Extra virgin olive oil is safe and the best to use.
If it doesn’t work on induction it’s more likely to be aluminium.
1 Like
Given that it’s doubled in price this year one could consider using olive oil for frying and save the EV oil for dressings etc. You’ll save a lot of money, but the fried food won’t taste any different.
In April, I bought 5 litres of EV oil for €30 at La Jonquera, but last month the same size can was €59!
Leboncoin for me. You’ll get more for them that way.
1 Like
Only certain types of stainless steel (and there are lots of types) work with induction hobs. My very old stainless steel pans didn’t work, as didn’t my stainless steel milk jug.
2 Likes
Last summer I picked up a small Staub with a cast iron lid for €10 at a vide grenier in the next village. The year before I got a small immaculate orange Le Creuset saucepan and lid for the same price - it’s fantastic for couscous and polenta.
Incidentally re your Lidl recommendation, I’ve got a Chinese enamelled cast iron frying pan and a round casserole that I bought in Aldi in 2005 and they still give great service, unfortunately the griddle pan in the same series wasn’t Le Creuset quality.
1 Like
Or a purer grade of SS.
We must have low grade stainless as all our old pans work on the induction hob.
When we changed to induction 7 or 8 years ago none of our stainless pans would work, and the mild steel wok wasn’t great either.
I have no recommendations. The expensive Lakeland (about £45) we bought a few years ago has not had metal tools used, but the surface is no longer non-stick, likewise the Tefal circulon pan, although that’s lasted a lot longer. Recently bought a Tefal ‘12X harder’ pan, and the surface is beginning to deteriorate after just a couple of weeks, although it’s still decently non-stick.
I’d say just buy what you fancy if you find it at a price you can afford. I’m not perceiving great value and very long lifespan from the various pans right now.
1 Like
When I lived in the UK, I got a decent set of Stellar SS pans for a very low price from TK Maxx, that I’m using daily many years later, but my oldest cooking vessel is a terracotta tajine that I bought in Casablanca in 1976 for 1 dirham (8 dirhams to the £ at the time).
This month will be augmenting the batterie de cuisine chez nous with a new SS paellera - I want a larger diameter so can make a paella for four or six people.
2 Likes
Moi aussi!
1 Like
Most wok’s are high carbon steel, well proper ones are. There are two popular grades of stainless steel, 304 has a fair amount of ferrous iron so will work but 316 grade is normally non magnetic so very little ferrous and wont work on induction hobs, 316 is often call marine stainless as its more resistant in salt air.
You have summed it up perfectly, low grade, as you call it is magnetic, the purest SS is NOT. The magnetic, or low grade as you refer to it, is a requirement for use on an induction hob.
1 Like
The SS pan is at the correct temp when one drops a little water in the pan and it runs around as if it were mercury, not sizzles and evaporates immediately.
1 Like
You need a pan made from a ferrous material - iron or steel; neither aluminium or copper work on an induction hob. Aluminium pans designed to be suitable for induction hobs have a steel or part steel base.
The usual reason woks don’t work is that the area of contact between the wok and the hob is too small - you need flat bottomed pans which sit parallel to the induction coil.
Your comment piqued my curiosity as naïvely I assumed that “stainless steel” was mostly, um steel - but I see that 200 & 300 series stainless steels are actually alloyed with chromium, nickel, and even molybdenum. It’s still “mostly” steel but @Corona is right - it could be 30% or higher non ferrous metals which makes the overall material non magnetic.
Fascinating.
Weight is important to me now ! I have a deep Le Buyer steel pan which is good for deep frying but is now far too heavy for me.
2 Likes
That’s the reason why we bought the Cookut. A while back my missus damaged her shoulder badly, so could no longer lift the Le Creuset cocotte. Thanks to the physiotherapist her shoulder is now mostly back to how it was previously but she’s stuck with the Cookut as it’s so convenient (think it weighs just over a kilo).
1 Like
I’m glad the physio worked for her. I just weighed my poele… it came in at 6kg !! I can’t believe I thought it was a good idea to buy it.
Sorry that’s not at all true… It’s 2.4kg.
2 Likes
Non-stick has come on a long way since the early days of it flaking off and into the food.
"All that was enough for most manufacturers to halt the production of nonstick coatings using PFOA [the carcenogenic chemical in Teflon] around 2002. Europe banned it in 2008."
I reckon you’re safe.
I have non-stick pans that are just amazing.
20cm frying pans and a large casserole by Circulon. Sauté and s/s saucepans by Pyrex - they don’t just make glassware. A smaller casserole by Bergner. A Tefal griddle pan. A medium size n/s saucepan, basic Leclerc range, reserved for scrambled eggs.
Fissler are also superb. I notice Raymond Blanc using Fisseler in one of his cooking progs.
Circulon are pricey. The casserole was £105 new but I picked it up on eBay for £25, ‘new other’. The Pyrex fry and saucepans [s/s and equally fab] from a bloke on eBay selling Pyrex remainders and out of range for 1/3rd shop prices.
All these pans are simply wipe clean. The 20 cm frying pan and the 24cm sauté pan have been used daily for 7-8 years now and show no sign of detrioration of the cooking surface whatsoever. Non-stick surfaces are also far more robust, resisting scratches, if good quality. That’s why the Leclerc s/pan is reserved for scramblies - being cheap, probably would scratch.
When I bought them, on s/mkt voucher schemes, towards the end of the promo periods the checkouts were handing out handfuls of vouchers. I doubled up on some of the pans as back-ups but those have never yet been used.
Back-along I did go for cast iron and steel. Try as I might to keep the steel f/pans ‘seasoned’ they accumlated a surface of crud. When I had a boatyard, whenever I had BlasterMaster in to grit-blast the gel coat off a GRP boat I got him to blast the pans back to bright steel and started the ‘priming’ rigmarole again. Never worked. All those pans have gone to the metal bins in the recyling.
Rather more worrying is this
Sud-Manche. Contamination : des huîtres de la baie du Mont Saint-Michel interdites à la vente
Other oyster beds on the Normandy coast are already under 'interdites à la vente* as I understand is the case down around Arcachon
1 Like