reason you would need to re-season the pan in the oven would be if you get it unusually hot and the oil that the pan has been seasoned with burns off of the pan. You’ll know that this has happened if your house fills with a large amount of smoke and you start coughing a lot.

To Pop Corn In Your Dutch Oven

I have a smaller dutch oven (more like a dutch saucepan) that I use as my corn popper, but there’s no reason that a larger one wouldn’t work just as well, if not better when you’re making a bigger batch of corn. I really like popping my corn on the stovetop because I get almost 100% yield—it’s rare that I find more than a couple of unpopped kernels in the bottom of the bowl, if that many. Plus, I don’t have kernels popping out of the bowl and flying all over the kitchen like used to be common when I used an air popper.

Set the dutch oven over medium-high heat and cover the bottom of the pan with a generous coating of vegetable oil. Add 1/3 cup of unpopped kernels to the bottom of the pan and put the cover on it. Shake the dutch oven frequently throughout the popping process so that the kernels on the bottom of the pan don’t scorch. When the corn has stopped popping, pour it into a large bowl and season with your preferred popcorn mix. I like butter, salt, and pepper. Sometimes, to shake things up a bit, I’ll use garlic salt and/or cayenne pepper. I tried hot sauce a couple of times and liked the flavor, but found that the kernels soaked it up and became very mushy. If you’ve got a favorite popcorn flavoring, post a comment and share it with other popcorn lovers who read Corduroy Orange.

Have a culinary question? Email me!

This entry was posted on Monday, December 4th, 2006 at 4:17 pm and is filed under Advice Column, Cast Iron, Cooking Tips, Recipes. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.