When I first heard my Grandma tell me (I had just bought a new set of cookware) that, “You should clean your cast iron skillets with salt,” I thought she was joking. She wasn’t, and proceeded to show me by example with one of her own old skillets she had cooked with last night and was still on the stovetop.
Within two minutes, and with incredible ease, she turned a skillet that looked like this …
… into this:
I was flabbergasted!
For years I had been scrubbing away with hot water and soap and lots of elbow grease to clean my old set of cast iron cookware. Thank goodness I had decided to go and stay with Grandma for the summer, to help out around the house while Grandpa rehabilitated from a serious surgery procedure. “Clean your cast iron skillets with salt” was ringing in my delighted ears.
Overall, the advantages of using cast iron cookware are numerous. They are very inexpensive, durable and, if properly seasoned and maintained, work just as good as any expensive “non-stick” cookware.
You can fry meats, fish, scramble eggs, make omelets, prepare a stovetop quiche, sauté vegetables, scramble eggs, heck – you can even make pizzas in them! A cast iron skillet heats evenly, all over the bottom and up the walls, with no “hot spots” where you can inadvertently burn your fried chicken. Maintained properly, cast iron cookware will last for hundreds of years, and can be passed down from generation to generation as a family treasured heirloom.
Okay, enough of why cast iron is a great choice for the kitchen. Here is how to-