Even my post? 
Don’t worry about the seasoning just yet – those things are basically self-seasoning, as long as you don’t let it soak in a wet environment for forever – cook a steak by (I have a small-ish kitchen too – you learn to love the smell of carbonized particles of shmutz in the air) turning the range on high (HIGH!) and just letting it all go to town.
grin
Missed yours! ^5
Thanks, all. I had somehow formed the impression that seasoning the pan primarily affected the flavor of the food. Sounds like the benefits are bit more fundamental than that. 
Yeah, properly seasoned the pan shouldn’t effect the flavor of the food at all (other than to impart heat at very high levels.)
Sad story about how hot you can get a cast iron if you aren’t careful. I was making Rib-Eye about a month ago and got the pan too hot. The steak was wonderful, but I burned all the seasoning off of the skillet.
Well, it wasn’t back to bare metal, but I lost a lot of seasoning. That’s hot!
This is important. I never let my cast iron air dry, especially when it is new. It is iron, which when combined with water and time equals rust. The better seasoned, the more resistant, but it is best not to play games (hence people like me and NAF constantly re-seasoning after every other use with the coat of vegetable oil and an hour oven bake at 300).
That said, rusted cast iron can be reclaimed, but why let it get to that point?
I did something similar… After washing I like to burn off the water and burn in a layer of oil. Walked away one night and forgot I had left the stove on high. Lost 4 years worth of seasoning and it’s just now getting back to the cast irony non-stick goodness it used to be.
Now, next time you and your husband have an argument, you swing it and smash it into his face. There will be a “Boingg!” sound and his head will be momentarily pan-shaped for a truly comical effect. Or, it might kill him instantly, you never can tell 'til you try.
This has saved my life[sup]*[/sup] on more than one occasion. I highly recommend. Remember, the handle gets as hot as the pot and this will protect from forgetfulness while it is on the stove (from you or anyone else passing by).
[sup]*[/sup]Well, my hand, but it would be my right hand, and we all know what a right-handed man uses his right hand for, so it might as well have been my life.
I just had another thought about good first foods for the skillet while you are in the early seasoning stage…FRIED CHICKEN.
Cast iron is perfect for shallow frying chicken. Now a 10" won’t give you a ton of room, but you could easily fit a couple of breasts and drum sticks in there. Now is the time to perfect that fried chicken recipe you have always been meaning to work out.
Also, tempura is good in the CI if you know how to make it. I don’t, but my father in law makes it that way.
So, Cornbread, Pancakes, Fried chicken, Roux. At least 20 times before you do anything else unless you are into tempura in which case add that to the list. Then you can move onto bacon and fatty meats. Then onto the trickier stuff.
Yeah, those are great. Highly recommended. Ours wore out some time ago and we need to get around to replacing it. In the meantime, MrWhatsit has tied a potholder to the handle of the skillet with a piece of string.
Is there something about cornbread that makes it well suited? I’ve never made it before but it seems to me like it would be more likely to stick.
When I’ve made cornbread in the skillet, it’s been Southern-style cornbread, which is a little denser and less sweet than its more cake-like Northern cousin. You put a little bacon fat or butter in the pan to melt it before pouring in the batter, and then you bake as usual in the oven. The grease in the pan will keep it from sticking even if your seasoning is sub-par.
Cornbread in the cast iron develops a nicer crust than any baking pan.
A hot pan is important for good corn bread. Cast iron has the mass to hold a lot of heat.
This…is genius. I have a “ruined” CIS that I need to refurbish. This weekend I’ll scrub the hell (steel wool, soap, boiling water) out of it, then use NAF1138’s method to re-season. It sounds golden.
I can’t believe no one’s said this yet but you should not scrub cast iron with soap. Put it to soak and just wipe out any cooking debris. If you need abrasion you can use a plastic scrubby, or salt. No soap! Soap eats fat, and you want the fat that’s in the pan.
Dry it well and wipe it down with a little oil on a paper towel, just till it looks glossy. Now its ready for next time.
Good point. I have found that kosher salt and a teaspoon of vegetable oil on a warm skillet will get most anything off and leave you with a nice slick surface afterward. You don’t need soap as long as you get all the debris off the surface, you are killing the germs with heat.
You can use water, just make sure that you heat up the pan afterward so that the water is all boiled away (may not be necessary if you live in a very dry climate) and then rub it down with oil.
MsWhatsit has it right. Making skillet cornbread you melt lard or bacon fat into the pan and get it very hot. You also have oil in the batter. The way my mom taught me is that you pour the excess oil from the pan into the batter and then pour the batter into the very hot well oiled pan and let it fry for a minute before going into the oven. This gives the cornbread that really nice dark golden crust, but the heat involved and the oil involved also set up the crust fast enough that it turn out easily when it’s done baking.
Cornbread is good for seasoning not only because of the amount of fat you use, but also because the cooking method is high heat enough that stuff isn’t very sticky to start off with. So you lay down seasoning, without picking too much back off trying to clean up.
Pancakes are the same basic idea.
My question is whether it’s really necessary to strip the pan down to the bare iron before giving it a full seasoning treatment. I can see that being necessary if it’s rusty, but otherwise can’t you build up from the state you find it in, especially the factory coating?
It depends on the factory coating. With lodge stuff I would say no. It’s “pre-seasoned” which means that it’s sent to you in a state where you could theoretically just wash it and start cooking and be fine. I would give it a good scrub, but I wouldn’t strip it.
Other places not so much. Anything that isn’t “Pre-seasoned” probably just has a layer of mineral oil on it, that you are going to want to wash off, and I don’t know that I would trust anyone but Lodge’s pre-seasoning. I don’t know, but I have heard stories or weird stuff being done. Antiques? That is going to depend on your judgment. The couple of antiques I own were stripped bare by the person who I bough them from in an attempt to reclaim them from rust and misuse. But if you know your pan was well cared for and isn’t carrying rust or other nasty stuff in the seasoning, just clean it and run with it. I am hoping that my wife’s grandmother someday gives us her cast iron skillet (a 14" I think, it’s big) that was made in the 1920s and is very well seasoned with 80 odd years of regular use. If she does there is no way I am stripping that. I don’t have 80 years to get it that nice again.