Years ago I fell in love with cast iron cooking pans. Maybe it has something to do with my love for metal, but there is something amazing about cooking with a cast iron. Once they are properly conditioned, they become nonstick and seem to last forever.
One of my favorite things about cast iron is that they are never actually dead. They are not dead until they are broken and dead. So you can find an old cast iron in someones barn and it could be completely rusted, and you can still bring it back to life. That is just what I have done today!
A few weeks ago, a friend let us come over and pick through his treasure on his homestead. It was a larger camper that was filled with miscellaneous things. One of those things was a beautiful cast iron. It is a Griswold Handle Griddle. So it is a flat griddle with a handle on it.
I found it tucked away under some other things that I didn't want. When I pulled it out though, it felt like I was pulling the sword out of the stone! It was completely rusted, and I could barely make out the brand. So today I tackled it, and whipped it into shape. This is how I did it.
You can see from the pictures that it was pretty rusty. I took these shots after I started, just to see what it would look like. You can see the shinier exposed metal. My method to start with was a power drill and a cupped wire brush. I started hogging into the pan and letting the wire brush eat the rust. It is always important to wear the proper P.P.E and remember which way the brush is rotating.
You can see that the wire brush really did a number on this pan. I did the cooking surface, the outer edge, the handle, and the bottom. Once I was sure that the rust was off I took it into the house and got started on the next part.
Everyone has their own idea of how to season a cast iron, and I also have my own method. For the most part it is about the metal. The expanding and contracting of the metal when it is very hot and then cold. So I start by getting the pan very hot. I make sure that the metal is expanding and opening up (this isn't something that you can see). Then I cool it back down. I let it cool, and then run it under water to bring it the rest of the way back to room temperature.
Once I go through all of that, I heat it back up and apply oil. I use olive oil for our cast irons. I know there are plenty of great options, so I choose something that we regularly use, and something with a high smoke point. I use a paper towel to spread the oil all over the cooking surface, the outer edge, and the handle.
After I heat it up with the oil, I use it. There is something about cooking an onion in a cast iron that just makes sense to me. So once I get it heated and oiled... I cut up an onion and cook it on the cast iron. I feel like this gives the new piece a chance to really stretch it's legs. It gets a chance to get real hot, to heat up the oil, to cook the onion, and to mix all of the oils together and let them settle together on the pain.
It is a pretty great process, and it smells amazing. It is almost like building trust in the pan. I mean lets be honest, not an hour before this it was a rusted up piece of crap. So this way it feels like building a bit of trust in it.
When the onions are all done I get them off of the pan and then clean it. I use a paper town to wipe off the debris and spread the oil around. It leaves it with an almost shiny finish. Now it is sitting on the stove ready for action.
Stacie D is about to take this beauty on it's maiden voyage tonight with some naan bread. I think this will make a great addition to our cast iron family!
Be well
~The Yeti
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