What kind of pots resist a rough cook?

November 29, 2010 12:47 AM

I'm considering buying a set of pots for someone who is very tough on his cookware. What kind of pots will best stand up to abuse?

One of my in-laws is an enthusiastic cook, but often burns stuff onto his pots, necessitating vigorous scrubbing, more than occasionally leaves pans sitting for days, and generally abuses them. The non-stick surface is all scratched off because when he burns things on, it requires a lot of scrubbing to get it off.

If there is some kind of cookware that is particularly good at resisting the treatment he is likely to give it, I'd like to get him a small cookware set for Christmas.

Thanks for any suggestions!

posted by arnicae to Home & Garden (25 answers total)

If he currently has cheap pots, that may explain part of the problem, as they do burn more easily. I recently got some Scanpan Fusion 5 (five ply construction) - things don't burn onto them as easily; my cheap ones would get burn marks where things had splashed. They scrub up well (even the frypan). There are other brands available (that we don't see so much in Australia) that are of similar construction, that may be more easily available to you. Get some stainless steel cleaner as well (often sold where they sell the saucepans). And perhaps good quality might encourage him to look after them more.. just don't buy too many perhaps, one good one in a practical size is enough to test the theory!

Wouldn't recommend non-stick for him at all - it's all well and good while it is still non-stick, but that doesn't last very long (except for the expensive stuff like Swiss Diamond, but that still stains if you cook with olive oil etc).

I think cast iron is out, despite some of the advantages it would offer, as if it isn't washed up and dried, it will rust.
posted by AnnaRat at 1:34 AM on November 29, 2010

I would suggest cast iron, as long as it's the enamelled stuff like Le Creuset or the cheaper alternatives. I'm pretty awful to my cookware as well, but my Le Creuset has survived for ten years so far without any problems.
posted by ukdanae at 1:45 AM on November 29, 2010

I have rescued my IKEA 365+ pot from many a hardcore kitchen disaster using a soak followed by 'Bar Keepers Friend', they seem to last.
posted by gallagho at 1:46 AM on November 29, 2010 [1 favorite]

Seconding enameled cast iron. The only thing that could happen to it is that it gets chipped around the handles by being banged about, but that's minor. Otherwise this stuff stands up like the Terminator.
I've had 2 frying pans by respectively Cousances and Le Creuset for 25 years; they're a little grimy but performance-wise unchanged.

Other than that I have one stainless steel pot with a stainless steel handle and an aluminum bottom which has taken a lot of student-learns-not-to-blacken-rice tests and still lives. I even cleaned it with a power-drill steel brush once.
posted by Namlit at 2:40 AM on November 29, 2010

Plain, heavy, (non-non-stick) stainless steel will stand up to almost anything, and isn't always expensive. Things will stick to it, but you can attack it with anything up to and including steel wool and it'll survive. So there's an option.

Enamelled cast iron is brilliant. Stuff will often still stick to it while you're cooking, but will then come off really easily when you wash up. The one down-side is that it's often expensive, particularly if you're buying Le Creuset. A bit of research will find you affordable (and still very good) alternatives though.
posted by le morte de bea arthur at 2:51 AM on November 29, 2010

Thirding Cast Iron. I haven't bothered with the enameled stuff, but they are indestructable. If it gets into bad shape, just sand it down with whatever you want, including sandblasting it and then just fry some bacon in it to a nice crisp. Bingo good pan again.
posted by koolkat at 3:36 AM on November 29, 2010 [1 favorite]

I have a set of stainless steel saucepans and they are excellent. I bought them in the January sales where they'd been reduced from £129 through £99, £79, £59 and finally I got the set for £29. Cheap stainless steel is crap but if you buy the best you can afford (or wait for the sales), a set of heavy-based stainless-steel pans will last for years. I've burned things in mine and it comes off after a soak. They're also fine in the dishwasher.

Enamelled cast-iron is good, but really heavy. My enamelled cast-iron casserole and roasting dish came from Aldi and are very good quality. Aldi in the US sells a range of enamelled cast-iron cookware under the 'Crofton' brand name and they are a quarter the price of Le Creuset. They are not available all the time in Aldi stores, but as part of the 'specials'' several times a year. You can sign up to Aldi for weekly emails telling you what the upcoming specials will be.
posted by essexjan at 3:38 AM on November 29, 2010 [2 favorites]

All of the pros on the tv shows seem to use All-clad, but you might need to drop a small fortune to buy a whole set of them. French steel is what I've seen in a lot of professional kitchens, but they require dedication and maintenance to keep clean and free of rust. The same holds true for cast iron, which is my go-to kind of pan, personally. (Lodge Pre-Seasoned pans are great and reasonably inexpensive ... 10" and 15" are the sizes I find the most useful. But I wouldn't make scrambled eggs in them. For that, I used non-stick.

And I've recently read articles that claim that the non-stick surface on frying pans will never last forever, so spending a lot of money on a non-stick frying pan is a waste, and you should probably just buy a cheap one with the idea of buying another and another eventually.

And echoing what someone said up above, Ikea has some inexpensive but very serviceable saucepans and cooking trays. I have multiples of all of them and use them constantly.
posted by crunchland at 4:38 AM on November 29, 2010

I have a ragtag collection of pots, some expensive some cheap. The one pot that has remained nice looking after 40 plus years of use and (some) abuse is a stainless steel Farberware saucepan with aluminum core for even heat distribution. It goes in the dishwasher without problems, it has been burned and scrubbed clean more than once.

(Really, I'm a better cook than this indicates)
posted by francesca too at 4:46 AM on November 29, 2010

make sure that the pots you buy can be used on his cooktop. find out ahead of time what he cooks on....
posted by lakersfan1222 at 5:05 AM on November 29, 2010

echoing Cast Iron: But I agree probably enameled is probably the way to go as Non-Enameled although tough, do require a bit of care to keep rust free. (no Soap and regular oiling).

If he's really rough the enamel could chip but i'd think that wouldn't happen for a few years.
posted by mary8nne at 5:50 AM on November 29, 2010

Farberware is really good. Withstands a lot of abuse. Ask which pots my mom made us use when we were starting out as cooks...
posted by bardophile at 5:57 AM on November 29, 2010

Nthing plain heavy stainless steel. If you have to, you can soak them in drain cleaner, boil burnt on crud for hours to loosen it, scrape stuff off with a butter knife, etc. If they get badly scratched, you can just sand them down to a matte finish again. Just make sure the handles are solidly welded or riveted, and they should last for years even when terribly abused.
posted by Ahab at 6:04 AM on November 29, 2010

First off, don't buy a set.

You don't need to spend big money on All-Clad to get super cookware. There are stainless steel clad aluminum pans available from restaurant supply stores that are just as good and half (or a third) the price. Stainless steel over aluminum is absolutely awesome almost everything, except particularly sticky foods like eggs.

Cast iron has its place. It's non-stick when it's well seasoned and it's awesome for baking in the oven or searing/stir frying at super high temps after preheating in the oven, but it has major downsides: weight, uneven heating (yes, uneven heating), slow response to heat changes, reactivity with acids and maintenance. Mine gets used more than any other pan, but mostly because it's heavy enough that I never remove it from the stove. :)

You're probably best served by stuff from a restaurant supply place. Online, I've used KaTom Restaurant Supply and gotten some great deals over the years.

I'd get:
Non-stick: frying pan and maybe a 1-qt saucepan. These are $15-$20 and disposable.
Cast iron: skillet. Hard to go wrong with any brand. Season it before gifting it, or as a bonding experience!
Stainless clad aluminum: 2-qt sauce pan, medium sized saute or frying pan
plain old stainless: stock pot

The only genuinely expensive stuff there is the clad aluminum, but it's also the most durable and useful. And, oh yeah, try to keep stuff the same diameter as much as possible so you can get by with fewer lids.
posted by pjaust at 6:08 AM on November 29, 2010 [5 favorites]

I'm seconding stainless steel cookware. I had one set that I used for about 10 years and donated to a project I was doing, just so that I could spoil myself and get a new set.
I got these, and I absolutely love them.
They are incredibly easy to cook with, food-sticking resistant, and very easy to clean, not to mention very affordable for high quality cokware (and the all metal handles on this set in particular means that they can go from stove top to oven).
I forgot about some poached pear sauce I was reducing on the stove for thanksgiving, and had about 1/4 inch deep of scorched mess on the bottom of the pot. I soaked overnight, and it flaked right off cleanly and easily using a fork.
I love them.
posted by newpotato at 6:14 AM on November 29, 2010

Thirding (or fourthing) stainless. I started out life with Farberware - stainless with a nice thick aluminum slab on the bottom - then moved on to all-clad, which I love, despite its price. I've also got some enameled iron (le Creuset), and I don't think it does anything that the stainless-over-aluminum stuff doesn't, and it's prone to chipping and discoloring, especially if you burn stuff into it.

But you can't beat plain old cast iron for frying eggs, and they are pretty much indestructible. I don't think the contemporary Lodge cast iron is finished as well as the old stuff, so I buy my skillets on eBay (Wagner or Griswold, if you're patient you can buy a beautiful old pan for $15 + shipping)
posted by mr vino at 6:56 AM on November 29, 2010

I have some of my Mom's Revere pots, with copper bottoms. They have survived my ridiculous tendency to forget that I am cooking and have burned dry more than once. Enameled iron might chip in that scenario. I also find it terribly heavy. I also have vintage cast iron pans, and I abuse them in every way except that I never leave them in water. They clean up beautifully.

Pans with a non-stick coating will always scratch. Only using wood or plastic utensils on nonstick pans will help.
posted by theora55 at 8:02 AM on November 29, 2010

Mark Bittman's No-Frills Kitchen article from a couple of years back is a great resource for you.
posted by TryTheTilapia at 8:05 AM on November 29, 2010

Nthing heavy stainless steel. I, too, was used to RevereWare with the copper bottoms (the ones with the metal hangers and the black handles, right?), but there were a couple of times I found them a little too light. I was heating a pan before adding something, and I must have had the electric stove up too high, because it made this horrible sort of explodey noise that I think was a dent contracting. But yes, they were a good 25+ years old by then, and they'd been burned dry before.

First, remember that you don't have to have a million different pots for different things. Figure out the pots that you'd use the most and buy those: a big, super-heavy skillet (seriously, you'd have to clean it regardless of size, so who cares), a big stock pot for pastas and stuff, and maaaaybe one of those nice "chef's pans" that's like a wok with a flat bottom.

Not only should you buy from open stock instead of in a set, you should look at places like TJ Maxx, Marshalls and Tuesday Morning. They ALWAYS have some good pots at good prices. Hell, look at Goodwill if you have the patience to sort through lots of cheap ones.

I have a great set of Simply Calphalon that I think I got at Tuesday Morning. The main reason I like it, aside from the glass lids, is because they have really nice thick bottoms that I believe have a copper core. I don't abuse them too much (because these days I cook rarely :P) but I've put them into the dishwasher with the rest of my stuff and they've come out beautifully. Plus you can scrub the hell out of them with a Brillo.

The thing about cast iron is that you could actually have them sitting in a garage for a while (read: years) and restore them to cookability with some salt and scrubbing. But I wouldn't recommend them for everyday use by someone who won't care for them.
posted by Madamina at 8:15 AM on November 29, 2010

But I wouldn't recommend them for everyday use by someone who won't care for them.

I totally agree with this. Leaving a newish cast-iron pan overnight with the dregs of dinner in it will eat the seasoning off in patches - I've done this myself, so I know it happens.

Lots of people don't wash their cast iron at all, but you have to at least be diligent about wiping it out after cooking. As much as AskMe loves cast iron, it's not for everyone.
posted by cabingirl at 8:35 AM on November 29, 2010

I love my All-Clad, and I also love my Vollrath Tribute 3-ply stainless frying pan from a restaurant supply store. The Vollrath cost half as much as All-Clad and performs just as well. The aluminum core goes all the way up the sides of the pan, which is important: an aluminum core on the bottom doesn't prevent food from burning onto the sides of the pan.

I'll bet your relative will burn things less if he has thick 3-ply pans to cook in. Avoid non-stick and cast iron for anyone who is careless with cookware.
posted by Ery at 8:58 AM on November 29, 2010

N-thing heavy, non-fancy stainless steel - and NO SETS (they're worthless). All-Clad if you can afford it, Tramontina otherwise (Cook's Illustrated says they're NEARLY as good as All-Clad, which is the gold - uh, aluminum - standard).
posted by julthumbscrew at 10:20 AM on November 29, 2010

I'd go with Revereware, either copper-bottom or stainless.

It's cheap (way cheaper than stuff like Tramontina or Vollrath -- you can get a whole set of Revereware for less than one fancy pan!), nigh-indestructible, cooks well, and can be bought anywhere. I agree with those who've said that cast iron is a bad idea -- cast iron cooks perfectly and really is indestructible, but it's also much more of a hassle than steel pans are. Someone who leaves food in the pan will very quickly end up with a gross pan, and the whole "just scrub and then cook up some bacon to re-season it" idea doesn't cut it when it's past midnight, you're ready to cook up a snack, and you don't have any bacon.

To me, the only pan which has to be cast iron is a small skillet -- these make perfectly round fried eggs every time, and are great for making quick individual meals like skillet fry, grilled cheese sandwiches, a single hamburger, etc. Fortunately, that one is $10, so you can get it along with more practical pans.
posted by vorfeed at 12:15 PM on November 29, 2010

Probably n-thing Le Creuset. Among others, I have this and All-Clad in the kitchen but for rough and tough plus burned on mess, nothing beats enameled cast iron.
posted by Dick Paris at 4:38 PM on November 29, 2010

I had some nice cast-iron pots a while back that were enameled in a light colour; my roommate at the time managed to burn the hell out of rice in one of them and it was permanently blackened, so that might not be a good choice for someone who tends to burn stuff. Also, nonstick pans give off toxic fumes when they are overheated, so they might not be so good either. I love my stainless steel pots - soak them for an hour, and everything just wipes right off
posted by 5_13_23_42_69_666 at 5:49 PM on November 29, 2010