Cookware Center

FACTORY NEW: Cast iron pans fresh from the factory commonly are treated with a coating to prevent them from rusting before they sell. This coating is not good to eat and it may incorporate plastic or wax, so it’s a good idea to go over your pan with steel wool before seasoning the pan or using it for the initial time. After scouring it with steel wool, wash your skillet or pan in hot soapy water and then place over heat until dry. After you have cleaned and dried your new pan, condition it before using.

RUST: If your pan or skillet is presently rusty, clean off the rust with steel wool first. You may recondition almost any cast iron skillet or pot, no matter how yucky it is when you find it. After you have scoured off the rust, wash it and arid it over heat. Then condition your pan.

TO CONDITION: If it is new, not long ago cleaned with steel wool, or other than as supposed or expected not greasy, you need to “season” or “condition” it firstborn before cooking. To do this, put it on a hot burner, add a couple of tablespoons of cooking oil. Allow to get hot, then to cool, then wipe the oil all over, then wipe off any excess oil.

TO CLEAN: There are dissimilar methods, but perchance the best method is the one that never uses soap. Soap will strip the skillet of the oil, and it is supposed to have oil on it! Unlike other pans, a good cast iron piece will be black with residuary oil. This prevents the pan from rusting and the metal from reacting with the food, and the oil likewise makes it work like a non-stick pan. So rather of soap, use salt to clean the pan. Coarse kosher salt is good for this intention because it is the right coarseness and you may get a big box cheaply.

When you’re done cooking, rinse out your pan, dump in a tablespoon or two of salt and scrub the pan just with salt and water combined in a thick, grainy paste. Rinse, then put the pan on the burner again and heat to arid the pan before putting it away (so it doesn’t rust). The pan still has oil on it but it’s clean, so next time you cook you may just get started cooking without having to condition the pan again.

Get two pieces of cookware in one package with this cast iron Combo Cooker from the Lodge Logic line. It features a 3-quart base that may act as a deep skillet or shoal Dutch oven and a shoal 10-1/4-inch skillet/griddle that likewise acts as a lid to the 3-quart base. Cast iron brings about superior heat retention, heats evenly, and loves a campfire, different from flimsier pans. The American-based company Lodge has been fine-tuning it is construction of rugged, cast-iron cookware for more than a century. No other metal is as long-lasting and works as well for disseminating and holding back heat evenly for the duration of cooking. Lodge’s Logic line of cookware comes factory pre-seasoned with the company’s vegetable oil formula, and is ready to use right out of the box. While both come pre-seasoned to prevent feed from sticking, they work best when sprayed or lightly coated with vegetable oil before use. After the meal is done, merely scrub the cast iron with a stiff brush and hot water, no soap, and arid immediately. Lodge covers the sturdy oven with a lifetime fixed warranty versus defects, and when cared for properly, this nearly indestructible pan will have to last for generations.

Cast Iron Cookware Picture

Cast Iron Cookware Picture

Cast Iron Cookware Pic

Most helpful customer reviews

179 of 181 people found the following review helpful.
If I can do it – you certainly can!!
By Kiki
To preface, I’m trying really hard to be a “good cook” but don’t have a lot of experience, and I can’t justify spending thousands of dollars on a budding hobby. So, when it came to replacing my flaking non-stick cookware, I researched for months before deciding on a hybrid set of copper-core stainless and Lodge cast iron. I read dozens of reviews and was intimidated by the extra care required by cast iron (I’m a wash-and-wear type). But, Lodge is so cheap comparatively and still really respected as an industry standard, that it’s hard to overlook.

I initially purchased the combo cooker, a 5qt dutch oven, and a variety of skillets. The cookers arrived in their Lodge packaging and were quite secure, but the skillets definitely were shipped loose. Fortunately they survived the jumbled journey fine, but I can see what other reviewers suffered with regards to skillets scraping each other or breaking out of their boxes – they are only a few steps shy of being insufficiently packaged. Free shipping is a great offer though.

The pieces were just what I expected after having read the reviews – heavy, uneven in color/preseasoning application, and rough like sandpaper. Several reviewers I read were upset by sticking of initial cooking attempts, specifically because of the cat’s tongue-like feel of the basin surface (which Lodge’s website says is a normal condition). Responders suggested a few home seasonings prior to cooking, but I was impatient and followed one piece of advice spefically: go to my local bulk goods store, buy ten pounds of ground beef, and cook it in my new cast iron. I ended up also getting four pounds of bacon for good measure, and spent three hours cooking batch after batch of ground beef and bacon in every piece I’d purchased.

The plan worked perfectly – by the time I had finished cooking, drained the oil and scraps, rinsed the pieces with hot water, and towel dried, the insides of the skillets were smooth as satin. The beef fat had left a gray film that made the skillets look instantly “used”, which is a benefit I’ll have to get used to (not being able to polish them back to a “new” looking state). The bacon stained the cooking surface a bit worse – in bacon-shaped shaddows, but I saved the bacon grease and used it for weeks to brush on the pans prior to use. I’ve cooked on the cast iron many times since (just dislodged a perfect batch of cornbread this morning), without any sticking during or after cooking. The several weeks of bacon grease was unhealthy, sure, but a great patina starter – I now use a spray or a light brush with butter with no problems.

More Pros:
- The skillets keep food hot for more than an hour, but yet are not dangerously hot to handle from the oven or stove. I’m going to purchase the handle pads now, but so far I’ve been using those old loom-woven potholders I made at summer camp with no added discomfort relative to other pans.
- The skillets are so versatile! I heat them on the stove to melt butter, toss in some whole garlic cloves, pop in the oven to roast, and bring right to the table for a hot appetizer on toast. They have a vintage-y, industrial charm that allows them to mix and match smartly with existing serveware, and I love the stove-to-oven/broiler convenience.
- Food cooked on cast iron really does taste better. I was skeptical because all food tastes good to me, but a few friends and I conducted a “Test Kitchen” on Aebleskiver pans, pitting a teflon against a cast iron. My friends’ husbands consistently chose the cast iron-cooked pancake balls citing their crust and flavor to be preferable.
- Lodge designed their lines efficiently. The 10.25″ lid fits the 3qt Combo Cooker base, for example, allowing me to purchase one lid for several skillets.

Cons:
- Duh, they’re heavy. I’m talking two-hands-heavy. It’s a drawback for sure, but nothing’s perfect and I know the heaviness is directly related to all the reasons I really like my cast iron.
- They’re quirky – cast iron doesn’t like soap, doesn’t like sudden temperature changes, and likes to stay very dry. But, like good table silver, the more the cast iron is put to use, the more forgiving and less tempermental it becomes.

I’m back to purchase more pieces, because Lodge cast iron has exceeded my expectations and caused me to take a sentimental approach to cooking – how many Thanksgivings will I reach for this dutch oven?, I wonder. A cook with cast iron in his or her hand is at once an intimidating force to be reckoned with, and a comforting vision of timeless domesticity. Thanks to Lodge (and Amazon!), I can live up to that image with few qualifications and little effort.

167 of 171 people found the following review helpful.
Great pan for basic kitchen
By G. Powell
if you are just outfitting your kitchen, start with this pan. Especially if you are cooking for 2 or 3. The 10″ deep skillet is one of the least expensive, decent fry pans available. You can do a dutch apple pie with the lid on in the oven, you can cook eggs, pancakes, french toast on the lid. If you are cooking for 4, and want just one fry pan, get the 12″. Otherwise this pan does it all. Roast, fry, oven and stove top. The pans are tough, mine is going on 20+ years.

Downside, takes a bit more oil or grease than a Teflon pan, but then if you own a parrot you already know you can’t cook on Teflon. Makes you wonder how good it is for the rest of us.

115 of 116 people found the following review helpful.
Make this your first cast iron purchase
By Colin Mcnee
Simply put, this is the best-designed piece of cookware you will ever use. Chicken fryer, dutch oven, skillet… use your imagination. The ‘bottom’ half is an excellent deep sauce pan in which you can make a decent sized batch of spaghetti sauce or chili, the ‘top’ half is a perfectly proportioned skillet. The sides are high enough and have a slight curve so that you can use it as a saute pan and low enough to serve as a griddle. I only have a small hot-plate in my apartment and I use this combo as a stove-top oven. Skillet-side down, it makes great baked chicken, deep side down it makes pot-roast. I couldn’t be happier.

See all 184 customer reviews…