I hate how we allowed these ghouls to make the word "nonstick" synonymous with teflon/PFAS. It makes it sound like if you use a regular pan, you constantly have to scrape off burnt food or something. That's just not true, a well-seasoned regular pan can be just as "nonstick" as one with a PFAS coating. It's a fake non-problem that was invented to sell this garbage that poisons us and the environment. If it was up to me, the executives at dupont and anyone else responsible for this psyop would be sent off to labor camps (with humane working conditions of course)
what oil do you use for steel? I find that if I have to make steel hot enough for it to be non-stick, as soon as I put oil on it it starts smoking if it is plant oil or burning if it is fat.
Mostly rapeseed oil, sometimes olive oil. When I first started (before I was able to just guess), I put a drop of water in the pan. As soon as the water started to boil, I added the oil and was ready to go.
Nothing stuck for quite a while. But if it did, sometimes it was enough to wait a bit for everything to release by itself.
doesn't the oil burn when you put it on a very hot steel pan or do you have a trick? I guess rapeseed oil burning point is higher but if I put butter on a very hot pan it immediately turns brown and then burns in a matter of seconds.
Maybe you're just getting the pan too hot? I know that sounds silly but it might be as simple as turning the heat down some and cooking whatever for a little longer.
Or at least that's like my cardinal cooking sin, I'm always getting the pan too hot and burning shit unless I'm very careful to think about it.
but you are supposed to heat the steel pans until water kind of jumps in it (to make it nonstick) and that much heat generally already burns the oil I am using...
And if you heat any oil too much it starts producing carcinogenes. Butter is especially prone to do that even in relatively lower heat if it's not ghee. So it becomes toxic in a similar way as teflon is.
Can't really cook this way oil-free though. I roast my food in a toaster oven, on a parchment paper-lined baking sheet. Took some getting used to, but I find it more convenient too.