Carbon steel

Equipment Review: Best Carbon-Steel Skillets

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• published: 10 Aug 2015
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Full testing details and ranking chart: http://cooks.io/1guhd0N * Right now our winning carbon-steel skillet, the Matfer Bourgeat Black Steel Round Frying Pan, 11 7/8", is sold out everywhere. The manufacturer is currently backordered as well, but they aware of the increased demand and are adjusting production accordingly. Our best recommendation would be to hold tight until the pan is back in stock. As soon as it is restocked, we will provide a link to an online retailer. We're very sorry for this inconvenience, but we don't work with manufacturers on our stories—we test independently and the stores and manufacturers learn the results only when the story is published, so they can't "stock up" just in case. It's super flattering that everyone is out looking for this pan based on our story, and we're just as surprised as everyone else that it's proved so popular. We hope people can be patient—this pan is worth the wait! What if one pan could do everything the best traditional stainless-steel, cast-iron, and nonstick pans can do—and, in some cases, even do it a little better? Are Carbon-Steel Knives Worth It? Watch now: https://youtu.be/e50gujs4l-I Are You Using the Best Cutting Board? Watch now: https://youtu.be/lPyhS2LX_Co Even if you’ve never heard of a carbon-steel skillet, you’ve almost certainly eaten a meal made in one. Restaurant chefs use these pans for all kinds of tasks, from searing steak to sautéing onions to cooking eggs. French omelet and crêpe pans are made of carbon steel, as are the woks used in Chinese restaurants. Even Julia Child had a few carbon-steel pieces alongside her familiar rows of copper cookware. In European home kitchens, these pans are hugely popular. Somehow, though, despite their prevalence in restaurants, they’ve never really caught on with home cooks in the United States. Given their reputation for being as great at browning as they are at keeping delicate foods from sticking, we wondered if it was time that changed. We bought seven carbon-steel skillets, all as close as possible to our preferred sizeof 12 inches for a primary skillet, priced from $39.95 to $79.95. For fun we also threw in a $230 hand-forged version made in Oregon. Bearing in mind carbon steel’s multipurpose promise, we decided on a range of recipes for our testing: frying eggs, turning out cheese omelets, pan-searing steaks, and baking the traditional French upside-down apple dessert known as tarte Tatin, which begins on the stove and moves to the oven. Along the way we’d evaluate the skillets’ shape, weight, handle comfort, and maneuverability. Washing the pans after every test would let us judge how easy they were to clean and maintain. Our key question: Could this one type of pan actually make owning the other skillets we’ve always had in our arsenal—stainless-steel tri-ply, cast-iron, and nonstick—more of an option than a necessity? America's Test Kitchen is a real 2,500 square foot test kitchen located just outside of Boston that is home to more than three dozen full-time cooks and product testers. Our mission is simple: to develop the absolute best recipes for all of your favorite foods. To do this, we test each recipe 30, 40, sometimes as many as 70 times, until we arrive at the combination of ingredients, technique, temperature, cooking time, and equipment that yields the best, most-foolproof recipe. Each week, the cast of America's Test Kitchen brings the recipes, testings, and tastings from Cook's Illustrated magazine to life on our public television series. With more than 2 million viewers per episode, we are the most-watched cooking show on public television. http://www.americastestkitchen.com More than 1.3 million home cooks rely on Cook's Illustrated and Cook's Country magazines to provide trusted recipes that work, honest ratings of equipment and supermarket ingredients, and kitchen tips. http://www.cooksillustrated.com http://www.cookscountry.com Follow us: Twitter: http://www.twitter.com/testkitchen Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/americastestkitchen