Official Member of the All-Clad Club

[Dingfod]

I have a large 12" non-stick high-sided pan I use for about 75-80% of my cooking. It's almost like a flat-bottomed wok, flat enough to cook bacon and fried eggs, and high enough on the sides to make chili or soup. It is fairly heavy, probably carbon steel, but not as much as cast iron. And, I will slap anyone that puts it in the dishwasher. I couldn't find a 14" like the one that got ruined that way. I really loved that pan.

[Megatron]

Originally Posted by livius drusus

The bechamel thickened soooo much faster and, unlike with my former pans, it thickened evenly. Before I always had to move it around the burner or the middle would thicken while the edges were still liquid.

You must have an electric stove. I am sorry. I too was stuck with one of those abominations before I moved out to a place with a proper gas stove.

[livius drusus]

No, it's gas. It just cooks hotter around the fire ring. Every stove I've ever had did the same thing, so it's not unusual.

[Dingfod]

Gas>Electric

[livius drusus]

Stove, yes. Oven is the opposite.

[Dingfod]

That depends, for baking cake or souffle, an electric oven is definity better, more even heat, but for roasting a turkey or pot roast, it doesn't really make much difference.

[livius drusus]

It can. I've never met a gas oven that didn't have very noticeable hot spots especially along the element. It can make even roasting problematic, depending on the size of the roastee and the oven.

[Dingfod]

Then we'll have to agree that electric ovens are better, not more efficient, but better. How do you feel about convection ovens?

[ceptimus]

Electric oven with a fan is best, imo. I suppose the option to turn the fan off might be useful ? But I can't think of any circumstances where I'd want to switch it off.

And I would argue that electric ovens ARE more efficient than gas ones (using the scientific meaning of efficiency). Gas ovens either have an external flame or more usually an internal flame with a flue to allow the exhaust fumes to escape: either way they can't be thermally insulated as well as an electric oven - so they will waste energy in heating the kitchen rather than just the inside of the oven where the heat is actually needed.

[Dingfod]

My gas oven doesn't have a flue. I don't remember ever having one that did. It does heat the kitchen some, but then so do electric ovens.

Source: years of using both.

I meant cheaper when I wrote efficient, gas is usually considerably cheaper per energy unit than is electricity. Using gas directly might be of comparable efficiency overall when you consider the percentage of energy efficiency of power plants and losses in electrical power transmission are 30-50% or more.

[ceptimus]

When I said flue - I didn't mean a pipe leading outside of the house - just a pipe leading the fumes from the oven flame out to the outside of the oven.

[Gonzo]

[livius drusus]

Oh yeah? Well Velvet begs to differ.

Velvet all-clad.JPG

Yes, those are foam protectors between the stacked pans and skillets. No, I never used them when I had non-stick that actually needed protection from scratching. I DON'T WANT THE PRETTY TO GET SCUFFED, OKAY?!

[BrotherMan]

@ foam

@

[livius drusus]

Originally Posted by Janet

I'm not jelli, I'm afraid, because I prefer my Berndes Tradition. That said, since your set isn't non-stick, I'd spend that $110 on the matching omelette pan and still have a bit left over. You simply have to have non-stick for eggs and in my world an omelette pan is a must.

I did an egg study with both skillets (8" and 10") to see if I would miss the non-stick. I tested eggs overeasy, scrambled and a frittata, avoiding the omelette itself because I never make them mainly due to fear. There was no sticking. None at all. I was shocked by how slick the stainless is.

The first time with the overeasies I used the same amount of butter I used on the non-stick (prolly a tbsp) and I actually think it was more than I needed. I used less for the scramble and oil for the frittata. Nothing stuck. The frittata slid out so smoothly it shamed me because I realized the cast iron skillet I have been using for years is in desperate need of re-seasoning.

[BrotherMan]

See what I mean! We have been LIED to by Big Non-Stick! The only stick issue I had once was from still starchy taters, and in defense of blessed stainless it stuck on non-stick too.

[livius drusus]

Update: I went with the 12" stainless skillet after all, but I'm going to ask for a non-stick one on a later gift-receiving occasion because I found out after making it one night the one thing that sticks like crazy: bubble and squeak.

[Megatron]

I missed the bit about gas ovens, but I gotta say I've never had any problem with them. Now that said, I don't bake anything like bread or pastry or cake or cookies, so maybe that's where the problem lies and I just don't see it.

Every gas oven I've had handles roasts like a champion. It helps a lot that they can adjust heat so much faster than electrics (they require more cooldown, just like electric stoves) and I can do a much better job of "quickroasting" (start at like 450 and drop to 300-350 after 10-15 minutes, depending on what you've got in there).

I'd show you the phenomenal pork loin roast I made last weekend but ... yeah it was gone before I thought of making pictures. Dude it was awesome.

[Megatron]

Originally Posted by livius drusus

Update: I went with the 12" stainless skillet after all, but I'm going to ask for a non-stick one on a later gift-receiving occasion because I found out after making it one night the one thing that sticks like crazy: bubble and squeak.

Yeah you always want to have at least one non-stick thing around. There is shit even I can't save from sticking to cast iron, and I'm not exactly the best cook out there, so I like to have insurance for things I might fuck up. I still have a 12" non-stick flat-bottom and a 16" non-stick weirdo semi-wok thing. They do exactly what it says on the tin, and I'm pretty happy with them both.

[livius drusus]

I always thought there was something wrong with me because I could never make a pancake that was browned on its entire face. They were all patchy, like pancake vitiligo. Now I know that it wasn't me. It was my stupid non-stick cookware. In the All-Clad, they come out perfect like an IHoP commercial.

Oh, and another thing. I can't believe you guys didn't tell me that the pots sing when water's about to come to a boil. I completely the sound cycles of the bonded stainless steel.

[BrotherMan]

My pots don't sing.

[Watser?]

That's what my mom always used to call it when the water was almost ready to boil.

[livius drusus]

Are you sure they don't, Bort? Perhaps you just weren't attuned to it. It's this soft high pitched note like crystal makes when you slide a wet finger around the rim of a glass. I think it's probably the very early stages of the insane lid rattle you get when it's about to boil over.

[Dingfod]

Mine don't either, that I know of (hearing problems), but the lids rattle a bit at that point.

[Janet]

Mine don't sing, but one of my pots made some unsettling rattle noises very early in the process the other night. I kept checking the stove to see if the pot wasn't level or something, but it was just some weird result of a few big bubbles forming.