Frying Pan

[poliphilo]

 My friend Stephen Bann- who is a dedicated cook-  used to say you should never wash a frying pan. The ancient grease, impregnated with the flavours of a thousand fry-ups, is a treasure,  adding subtlety and depth to anything you cook in it. I sometimes let my pan go a day or two without washing- and acknowledge that it's a bit of a thrill when the flavour of yesterday's mushrooms turns up in today's bacon and eggs- but then I start to worry about health and safety and the pan goes into the sink and receives a good scrubbing. Am I being unduly cautious? 

Comments

[saare-snowqueen.livejournal.com]

Once upon a time, which is how all good fairy tales begin, there was a place where the food we raised and bought, cooked and ate was free of pesticides, strange chemicals and even stranger microbes. The animals whose remains were frequently transformed in these old frying pans spent their lives eating grass - as most of them were intended to do and were not asked to eat ground up parts of their cousins mixed with antibiotics and corn oil derivatives. Then a good wipe out was more often than not sufficient, although an occasional date with soapy water couldn't hurt.

[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

You make me remember why I used to be a vegetarian.

[saare-snowqueen.livejournal.com]

The vegetables we eat are not necessarily any cleaner or safer these days.

I hope you will forgive me, but the question interested me so much that I posted it on my blog:

http://radicchiodiaries.blogspot.com/

[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

Splendid!

No-one's come up with the definitive answer yet. Maybe someone will on your website.

[jfs.livejournal.com]

A friend of mine almost killed someone when they washed his carefully seasoned wok in soapy water; they wiped away a couple of years of effort. He just used to wipe it with a damp cloth to get the bits out occasionally.

Course, that wasn't a non-stick wok; the seasoning is necessary to make it a usable utensil.

I'm not very careful about washing a frying pan after each use; I figure that the temperatures you fry at are going to zap most things that might be a bit nasty on the surface.

[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

The only wok I ever owned went rusty- from lack of use- and had to be thrown away.

[nostoi.livejournal.com]

I have a cast iron wok which gets a soap free wipe out and a stainless steel frying pan which gets scrubbed back to pristine cleanliness.

Depends on the pan I think.

[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

So it's a matter of going with one's instinct. Yes, I can relate to that.

[nostoi.livejournal.com]

I used to work in the hotel industry and the black, lump-encrusted pans in the kitchens really put me off eating anything.

I should say that me and Alan are vegan so there's no worries with us about contamination with meat, eggs or dairy products.

I probably like to scrub the steel cookware because I don't want them to end up like they did in the places where I worked!

[richenda.livejournal.com]

I suppose that frying is done at a sufficiantly high temperature to kill the average nasty.
I once had an iron omelette pan, which just got wiped - but I gave it away because it got too heavy for me. Also, that was before we all got so salmonella conscious.
I always scour my stainless steel pan until it shines.

[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

Stephen and his unwashed frying pan belong to the early seventies and- yes- I'm not sure we'd even heard of salmonella back then.

[lblanchard.livejournal.com]

Yes.

I have this Le Creuset omelet pan. Even though it has some sort of nonstickery inside it, I find that the omelet cooked after washing sticks. So I've stopped washing it. Instead, I wipe it out with a paper towel after each use. (Being on Weight Watchers, I only put a tsp of butter in the pan, so there's not much left to wipe out.)

The Designated Cast Iron Potwasher in the household doesn't wash them, either: instead, he pours some white vinegar in the pan/dutch oven, boils it up (scraping off anything that stuck last time), dumps the vinegar, rubs in a couple drops of some kind of neutral oil such as Mongolian Fire Oil (!), and thta's that.

Like several other commenters, we scrub our stainless steel frying pans.

[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

My frontline frying pan is non-stick- but so old it hardly figures any more.

After all I've read here, I think I'm going to keep it away from soap and water and go with the dry wipe.

[heleninwales.livejournal.com]

I used to keep a small frying pan solely for eggs. That one was never washed. After each use, it was just wiped with a piece of paper kitchen towel. Before use, I used to heat it with a drop of oil, then give it a good wipe out (being careful not to burn myself!) before adding the oil I used to cook the eggs.

My two woks get plenty of use and I do rinse them out with hot water and a little washing-up liquid after use, but they're only wiped gently and then dried with kitchen towel. I never soak or scrub them. All my other pans go in the dishwasher.

[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

That a good suggestion, about sterilising the pan with hot oil- I think I'll give it a go.

[heleninwales.livejournal.com]

I reckoned that anything harmful would be killed by the heat and wiped away with the oil. I also thought it would get rid of any dust that might have settled in the pan because I didn't use it all that often.

[easyalchemy.livejournal.com]

Well, if it's cast iron, or the sort of pan you have to season, no, you should never wash it with soap. If it's a regular old non-stick jobby or whatever, yes, wash it - the lack or presence of soap makes no difference.

I think there's a healthy cleanliness, and then there's the horror of germs that's been brought to us by the cleaning companies. They brand their soaps 'anti-bacterial,' though of course all soaps are anti-bacterial; that's why we wash our hands with them.

[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

Yes, I agree with you.

I'm sure I read somewhere that modern kids are much more in danger of infection and food-poisoning than earlier generations were- and it's all because they're being brought up in a sterile environment and don't get to build up their defences.

[dadi.livejournal.com]

I wipe the leftover grease and crumbles and whatever away with (ecolabelled) kitchen tissue paper. Since the stuff all gets fried at high temperatures, I guess that is more than enough to suffice hygiene needs.

[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

I think you're right.

I'm going to abandon soap and water and go with the dry wipe with kitchen towel.

[sunfell.livejournal.com]

If you have a cast-iron pan or carbon steel wok that has developed its own 'non-stick' finish over many cookings, do not wash it out with soap. If you do, you'll have to scrub the coating off, re-season it and start again.

I like to eat at a little Asian cafe that has an open kitchen, and I've been able to observe the cooking line. They have large, carbon steel woks lined up on high-pressure gas burners, with water faucets right nearby. When a cook is finished making one dish, he'll run hot water into his wok, give it a swish with a metal scrubber (not a heavy scrub), then heat and oil it again for the next order. They do not use soap.

For my own stainless pans, I do wash them with soap and give them a good scrub, because I use them to create great crusts and deglaze them for pan sauces.

[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

Those guys must have confidence in the efficacy of their cleansing procedure to be prepared to perform it in the open.

I like open kitchens.

[sunfell.livejournal.com]

They use extremely high heat- they can get an order done in less than five minutes. And it tastes wonderful, too- great 'breath of the wok' flavor.

[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

I think it's time for my evening meal....

[mummm.livejournal.com]

Interesting post with interesting answers.

I'm so shy of food poisoning having had it several times... I expect that all the answers you received are correct though.

[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

I suffer- or am blessed- with selective amnesia- and forget my serious illnesses- so much so that I really don't know whether I've ever had food poisoning or not.

[mummm.livejournal.com]

I remember because it made me so sick I wanted to die!

[jackiejj.livejournal.com]

Kate swears one should NEVER wash a cast iron skillet, for the same reason your friend said.

She told me that frying is such a hot process that it kills all the germs, but I never believed her.

I do wash my own skillets, and I gave her my cast iron one so she could have all its germs for herself.

[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

I think Kate has to be right. I mean, nothing survives boiling in oil- or does it?

[cataptromancer.livejournal.com]

Certain saints.

[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

But of course! :)

[pondhopper.livejournal.com]

The only thing that *might* harm you are the bits of food that stick to the pans and *could* spoil (but aren't likely to) after cooking if you didn't use the pan again for a while. A wipe out with paper towels should suffice. I've been doing that all my cooking life and (so far) have lived to tell the tale.
:)

[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

I use my pan a lot- so there really shouldn't be time for food to spoil in between cooking sessions.

I've pretty much decided I'm going to give up soap and water and use paper towels instead.

[sculptruth.livejournal.com]

Most food poisoning comes from cross-contamination rather than unwashed pans - any bits of food left over are cooked and probably crumbs too dried out to have anything left to spoil; and you would just wipe those out anyway. I was a chef for fifteen years and the skillets we season just get rinsed with a little water while they're still hot and let go. I do the same at home. Honestly, I don't really scrub out my non-sticks either, but they don't get much build-up. Enjoy your layered flavours!

[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

Excellent.

I'm going to accept your word as a professional on this.

No more soap and water for me!

[methodius.livejournal.com]

I hate fishy fried eggs and bacon.

[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

Good point.

These days I always cook fish in the oven.