On Culinate:
Towel dry: Stop killing trees and get with the microfiber
On Serious Eats:
The Nut-Free Sandwich Solution
Enjoy!
Roots and Grubs
The home of Matthew Amster-Burton
On Culinate:
Towel dry: Stop killing trees and get with the microfiber
On Serious Eats:
The Nut-Free Sandwich Solution
Enjoy!
What about cleaning the cast iron skillet? I would estimate 5-10 paper towels per instance, depending on what was cooked and how long the pan sat there. Sometimes I wonder, “How did the pioneers clean their cast iron?” Maybe it had something to do with pine cones and a handful of sand…
That’s still how we clean them at camp… after serving you scrape out everything you can, then put the empty skillet or dutch oven back on the fire, let it burn or dry up, scrape out, oil.
But I still haven’t found a way to dry tofu that I don’t think is icky, other than paper towels. If I remember soon enough I just press the water out without towels, but I hardly ever do remember.
Use nothing but some liquid detergent and a soft brush…otherwise you will be removing the “finish” and it will no longer be useful for anything but the trash.
Grandpa Marvin
Wendy, when you say “that’s still how we clean them at camp,” you mean with pine cones and sand, right?
I generally use water and one paper towel to clean cast iron; a while back I realized that I could keep wiping it with paper towels all day and they would keep getting dirty, and whatever stuff they’re wiping off isn’t unsafe or unpleasant to eat.
Depends on if we’re near sand or not. At camp up in the Gorge we used fir cones; at camp down here we use pine needles, leaves, and sometimes fine granite pebbles (can you call it sand when you’re miles from the ocean?). OK, and sometimes a little ball of aluminum foil, for full disclosure’s sake.
After 20 years experience as a Boy Scout leader, I’ve had lots of cast iron (dutch oven, fry pay, griddle) experience although I wouldn’t consider myself “expert” (there is a group called The Dutch Oven Society which would qualify as such). My best results, at least on the campfire, have been with turning the item upside down in the fire, burning out any residue, scraping out the ash with a large metal spoon (handle the very hot pot with mitts and pliers), re-burn as necessary until all food residue is gone, and then use oil and paper towels to clean out the remaining smoke residue, repeat the wiping until the towel is nearly clean. Mamster’s right, there’s no such thing as completely clean cast iron. A trick I learned from an old Scouter was to use table salt as a scouring tool, which we do with our in-home cast iron. That Scouter re-cycled old towels & rags by cutting them into 2″-wide strips which he would clamp into ViseGrips to scour with salt, and then use oil to re-season the clean utensil.