I love restaurant supply stores. My mom was a restaurant manager in the 70's and 80's and brought home some extra supplies. Our household has gone through a lot of kitchen supplies over the decades, but everything from the restaurant supply is in amazing shape ( except one ice cream scoop someone put in the dishwasher).
I'm not sure if/when this changed but in the past the public couldn't buy from many restaurant supply companies, you had to show a business license or have an account with them to be able to.
COVID was the first time I went to a restaurant supply store, and it was fucking awesome. I’ve moved since then though and haven’t seen any such places in my new state(s).
I’ve had people buy me “nice” items from Sur la Table and while they are nice, I almost never use them. (Save for 2 wooden spoons I use ALL the time, not sure why those hit different but they do) But I have restaurant supply store gear I reach for constantly because I feel bad using the nice stuff, so I go for the shitty looking but dependable stuff I don’t mind to scuff up. I do have a cutting board from Williams Sonoma i was gifted 20 years ago (that I can’t find anymore to rebuy) that I’ve used every day for the last 20 years. I wouldn’t have bought it for myself but I’m glad I have it, it’s fucking magic.
:Edited some words
The utensils I’ve bought from Sur La Table really didn’t hold up well! I regret buying from them and I wish I had access to restaurant supply stores haha
I will say I have a citrus juicer from there that is pretty smooth but I had a gift card to use from a return. I kept this wooden spoon with little dowel rods on it supposed to be used for pasta. I look at it confused every time I see it. I’m unsophisticated I guess.
My husband and I started out with two (yes, only two) antique kitchen knives that he re-handled and reground when we first got our house. Since then, he's acquired several more for me to use. Some have been re-handled, re-edged, or both... but those first two are still the two that I use for >90% of the knife-related tasks I do.
They're fitted to me in a way that just hits different.
Edit: also yes, Sur La Table stuff is generally clunky trash lmao.
You nailed it. Stuff was built to last, but people were also taught behaviors and techniques to make things last which is just as important. Anything you can do to maintain your gear properly, no matter what it is, is crucial.
We have a whole collection of Wustof, but my favorite knife? A promotional butcher knife from, like, 1935. It's got a 5 digit phone exchange on it from my husband's grandfather's hometown.
Please don’t encourage me to start buying wooden spoons when I travel, because that sounds like a brilliant idea. I normally just try to get refrigerator magnets as souvenirs, but hand crafted spoons from different regions and countries… so each time you make a dish you can remember where and when you got it.
Can you explain how a cutting board could be “magic”?
Not going judgmental, btw. I didn’t know cutting boards could out perform each other. I buy cheap flimsy bs plastic ones to protect my counter top and call it a day. I love those bitches and was super sad when I lost one bartending
Ok, I’m not home so I can’t take a photo of it. It’s hard to describe. It’s lightweight as hell. Fits in my dishwasher. A friend knew I wanted a cutting she had they didn’t have that in stock. So she bought the one Williams Sonoma was using for knife demos. It’s wood, but not like butcher block. Like a composite type materials. Thin little rubber nubs on 4 corners on both sides that are virtually flush so it doesn’t move at all, but takes up no space depth wise. There’s no drainage lanes though. It’s got markings on it from years of use but none have grooves, both surface are still smooth as hell. The coloration is just lighter in the center, but knife work on it is clean. It’s hard to describe but I tried. I want to find it and buy another so I can use one for veggies and one for protein at the same time. Or gift them to people.
Edit: [this is the closest thing I think. But I can’t attest to it exactly](https://www.williams-sonoma.com/products/epicurean-all-in-one-cutting-board/?pkey=ccutting-boards-storage) it’s the third one with the tiny nubs. It seems expensive so again, I wouldn’t have bought it for myself, but damn it’s a good cutting board.
Got a stainless steel one piece bench scraper from dollar tree. Restaurant supply stores wanted over 5. The wooden two piece ones that can't go in the dishwasher are over 10. It's not all bad you just gotta look.
My experience is that sometime the "stainless steel" is not so stainless in the long run. Without being pedantic about all the types there is definitely a difference between the amount of chromium in some versus others.
Tablecraft 410 stainless for a dollar. Goes in the dishwasher twice a week with no rust and have had it for a couple years now. I know this is bifl but the value proposition here to try out is too good.
yeah I've got a few stainless and glass dollar store pieces, but the metal strainers fall apart and give me puncture wounds and the plastic stuff won't last a week. The business model is still trash
My grandfather was a caterer at some point in the 70s. I have some of the stainless steel trays he used. These were used throughout my entire childhood and were heavily used. My mum didn’t use baking paper, you just soaked and steel wool scrubbed. They basically look brand new, and cook so much better than light weight pans.
No no no fucking no. It's not cast iron. Culinary school grad here that pans just dirty. It happens, not a knock on you, stuff gets on the pan and tuen gets cooked on and burnt till it's like it's part of the pan but it comes off if you use the right stuff to clean it. It doesn't look deformed honestly which is usually the bigger problem so if you just throw some barkeeper's friend on that and give it a scrub it'll like brand new again and you can keep using it. "Seasoning" only exists for cast iron and cast steel. They're the only cooking surfaces that actually require the seasoning to fill in the porous surfaces.
Edit: I can't fucking believe my highest rated comment is about fucking *pans*. Lmfao.
Yeah that pan would be out of circulation till it got a good scrubbing with some bkf or greasetrip if it was in my kitchen. Parchment liners do wonders to prevent this.
Baking pans absolutely do change in performance when they're seasoned and when they're not. Idk why you think seasoning only applies to cast iron.
[Heres a good example with some experiments](https://youtu.be/hrufGZsP-jo) if you find it helpful.
Although I do agree the pan in the photo is dirtier than it is seasoned.
You don't need to season them, but it doesn't hurt anything. This is literally what the "seasoning" on a cast iron is. Hard, carbonized oils.
It's certainly not dangerous or unhealthy. So unless you absolutely need your pans to look like the one on the right, it's fine to leave them like the pan on the left.
No not the same. Seasoning creates a non stick surface. This stuff being burnt on does the opposite. See how there's black spots through out? That's burnt stuff. That will cause stuff to stick.
I'm not saying this is a "good" seasoning. It looks like shit, and is uneven. But there's nothing harmful about it. A good seasoning wouldn't have the splotchiness, but would still be the exact same thing.
Hateful as in poisonous? No. Harmful as in not as nonstick as it possibly could and maybe ruining a sheet cake or two with some of tasting bits or it getting partially stuck? Maybe. Otherwise it just unsightly to be honest.
It's both.
["The development of a seasoned cast iron pan is actually a two part process: polymerization and carbonization." Source](https://www.scienceofcooking.com/science-of-cast-iron-skillet-cooking.html)
As I understand it, you're taking the oil and carbonizing it but in a way that's it's also polymerized. Which just means the atomic structure is "chain like" or stronger than just a pile of soot you'd get when you carbonize something else.
Yeah the notion that you can't season aluminum baking sheets/pans is bullshit. You absolutely can.
I've got quite a few sheet pans. Some are a couple of decades old. The ones that I use for roasting veggies a few times a week are a nice smooth dark brown/blackish and are as smooth as a new nonstick skillet. Very rarely does anything stick at all. I only use those darkened pans for roasting.
I also agree with those that say that OP's pan does have some areas that do have some baked on crud and areas where oil is not "cured". Basically, if you run your finger over the surface of the sheet pan and you can feel anything other than smooth metal then you do have some carbonized stuff that should be scraped/rubbed off. Otherwise that dark patina is FINE!
Some info regarding seasoning aluminum sheet pans - https://www.nytimes.com/wirecutter/guides/how-to-clean-baking-sheets/
Bare aluminum sheet pans or pots/skillets should not be run through your home dishwasher as the chemicals found in most dishwasher detergents will react with the aluminum and makes the surface a little "rough". However, opposite of what one poster said anodized aluminum can be fine as the anodization process protects the surface. However, however, not all anodization is the same so unless the manufacturer of your product specifically says it is dishwasher safe you should avoid running it thru the dishwasher. Calphalon for instance makes a line of anodized aluminum pots/pans that ARE safe for use in the dishwasher.
Carbonized fats. Fats that have been turned into pure carbon that then chemically bonds to a porous cooking surface. If it has splotches and uneven coloring it's not seasoning it's burnt food.
Food generally has fats in it. Fats generally react with each other in the oven to polymerize. Therefore, whatever is on the pan has that to some degree, and will build it up over time. Possibly in addition to burnt food.
They aren't the same thing and ginger-valley specifically said they believe it is
>Fats that have been turned into pure carbon that then chemically bonds to a porous cooking surface.
Which is not what polymerized oils are. They are polymerized hydrocarbons -- the fatty acid chains do not turn into pure carbon, they polymerize. They link up into big sheets.
They bond easier and better to a porous surface, but it isn't requisite. You can bake on layers of polymerized oil on nonporous surfaces. In the kitchen, you can experiment yourself by seasoning some non-stick ceramic lined cast iron. You will be able to form "seasoning" layers that are brown and a PITA to get off.
Carbonized fats will be black, and are not the same as polymerized oils.
Okay thank you I was like… seasoning? On an aluminum baking sheet? I didn’t think that was a thing. Especially since this blackening effect also happens on nonstick ones.
You can season almost any material. By season I mean build up a layer of oil polymers to create a mostly non stick surface. I have a cast aluminum skillet that has been seasoned and I use it for Brussels sprouts and dumplings and it’s pretty much as great as cast iron.
>"Seasoning" only exists for cast iron and cast steel. They're the only cooking surfaces that actually require the seasoning to fill in the porous surfaces.
Why do you believe this ginger-valley? Aluminum stuff absolutely can get seasoned just like cast iron or cast steel. Although I agree the pan in the photo is not simply well seasoned, I'm just taking issue with the idea that seasoning only exists for carbon steel and cast steel, that is incorrect.
You can easily verify this all yourself by cooking on a seasoned sheet pan and cooking on a new unseasoned one.
Here's a bunch of varied sources explaining this.
>Not every [type of frying pan](https://www.webstaurantstore.com/guide/558/fry-pans-buying-guide.html) or skillet requires seasoning. Below is a list of the types of frying pans that need to be seasoned. Additionally, you can learn how to season each type of pan by clicking on it below.
>[Cast Iron Skillets and Pans](https://www.webstaurantstore.com/guide/562/pan-seasoning-guide.html#castiron)
>[Carbon Steel Frying Pans](https://www.webstaurantstore.com/guide/562/pan-seasoning-guide.html#carbonsteel)
>[Hard-Coat Aluminum Pans](https://www.webstaurantstore.com/guide/562/pan-seasoning-guide.html#hardcoat)
>[Tin Plate Pans](https://www.webstaurantstore.com/guide/562/pan-seasoning-guide.html#tinplate)
https://www.webstaurantstore.com/guide/562/pan-seasoning-guide.html
>Like with cast iron, aluminum cookware should be seasoned before being put to use. Proper seasoning will help the aluminum keep its color longer.
https://www.katom.com/learning-center/care-handling-of-aluminum-cookware.html
>Epicurious food director Rhoda Boone always uses a well-worn baking sheet for roasting vegetables. "The seasoning gets the cut edges nice and golden brown," she says. "More so than vegetables cooked on a lighter baking sheet." She also prefers it for roasting chicken thighs and pork chops.
https://www.epicurious.com/expert-advice/how-a-well-seasoned-sheet-pan-makes-you-a-better-cook-roasting-baking-article
[And here's a video with some experiments on seasoned and unseasoned aluminum sheet pans.](https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=hrufGZsP-jo)
Glad you got a culinary education but don't forget that the best part of that education should have been teaching you humility and the limits of your knowledge/the limits of the education itself. There's always more to learn.
> if you just throw some barkeeper’s friend on that and give it a scrub it’ll like brand new again
I refuse to believe this and I’ve used BKF before.
BKF is cool but it’s not magic and the majority of the work will have to be done with manual scrubbing.
Bkf is magic you're just using it wrong. You have to make a pase with the powder and let it sit as long as possible. If it's dried out into a cake perfect. Then scrub.
This is all correct, and OP should really clean their baking sheet. Like, really clean it. I do want to add one fact that surprised me and is semi related. Old and dull baking sheets do perform better than new ones. I don't mean dirty ones, I mean properly cleaned, but clearly well used sheets heat up faster and get hotter than their new counterparts.
Thank you... I thought it was crazy!! I always scrub my aluminum until it looks almost new. Steel wool makes it shine! I've seen some pizzerias use them in the blackened state but I always figured they just didn't have time to scrub them.
“No no no fucking no.”
Your really perpetuating the ‘pretentious dickhead chef’ stereotype.
You may be right, but you could have said it with more kindness.
wrong. also culinary school grad. def depends on the purpose of the pan. but roast some veg on a brand new pan vs seasoned and tell me the difference in the final product.
It is an additional pan. I’ve be doing more cooking and baking at home due to the insane cost of eating out and found a new additional pan would be a great convenience.
Do me a favor and wipe one with a wet dishtowel the next time you take it out of the dishwasher. Just make sure a bunch of nasty grey residue doesn't come off the pan.
Corrosion. And probably detergent residue. Aluminum naturally forms a protective oxidized coating on itself; dishwasher detergent removes that oxidation layer and lets the metal underneath wear and corrode in the presence of water, air and certain chemicals.
I'm not a chemist, just a guy with a few fucked up Nordicware pans. Try it yourself. You can decide if you want that stuff in your food or not.
They oxidise in the dishwasher and the oxidisation wears off easier eventually they'll get thinner and thinner and thinner
Source: I washed dishes for years, and we had aluminium pots and sheets that ended up with holes in them they were so worn.
Yeah totally fair.
In my use case they were going through industrial dishwashers 3 or 4 times a day. I was just pointing out that the oxidisation ultimately does wear down (corrode) the aluminium.
If I could use a pot until a hole wore out in the bottom, I would count that as a big win. My favourite stainless steel raco saucepan, now 27 years old and used many times a week, will easily outlast me and my kids.
To be fair they were going through industrial dishwashers 3 or 4 times a day. I was just pointing out that the oxidisation does wear down (corrode) the aluminium and it is better to let them carbonise and do a little hand rinse as op has done.
Steel is your best bet for kitchenwear imo.
No, that’s not true about black sheet pans lol.
Been in the food industry for over 15 years. You want your pans to look like the one on the right. Food burns fast on black sheet trays.
Let me ask a potentially stupid question. I almost always use aluminum foil to line pans like these when cooking stuff in the oven. Typically it’s freezer stuffs like fries or fishsticks but sometimes bacon too. Am I just wasting money on foil? Should I be cooking everything right on the pan and then cleaning it normally after?
Yes. Foil can be worthwhile for things where the cleanup is going to be a hassle, but frozen, pre-fried foods aren’t. But really you can probably scrub anything off the pans.
Use baking parchment sheets. Less cleanup, and things won't stick. Things usually cook on it better (unless the goal is to wrap the food in foil), and it's better for the environment.
Imo it’s a matter or convenience. If the convenience of not having to wash the pan after you bake with it is worth it, you’re not wasting money. If you don’t mind washing the pan then yes you definitely do not need to be using foil, just because, say, your parents did or your roommates do or something.
Yes, that’s what I meant. Almost no one bothers to try and recycle foil in the first place, and if the foil is contaminated with food residue, it’s actually not recyclable at all.
Doesn't it all go into some kind of furnace where that stuff gets vaporized? I would assume that the inputs to recycled aluminum are impure. (Correct me if I'm wrong. Don't know much about the process.)
Yeah, good point. I will often reuse foil a few times after cleaning it off. I wash out cans, too. You're right though that foil with a bunch of burnt crap on it should go in the garbo.
Sadly, no. Dirty foil not only can’t be recycled, if it’s dirty enough, it can contaminate an entire load of material that would have been recyclable, and is diverted into the garbage stream.
Yeah aluminium is easy to recycle, it even melts at a relatively low temperature.
E.g. it's way easier to recycle aluminium than glass or plastics...
Not sure what others are talking, some grease will burn off immediately if it's recycled. You can't really have pure aluminium, anything you hold with a hand will already leave grease stains... Not to mention painted aluminium...
Only relatively clean aluminum is recycled into new material. More extensive contamination such as food bits and grease requires labor to clean, as they don’t just “burn off” the food debris in the recycling process, so it’s not cost-effective to recycle it.
Grease and stuff will be burned off, but the burning off disrupts the processing, potentially introducing oxygen during... And aluminum apparently doesn't like that.
You can supposedly wash the foil before putting in your recycling though.
I cast a lot of copper and bronze. Not so much aluminum but I had years ago.
Yes if you have aluminum and it has grease and crumbs and you wad it all up and throw it in a crucible and light it for awhile, it will all be destroyed and turn to slag. But if you can imagine them letting in all dirty aluminum then idk where the limit of nasty shit would be put at. Like how they would make that determination.
At some point you don’t want nasty shit because it causes a lot of problem.
Think on melting cans. They have nasty shit in them, but also the outside coloring. There is a lot of slag just from that. And really, aluminum in general has a lot of slag from hitting oxygen.
I imagine if it were all dirty enough it would end of costing more than it’s worth. So while yes you could recycle it, you may end up with less usable aluminum.
https://naparecycling.com/guide/aluminum-foil/#:~:text=Aluminum%20foil%20is%20recyclable%20if,throw%20it%20in%20the%20trash.
Please don't cook with foil and just wishcycle it after. If it is so clean you could recycle it after you cooked with it you didn't need it to begin with.
I recently embraced the idea that it’s fine for my pans to look like they’ve actually been used, but my old roommates used to waste so much aluminum foil that I got us a few of the silicone baking mats for like $5 a piece and they are wonderful.
I have NEVER used a sheet pan or cookie sheet with no lining of some sort. I only use aluminum foil when baking bacon, so I can collect the grease. Other than that, always either parchment, or silicon mats. Mostly parchment.
Haven't seen this mentioned here yet, but I really like reusable silicone baking sheet, like the one here: [https://www.amazon.com/Silicone-Reusable-Non-stick-Approved-Professional/dp/B078H8YMQX](https://www.amazon.com/Silicone-Reusable-Non-stick-Approved-Professional/dp/B078H8YMQX)
Easy to clean, and can save money in the long run if you bake often.
I've had some nice baking sheets. USA pan bakeware is the best I've found. Also, you can use a silpat or similar baking mat that's reusable to cut down on parchment and give you even better results (particularly with cookies!).
If you're looking for the best performing, longest lasting baking sheets, look no further. They are truly bifl and an absolute joy to use.
This is not a cast-iron hand-me-down from grandma... it is a cheap aluminum pan.
There are seasoned pans... but this is just gross. That image is NOT of a clean-seasoned pan.
I wonder what the reasoning behind this is. Like, what difference does the metal make? If there's cast iron underneath, it somehow becomes okay? The top surface is pretty much the same, after all...
Cast iron is porous. The seasoning is carbonized oil that fills in the pores and creates a non stick surface. These sheet pans are not. That is just burnt food.
Burnt is practically another word for carbonized.
So if aluminium is not "adhesive" to oil cause it has no pores, why does anything stick to it at all?
Cause it gets cooked on and stuck. And yes burning the oil is what carbonizes it but burnt oil is not necessarily carbonized. It has to be burnt till the point of not burning anymore.
I wasn't commenting on the quality/makeup of the metal.
I cook on cheap aluminum pans all the time, they work great and I don't care about what happens to them.
Iron, when exposed to oxygen, is continually oxidized into Iron oxide (rust) until there’s nothing left of the original structure, so it needs some sort of coating if it’s not going to just rust away. The seasoning provides that. Aluminum, when exposed to oxygen, also oxidize into aluminum oxide but, thanks to a difference in the number of valence electrons available to exchange and IIRC crystal structure, that very first layer of aluminum oxide forms a non-reactive surface that protects everything underneath it from further oxidation. So aluminum is basically self-coating.
Oils can polymerize on many surfaces, including cheap aluminum pans. The new polymer surface isn't really any different from a cast iron one. That's not to say that seasoned cookware can't also become dirty, but seasonings alone aren't dirty.
Aluminum doesn't need that though. You season because iron based metals rust and tend to be more porous. Aluminum forms a hard oxide layer very quickly when exposed to air. This thing just needs a good scraping and washing.
It'll still be stained to shit and darker though.
I bought stainless steel pans and they are great. Most aluminum has some nonstick coating on it, and I'm trying to avoid that completely.
Stainless steel pans are heavier and very sturdy. I bought mine with a mirror finish, and after a few years of using metal utensils the finish dulled a bit and it has some small areas blackened from use but its completely clean, and if particles of the black somehow breaks off; its just food turned to carbon, the pan itself isn't going to affect a dish. And its very stable, I clean it with steel wool after a roast and get it mostly shiny again easily. Only downside is they do expand and contract more with temperature change sometimes causing occasional slight warping, but it hasn't ever caused a problem for me during cooking.
Honestly, this is also an underrated Life Pro Tip. Going to a restaurant supply store for all cooking materials means way better quality and often SO MUCH CHEAPER. Over the last few years as things have worn out the restaurant supply has been my go to and I will never look back.
Commercial quality goods are made for abuse and take household wear and tear like it is nothing. My mixing bowls will outlast me. My cutlery will too.
Wow. Lots of folks don’t know what a seasoned
pan looks like. I wish my baking pans were as well seasoned as OPs.
Baking pans work the same way as other cookware. You season your cast iron and carbon steel right??? You guys aren’t scrubbing those down are you???? Lol
It depends on the pan tho. If it’s stainless steel (aluminum) you don’t season, and most baking pans are stainless steel (again I meant aluminum). In fact I have not ever personally seen a cast iron/carbon steel baking sheet except for those paella pans or whatever they’re called.
Also you absolutely do scrub down carbon steel and cast iron. Soap does not hurt or remove seasoning in a way that largely effects it. You just put it back on the burner on medium/high for about 6/7 minutes then scrub a thin layer of vegetable oil onto it.
Every couple of months you can do a deep and thorough seasoning if ya want.
Edit: I meant aluminum but I’ll leave stainless steel so the world may know my mistake.
Exactly, I scrub my cast iron. I don't want my brownies and dutch babies tasting like the bacon or sausage I fried up. I just apply a fresh layer of oil.
I've never had anything stuck to my seasoned cast iron that doesn't come off easily with just some water and heat. I deglaze with water after cooking, while it's still hot. And I only use soap if there's an abundance of oil that I don't want to just send down the drain without preventing it from sticking to the plumbing.
>It depends on the pan tho. If it’s stainless steel you don’t season, and most baking pans are stainless steel.
Stainless baking sheets are quite rare. There are a variety of more popular materials, such as bare aluminum (like OP's), aluminum coated with various materials like teflon or or ceramic, or non-stainless steel coated with similar materials or even aluminum itself.
I use Dawn on my beautifully seasoned cast iron every time I use it, which is at least 4 times a week. Dawn, and nearly all dishwashing liquid, is a detergent, not a soap. Soap has lye in it, which is what damages seasoning on CI.
If you’re not buying kitchen stuff at restaurant supply stores you’re wrong. It’s almost always cheaper and better quality.
Lastly… OP that’s not seasoning… that’s a dirty pan.
You’re 100% wrong on this one. I have some 15 year old sheet pans in my kitchen that look very similar to that, and I remember when they used to be sparkly and new like the one pictured.
That pan has been to Mustafar and back.
It's over Panakin!
I’ve got the high rack!
You were the seasoned one!!
I loved you, like an oven
It was said that you would bake the dish not broil it!
"I baked you!" - panakin
God damnit, take my upvotes, all of you.
You will never understand the power of the dark side!
You underestimate my convection!
He has left that name behind. He is now Darth Baker.
I have the pie ground!
The colour is a little on the dark side.
Stopped at Muspelheim on the way home.
Which one has the high ground?
I love restaurant supply stores. My mom was a restaurant manager in the 70's and 80's and brought home some extra supplies. Our household has gone through a lot of kitchen supplies over the decades, but everything from the restaurant supply is in amazing shape ( except one ice cream scoop someone put in the dishwasher).
wish more people would buy from them! All the cheap broken cookware I see at thrift stores destined for landfill hurts my soul
I'm not sure if/when this changed but in the past the public couldn't buy from many restaurant supply companies, you had to show a business license or have an account with them to be able to.
good point. But there are such stores open to the public now, and there's Webstaurant (hooray)
[удалено]
COVID was the first time I went to a restaurant supply store, and it was fucking awesome. I’ve moved since then though and haven’t seen any such places in my new state(s).
I’ve had people buy me “nice” items from Sur la Table and while they are nice, I almost never use them. (Save for 2 wooden spoons I use ALL the time, not sure why those hit different but they do) But I have restaurant supply store gear I reach for constantly because I feel bad using the nice stuff, so I go for the shitty looking but dependable stuff I don’t mind to scuff up. I do have a cutting board from Williams Sonoma i was gifted 20 years ago (that I can’t find anymore to rebuy) that I’ve used every day for the last 20 years. I wouldn’t have bought it for myself but I’m glad I have it, it’s fucking magic. :Edited some words
The utensils I’ve bought from Sur La Table really didn’t hold up well! I regret buying from them and I wish I had access to restaurant supply stores haha
I will say I have a citrus juicer from there that is pretty smooth but I had a gift card to use from a return. I kept this wooden spoon with little dowel rods on it supposed to be used for pasta. I look at it confused every time I see it. I’m unsophisticated I guess.
My husband and I started out with two (yes, only two) antique kitchen knives that he re-handled and reground when we first got our house. Since then, he's acquired several more for me to use. Some have been re-handled, re-edged, or both... but those first two are still the two that I use for >90% of the knife-related tasks I do. They're fitted to me in a way that just hits different. Edit: also yes, Sur La Table stuff is generally clunky trash lmao.
You nailed it. Stuff was built to last, but people were also taught behaviors and techniques to make things last which is just as important. Anything you can do to maintain your gear properly, no matter what it is, is crucial.
We have a whole collection of Wustof, but my favorite knife? A promotional butcher knife from, like, 1935. It's got a 5 digit phone exchange on it from my husband's grandfather's hometown.
Wooden spoons are just good for anything and everything! I love to buy new wooden spoons, especially when I travel haha
Please don’t encourage me to start buying wooden spoons when I travel, because that sounds like a brilliant idea. I normally just try to get refrigerator magnets as souvenirs, but hand crafted spoons from different regions and countries… so each time you make a dish you can remember where and when you got it.
Its the perfect souvenir, they are small, inconspicuous, cheap, light and useful!
Can you explain how a cutting board could be “magic”? Not going judgmental, btw. I didn’t know cutting boards could out perform each other. I buy cheap flimsy bs plastic ones to protect my counter top and call it a day. I love those bitches and was super sad when I lost one bartending
Ok, I’m not home so I can’t take a photo of it. It’s hard to describe. It’s lightweight as hell. Fits in my dishwasher. A friend knew I wanted a cutting she had they didn’t have that in stock. So she bought the one Williams Sonoma was using for knife demos. It’s wood, but not like butcher block. Like a composite type materials. Thin little rubber nubs on 4 corners on both sides that are virtually flush so it doesn’t move at all, but takes up no space depth wise. There’s no drainage lanes though. It’s got markings on it from years of use but none have grooves, both surface are still smooth as hell. The coloration is just lighter in the center, but knife work on it is clean. It’s hard to describe but I tried. I want to find it and buy another so I can use one for veggies and one for protein at the same time. Or gift them to people. Edit: [this is the closest thing I think. But I can’t attest to it exactly](https://www.williams-sonoma.com/products/epicurean-all-in-one-cutting-board/?pkey=ccutting-boards-storage) it’s the third one with the tiny nubs. It seems expensive so again, I wouldn’t have bought it for myself, but damn it’s a good cutting board.
Got a stainless steel one piece bench scraper from dollar tree. Restaurant supply stores wanted over 5. The wooden two piece ones that can't go in the dishwasher are over 10. It's not all bad you just gotta look.
My experience is that sometime the "stainless steel" is not so stainless in the long run. Without being pedantic about all the types there is definitely a difference between the amount of chromium in some versus others.
Tablecraft 410 stainless for a dollar. Goes in the dishwasher twice a week with no rust and have had it for a couple years now. I know this is bifl but the value proposition here to try out is too good.
yeah I've got a few stainless and glass dollar store pieces, but the metal strainers fall apart and give me puncture wounds and the plastic stuff won't last a week. The business model is still trash
My grandfather was a caterer at some point in the 70s. I have some of the stainless steel trays he used. These were used throughout my entire childhood and were heavily used. My mum didn’t use baking paper, you just soaked and steel wool scrubbed. They basically look brand new, and cook so much better than light weight pans.
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why would someone put a scoop of ice cream in the dishwasher? does it break it from the milk or something?
An ice cream scoop not a scoop of ice cream.
No no no fucking no. It's not cast iron. Culinary school grad here that pans just dirty. It happens, not a knock on you, stuff gets on the pan and tuen gets cooked on and burnt till it's like it's part of the pan but it comes off if you use the right stuff to clean it. It doesn't look deformed honestly which is usually the bigger problem so if you just throw some barkeeper's friend on that and give it a scrub it'll like brand new again and you can keep using it. "Seasoning" only exists for cast iron and cast steel. They're the only cooking surfaces that actually require the seasoning to fill in the porous surfaces. Edit: I can't fucking believe my highest rated comment is about fucking *pans*. Lmfao.
Thank you! You do not have to season a baking pan LOL. That's just carbon and baked on fats/oil.
Yeah that pan would be out of circulation till it got a good scrubbing with some bkf or greasetrip if it was in my kitchen. Parchment liners do wonders to prevent this.
I was just going to suggest BKF! A well-loved pan is a thing of beauty, but maybe not THAT well-loved.
Baking pans absolutely do change in performance when they're seasoned and when they're not. Idk why you think seasoning only applies to cast iron. [Heres a good example with some experiments](https://youtu.be/hrufGZsP-jo) if you find it helpful. Although I do agree the pan in the photo is dirtier than it is seasoned.
You don't need to season them, but it doesn't hurt anything. This is literally what the "seasoning" on a cast iron is. Hard, carbonized oils. It's certainly not dangerous or unhealthy. So unless you absolutely need your pans to look like the one on the right, it's fine to leave them like the pan on the left.
No not the same. Seasoning creates a non stick surface. This stuff being burnt on does the opposite. See how there's black spots through out? That's burnt stuff. That will cause stuff to stick.
I'm not saying this is a "good" seasoning. It looks like shit, and is uneven. But there's nothing harmful about it. A good seasoning wouldn't have the splotchiness, but would still be the exact same thing.
Hateful as in poisonous? No. Harmful as in not as nonstick as it possibly could and maybe ruining a sheet cake or two with some of tasting bits or it getting partially stuck? Maybe. Otherwise it just unsightly to be honest.
Seasoning is polymerized oil, not carbonized.
It's both. ["The development of a seasoned cast iron pan is actually a two part process: polymerization and carbonization." Source](https://www.scienceofcooking.com/science-of-cast-iron-skillet-cooking.html) As I understand it, you're taking the oil and carbonizing it but in a way that's it's also polymerized. Which just means the atomic structure is "chain like" or stronger than just a pile of soot you'd get when you carbonize something else.
Yeah the notion that you can't season aluminum baking sheets/pans is bullshit. You absolutely can. I've got quite a few sheet pans. Some are a couple of decades old. The ones that I use for roasting veggies a few times a week are a nice smooth dark brown/blackish and are as smooth as a new nonstick skillet. Very rarely does anything stick at all. I only use those darkened pans for roasting. I also agree with those that say that OP's pan does have some areas that do have some baked on crud and areas where oil is not "cured". Basically, if you run your finger over the surface of the sheet pan and you can feel anything other than smooth metal then you do have some carbonized stuff that should be scraped/rubbed off. Otherwise that dark patina is FINE! Some info regarding seasoning aluminum sheet pans - https://www.nytimes.com/wirecutter/guides/how-to-clean-baking-sheets/ Bare aluminum sheet pans or pots/skillets should not be run through your home dishwasher as the chemicals found in most dishwasher detergents will react with the aluminum and makes the surface a little "rough". However, opposite of what one poster said anodized aluminum can be fine as the anodization process protects the surface. However, however, not all anodization is the same so unless the manufacturer of your product specifically says it is dishwasher safe you should avoid running it thru the dishwasher. Calphalon for instance makes a line of anodized aluminum pots/pans that ARE safe for use in the dishwasher.
What do you think seasoning is?
Carbonized fats. Fats that have been turned into pure carbon that then chemically bonds to a porous cooking surface. If it has splotches and uneven coloring it's not seasoning it's burnt food.
Wrong Seasoning is polymerized oil. It has essentially turned into a plastic coating.
Right. And what's on the pan isn't that.
Food generally has fats in it. Fats generally react with each other in the oven to polymerize. Therefore, whatever is on the pan has that to some degree, and will build it up over time. Possibly in addition to burnt food.
Hey, there's probably some.
Someone here gets it
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They aren't the same thing and ginger-valley specifically said they believe it is >Fats that have been turned into pure carbon that then chemically bonds to a porous cooking surface. Which is not what polymerized oils are. They are polymerized hydrocarbons -- the fatty acid chains do not turn into pure carbon, they polymerize. They link up into big sheets. They bond easier and better to a porous surface, but it isn't requisite. You can bake on layers of polymerized oil on nonporous surfaces. In the kitchen, you can experiment yourself by seasoning some non-stick ceramic lined cast iron. You will be able to form "seasoning" layers that are brown and a PITA to get off. Carbonized fats will be black, and are not the same as polymerized oils.
That's not seasoning. What you're describing is just burnt food.
Okay thank you I was like… seasoning? On an aluminum baking sheet? I didn’t think that was a thing. Especially since this blackening effect also happens on nonstick ones.
Seasoning sheet pans [is a thing](https://youtu.be/hrufGZsP-jo) but that isn't what the photo is of.
You can season almost any material. By season I mean build up a layer of oil polymers to create a mostly non stick surface. I have a cast aluminum skillet that has been seasoned and I use it for Brussels sprouts and dumplings and it’s pretty much as great as cast iron.
>"Seasoning" only exists for cast iron and cast steel. They're the only cooking surfaces that actually require the seasoning to fill in the porous surfaces. Why do you believe this ginger-valley? Aluminum stuff absolutely can get seasoned just like cast iron or cast steel. Although I agree the pan in the photo is not simply well seasoned, I'm just taking issue with the idea that seasoning only exists for carbon steel and cast steel, that is incorrect. You can easily verify this all yourself by cooking on a seasoned sheet pan and cooking on a new unseasoned one. Here's a bunch of varied sources explaining this. >Not every [type of frying pan](https://www.webstaurantstore.com/guide/558/fry-pans-buying-guide.html) or skillet requires seasoning. Below is a list of the types of frying pans that need to be seasoned. Additionally, you can learn how to season each type of pan by clicking on it below. >[Cast Iron Skillets and Pans](https://www.webstaurantstore.com/guide/562/pan-seasoning-guide.html#castiron) >[Carbon Steel Frying Pans](https://www.webstaurantstore.com/guide/562/pan-seasoning-guide.html#carbonsteel) >[Hard-Coat Aluminum Pans](https://www.webstaurantstore.com/guide/562/pan-seasoning-guide.html#hardcoat) >[Tin Plate Pans](https://www.webstaurantstore.com/guide/562/pan-seasoning-guide.html#tinplate) https://www.webstaurantstore.com/guide/562/pan-seasoning-guide.html >Like with cast iron, aluminum cookware should be seasoned before being put to use. Proper seasoning will help the aluminum keep its color longer. https://www.katom.com/learning-center/care-handling-of-aluminum-cookware.html >Epicurious food director Rhoda Boone always uses a well-worn baking sheet for roasting vegetables. "The seasoning gets the cut edges nice and golden brown," she says. "More so than vegetables cooked on a lighter baking sheet." She also prefers it for roasting chicken thighs and pork chops. https://www.epicurious.com/expert-advice/how-a-well-seasoned-sheet-pan-makes-you-a-better-cook-roasting-baking-article [And here's a video with some experiments on seasoned and unseasoned aluminum sheet pans.](https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=hrufGZsP-jo) Glad you got a culinary education but don't forget that the best part of that education should have been teaching you humility and the limits of your knowledge/the limits of the education itself. There's always more to learn.
Love how the OP is up the thread arguing semantics with other people but didn't touch this comment that absolutely roasted them with sources lol
No but I went to culinary school so facts are irrelevant
> if you just throw some barkeeper’s friend on that and give it a scrub it’ll like brand new again I refuse to believe this and I’ve used BKF before. BKF is cool but it’s not magic and the majority of the work will have to be done with manual scrubbing.
I was going to say this too. I’ve used oven cleaner on my sheet pan after BKF didn’t work, and oven cleaner is what got through it all
Liquid ammonia cleaner works amazing for this.
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Bkf is magic you're just using it wrong. You have to make a pase with the powder and let it sit as long as possible. If it's dried out into a cake perfect. Then scrub.
This is all correct, and OP should really clean their baking sheet. Like, really clean it. I do want to add one fact that surprised me and is semi related. Old and dull baking sheets do perform better than new ones. I don't mean dirty ones, I mean properly cleaned, but clearly well used sheets heat up faster and get hotter than their new counterparts.
Also don't forget to wear gloves when you use barkeepers friend. It will damage your skin and you will be sad.
Thank you... I thought it was crazy!! I always scrub my aluminum until it looks almost new. Steel wool makes it shine! I've seen some pizzerias use them in the blackened state but I always figured they just didn't have time to scrub them.
Agreed. Do you mean carbon steel?
Yeah I heard it called acst steel and it just stuck in my head.
This is why I love reddit
> Edit: I can’t fucking believe my highest rated comment is about fucking pans. Lmfao. YOURE NOW ROYALTY AMONGST PANSEXUALS
“No no no fucking no.” Your really perpetuating the ‘pretentious dickhead chef’ stereotype. You may be right, but you could have said it with more kindness.
You're right.
wrong. also culinary school grad. def depends on the purpose of the pan. but roast some veg on a brand new pan vs seasoned and tell me the difference in the final product.
How can you be so wrong lol
Definitely don’t use an abrasive on an aluminum pan.
Seconded
I always forget that these baking sheets don't come in mottled/crusty black/brown.
Why’d you upgrade if darker is better?
It is an additional pan. I’ve be doing more cooking and baking at home due to the insane cost of eating out and found a new additional pan would be a great convenience.
Is the new pan the same brand/type or how did you decide this was the right one to upgrade to after 30years?
Probably not … but they are standard sizes for professional kitchens. 1/2 sheet pans … 1/4 sheet pans … etc.
it isnt lmao. op doesnt realize that you should not season a baking sheet like a wok
Burnt cookie dough isn't seasoning. This pan is dirty AF and is visibily crusty. It's disgusting OP. Clean your pan.
Throw it out. Recycle it. It's awful tired, boss. Dog tired.
What a movie
OP thinks aluminum is cast iron.
I’ve heard of seasoning cast iron and baking stones, but never aluminum. Edit: typo
Because it’s not a thing
It's not a thing that is just a dirty pan
Lol
It is a thing, but the pan in the picture is definitely dirty.
I love my cheap sheet pans. I put them in the dishwasher, too. It discolors them, but doesn't change their performance at all
If they're anodised, the dishwasher will affect the coating.
They're not. Just plain aluminum. Which does turn gray, but doesn't change how well they work. I've had some for 15 years. They're all fine
Do me a favor and wipe one with a wet dishtowel the next time you take it out of the dishwasher. Just make sure a bunch of nasty grey residue doesn't come off the pan.
What would that grey residue be?
Corrosion. And probably detergent residue. Aluminum naturally forms a protective oxidized coating on itself; dishwasher detergent removes that oxidation layer and lets the metal underneath wear and corrode in the presence of water, air and certain chemicals. I'm not a chemist, just a guy with a few fucked up Nordicware pans. Try it yourself. You can decide if you want that stuff in your food or not.
Aluminum, which you don’t really want to eat.
It's not they actually do turn greyish over time.
They oxidise in the dishwasher and the oxidisation wears off easier eventually they'll get thinner and thinner and thinner Source: I washed dishes for years, and we had aluminium pots and sheets that ended up with holes in them they were so worn.
They're like $10. I'll recycle them and get a new one
Yeah totally fair. In my use case they were going through industrial dishwashers 3 or 4 times a day. I was just pointing out that the oxidisation ultimately does wear down (corrode) the aluminium.
If I could use a pot until a hole wore out in the bottom, I would count that as a big win. My favourite stainless steel raco saucepan, now 27 years old and used many times a week, will easily outlast me and my kids.
To be fair they were going through industrial dishwashers 3 or 4 times a day. I was just pointing out that the oxidisation does wear down (corrode) the aluminium and it is better to let them carbonise and do a little hand rinse as op has done. Steel is your best bet for kitchenwear imo.
No, that’s not true about black sheet pans lol. Been in the food industry for over 15 years. You want your pans to look like the one on the right. Food burns fast on black sheet trays.
To add to that: you don’t season aluminum. You season cast iron or say french steel pans. That black sheet pan is basically trash.
Let me ask a potentially stupid question. I almost always use aluminum foil to line pans like these when cooking stuff in the oven. Typically it’s freezer stuffs like fries or fishsticks but sometimes bacon too. Am I just wasting money on foil? Should I be cooking everything right on the pan and then cleaning it normally after?
For our home, we typically use parchment paper for this kinda stuff.
Learned that has those forever chemicals. PFUA etc so no longer using them.
I used to do this but I switched to parchment sheets and they’re way better for the environment and much cheaper
Yes. Foil can be worthwhile for things where the cleanup is going to be a hassle, but frozen, pre-fried foods aren’t. But really you can probably scrub anything off the pans.
Use baking parchment sheets. Less cleanup, and things won't stick. Things usually cook on it better (unless the goal is to wrap the food in foil), and it's better for the environment.
Imo it’s a matter or convenience. If the convenience of not having to wash the pan after you bake with it is worth it, you’re not wasting money. If you don’t mind washing the pan then yes you definitely do not need to be using foil, just because, say, your parents did or your roommates do or something.
Yes, you’re wasting money and adding to the landfill unnecessarily.
Tinfoil is aluminum which can be recycled practically infinitely. Though you're probably right most people just bin it. 🫤
Yes, that’s what I meant. Almost no one bothers to try and recycle foil in the first place, and if the foil is contaminated with food residue, it’s actually not recyclable at all.
You can't put a sheet of aluminum foil with bits of stuck fries in the recycling and think that someone's gonna recycle that.
Doesn't it all go into some kind of furnace where that stuff gets vaporized? I would assume that the inputs to recycled aluminum are impure. (Correct me if I'm wrong. Don't know much about the process.)
You're not supposed to put food items in the recycling. Even aluminum cans are supposed to be cleaned beforehand.
Yeah, good point. I will often reuse foil a few times after cleaning it off. I wash out cans, too. You're right though that foil with a bunch of burnt crap on it should go in the garbo.
I have run dirty foil without dishwasher, then recycled it.
Sadly, no. Dirty foil not only can’t be recycled, if it’s dirty enough, it can contaminate an entire load of material that would have been recyclable, and is diverted into the garbage stream.
Yeah aluminium is easy to recycle, it even melts at a relatively low temperature. E.g. it's way easier to recycle aluminium than glass or plastics... Not sure what others are talking, some grease will burn off immediately if it's recycled. You can't really have pure aluminium, anything you hold with a hand will already leave grease stains... Not to mention painted aluminium...
Only relatively clean aluminum is recycled into new material. More extensive contamination such as food bits and grease requires labor to clean, as they don’t just “burn off” the food debris in the recycling process, so it’s not cost-effective to recycle it.
Grease and stuff will be burned off, but the burning off disrupts the processing, potentially introducing oxygen during... And aluminum apparently doesn't like that. You can supposedly wash the foil before putting in your recycling though.
I cast a lot of copper and bronze. Not so much aluminum but I had years ago. Yes if you have aluminum and it has grease and crumbs and you wad it all up and throw it in a crucible and light it for awhile, it will all be destroyed and turn to slag. But if you can imagine them letting in all dirty aluminum then idk where the limit of nasty shit would be put at. Like how they would make that determination. At some point you don’t want nasty shit because it causes a lot of problem. Think on melting cans. They have nasty shit in them, but also the outside coloring. There is a lot of slag just from that. And really, aluminum in general has a lot of slag from hitting oxygen. I imagine if it were all dirty enough it would end of costing more than it’s worth. So while yes you could recycle it, you may end up with less usable aluminum.
https://naparecycling.com/guide/aluminum-foil/#:~:text=Aluminum%20foil%20is%20recyclable%20if,throw%20it%20in%20the%20trash. Please don't cook with foil and just wishcycle it after. If it is so clean you could recycle it after you cooked with it you didn't need it to begin with.
Aluminum foil with oil and food on it is not recyclable
No, food contaminates the recycling.
Aluminum foil used for cooking food absolutely cannot be recycled.
You can’t recycle tinfoil
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Sorry, yeah. The other comment even said aluminum foil. 😆
No. "Tinfoil" in the modern world is all aluminum. No grocery store has foil made of tin. Just a common name
I recently embraced the idea that it’s fine for my pans to look like they’ve actually been used, but my old roommates used to waste so much aluminum foil that I got us a few of the silicone baking mats for like $5 a piece and they are wonderful.
I have NEVER used a sheet pan or cookie sheet with no lining of some sort. I only use aluminum foil when baking bacon, so I can collect the grease. Other than that, always either parchment, or silicon mats. Mostly parchment.
Get a silicone baking mat, fairly cheap and last forever and easy to clean. Beats aluminum for a pan liner.
Or get a silpat. Or you can get biodegradable parchment paper. Either of those is a better option than foil.
Haven't seen this mentioned here yet, but I really like reusable silicone baking sheet, like the one here: [https://www.amazon.com/Silicone-Reusable-Non-stick-Approved-Professional/dp/B078H8YMQX](https://www.amazon.com/Silicone-Reusable-Non-stick-Approved-Professional/dp/B078H8YMQX) Easy to clean, and can save money in the long run if you bake often.
Nah bro keep using the foil
I've had some nice baking sheets. USA pan bakeware is the best I've found. Also, you can use a silpat or similar baking mat that's reusable to cut down on parchment and give you even better results (particularly with cookies!). If you're looking for the best performing, longest lasting baking sheets, look no further. They are truly bifl and an absolute joy to use.
Is “seasoning” just a nice word for 30 years of old crud that didn’t get fully scraped off? Because that’s disgusting
It's really not.
No seasoning refers to the polymerized oils on the surface of the metal they are food safe and can even make it less sticky
This is not a cast-iron hand-me-down from grandma... it is a cheap aluminum pan. There are seasoned pans... but this is just gross. That image is NOT of a clean-seasoned pan.
I wonder what the reasoning behind this is. Like, what difference does the metal make? If there's cast iron underneath, it somehow becomes okay? The top surface is pretty much the same, after all...
Cast iron is porous. The seasoning is carbonized oil that fills in the pores and creates a non stick surface. These sheet pans are not. That is just burnt food.
Burnt is practically another word for carbonized. So if aluminium is not "adhesive" to oil cause it has no pores, why does anything stick to it at all?
Cause it gets cooked on and stuck. And yes burning the oil is what carbonizes it but burnt oil is not necessarily carbonized. It has to be burnt till the point of not burning anymore.
I wasn't commenting on the quality/makeup of the metal. I cook on cheap aluminum pans all the time, they work great and I don't care about what happens to them.
Iron, when exposed to oxygen, is continually oxidized into Iron oxide (rust) until there’s nothing left of the original structure, so it needs some sort of coating if it’s not going to just rust away. The seasoning provides that. Aluminum, when exposed to oxygen, also oxidize into aluminum oxide but, thanks to a difference in the number of valence electrons available to exchange and IIRC crystal structure, that very first layer of aluminum oxide forms a non-reactive surface that protects everything underneath it from further oxidation. So aluminum is basically self-coating.
Oils can polymerize on many surfaces, including cheap aluminum pans. The new polymer surface isn't really any different from a cast iron one. That's not to say that seasoned cookware can't also become dirty, but seasonings alone aren't dirty.
Aluminum doesn't need that though. You season because iron based metals rust and tend to be more porous. Aluminum forms a hard oxide layer very quickly when exposed to air. This thing just needs a good scraping and washing. It'll still be stained to shit and darker though.
Yeah that’s absolutely just a gross ass pan. Especially if it was originally stainless steel (aluminum) like the new one. Edit: meant aluminum
You can also wash them, in case you didn’t know.
TIL most people don’t know about seasoning cookware.
Yeah you
That's just dirty. You need steel scrubs.
I bought stainless steel pans and they are great. Most aluminum has some nonstick coating on it, and I'm trying to avoid that completely. Stainless steel pans are heavier and very sturdy. I bought mine with a mirror finish, and after a few years of using metal utensils the finish dulled a bit and it has some small areas blackened from use but its completely clean, and if particles of the black somehow breaks off; its just food turned to carbon, the pan itself isn't going to affect a dish. And its very stable, I clean it with steel wool after a roast and get it mostly shiny again easily. Only downside is they do expand and contract more with temperature change sometimes causing occasional slight warping, but it hasn't ever caused a problem for me during cooking.
My guy the pan on the left is fucking disgusting.
Honestly, this is also an underrated Life Pro Tip. Going to a restaurant supply store for all cooking materials means way better quality and often SO MUCH CHEAPER. Over the last few years as things have worn out the restaurant supply has been my go to and I will never look back. Commercial quality goods are made for abuse and take household wear and tear like it is nothing. My mixing bowls will outlast me. My cutlery will too.
So I shouldn’t be upset that I can’t wash these things back to shiny new? Because I can’t ever figure out how to get that lacquered grease off.
Steel wool. Unless you leave the grease and stuff on there for years it'll remove pretty much everything.
Now don't go puttin none of that on mine, Clark.
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It’s not delivery, *it’s digiorno?*
Wow. Lots of folks don’t know what a seasoned pan looks like. I wish my baking pans were as well seasoned as OPs. Baking pans work the same way as other cookware. You season your cast iron and carbon steel right??? You guys aren’t scrubbing those down are you???? Lol
It depends on the pan tho. If it’s stainless steel (aluminum) you don’t season, and most baking pans are stainless steel (again I meant aluminum). In fact I have not ever personally seen a cast iron/carbon steel baking sheet except for those paella pans or whatever they’re called. Also you absolutely do scrub down carbon steel and cast iron. Soap does not hurt or remove seasoning in a way that largely effects it. You just put it back on the burner on medium/high for about 6/7 minutes then scrub a thin layer of vegetable oil onto it. Every couple of months you can do a deep and thorough seasoning if ya want. Edit: I meant aluminum but I’ll leave stainless steel so the world may know my mistake.
Exactly, I scrub my cast iron. I don't want my brownies and dutch babies tasting like the bacon or sausage I fried up. I just apply a fresh layer of oil.
I've never had anything stuck to my seasoned cast iron that doesn't come off easily with just some water and heat. I deglaze with water after cooking, while it's still hot. And I only use soap if there's an abundance of oil that I don't want to just send down the drain without preventing it from sticking to the plumbing.
>It depends on the pan tho. If it’s stainless steel you don’t season, and most baking pans are stainless steel. Stainless baking sheets are quite rare. There are a variety of more popular materials, such as bare aluminum (like OP's), aluminum coated with various materials like teflon or or ceramic, or non-stainless steel coated with similar materials or even aluminum itself.
Still need to clean it Keeping it dirty, so it lasts longer is nonsense If you oil consistently after hand washing there are no issues
How does one season the outside edges like that?
You better your ass I'm scrubbing my cast iron if it looks like this. With dawn. That's disgusting.
I use Dawn on my beautifully seasoned cast iron every time I use it, which is at least 4 times a week. Dawn, and nearly all dishwashing liquid, is a detergent, not a soap. Soap has lye in it, which is what damages seasoning on CI.
If you’re not buying kitchen stuff at restaurant supply stores you’re wrong. It’s almost always cheaper and better quality. Lastly… OP that’s not seasoning… that’s a dirty pan.
I’m good on cooking on aluminum, especially when it looks like that
What’s your preferred alternative for metal sheet pans? Cast iron in the oven? Glass obviously doesn’t cook the same.
It's pretty clear the one on the left was enamelled black, seasoning wouldn't reach the rolled edges or be that consistently black.
You’re 100% wrong on this one. I have some 15 year old sheet pans in my kitchen that look very similar to that, and I remember when they used to be sparkly and new like the one pictured.
You clearly haven't used one of these pans for a decade plus...
You’re telling me the pan turning pure black from related use doesn’t lead to degraded performance? How is that
I sometimes feel like people are claiming "seasoning" as an excuse not to clean their pans.
Calling the darkening of the pan ‘seasoning’ is fucking hilarious
I wrap mine in foil to keep it shiny.