I'm reseasoning a couple of my small cast iron skillets, an 8-inch one and a 6-inch one. They've just been cleaned and oiled and are now baking in the countertop oven at 425 degrees.
What am I doing? Wife sleeping so.....
Remembering some fine times after reading many of these interesting post n comments.
So now story time or maybe
"delete/ignore" but here goes.
I used to cook
(another past hobby) at large festivals , parties and weddings, enter cooking contests. Got paid to cook at the annual company picnics for years at the plant site in giant cast iron pots over propane burner set ups that we made there.
I used either 35 or 55 gallon drums to make my set ups. I would drill out a spot to connect hard pipe with hose connection to outside end to enter the sides to supply the gas to the burners. I also cut/torched the tops out so the pots could sit right into the opening with 1" to 3" sticking out. Also drilled about 4 to 6 tiny holes about 12" from the bottom for air to help the burners work. A 2" hole to see flame. Also installed propane BBQ set ignitors to make it easy to light or relight burners if flames ever blew out.
These drum/burner set ups were used to cook using 10 / 15 / 30 gallon black iron pots. I would clean (never use soap) them after cooking with a pressure washer and then boil them out. After the boil, heat up with burners to dry 100% and then on cool down I would soak / wipe them down inside and out with
olive oil for storage. The cool down would allow the black iron to suck the oil in and put a good coat for storage with zero rust. I would also fold up some newspaper inside the pots to catch any moisture during storage. Stored them sealed up with the home made aluminum covers to prevent dust , dirt , bugs or any mositure that may form (never did really).
For seasoning my pots I did two to three ways.
1) Small pots got the curing you are doing inside an oven coated in
olive oil (reason never used
veg oil is it turns rancid over time where
olive oil will not). That would cause you a mess to clean before cooking in one. The other methods were kinda fun and outdoors.
2) Build a wood fire and build it up to where wood and fire are to the top of the pot and also burn the inside out with wood until glowing hot. Remove from fire , empty. Blow out with a blower , wipe down with clean rags and soak in
olive oil for cool down.
Favorite method was this one:
3) Build fire or use burner but keep pot above heat set up as if cooking. Put a large tub of lard inside to melt down. Once boiling toss in a match and the oil lights off! Surprised me the first time doing it. Use board or boat paddle to slosh the burning oil all over the inside. Turn off fire. Remove the pot from fire and turn it over. Pour and wipe (yes-again) more
olive oil all over the outside of pot , flip it and wipe out inside with
olive oil before cool down.
OMG..... LOL -
Olive oil!!!! Yeah, I have
Italian in me along with
Cajun Acadian French , German so I learned this stuff from both sides of my family. We joke that we are
Itajuns! The
Italians from Sicily came to USA (1940s-WWII) and the
French / Cajun Acadians , German from Canada in the 1770s. Those old family men I watched as a teen in the 60s cooked in the black iron pots over wood fires since most folks did not have any propane or gas burners. One wedding I cooked at the people supplied the pot , a giant 50 gallon round bottom so big we had to move it around with a fork lift and chainfall. That was one to remember as I was panic sweating bullets it would come out ok as it was the largest amount of jambalaya/rice I had ever cooked. I had forty pounds of rice in that pot with about 30 pounds of meats n 10-15 pounds of chopped seasonings. Served about 250 folks, maybe more. I had some pots that are near 100 years old. I have given all to my youngest son who was a professional executive chef before giving it up to become a teacher so he could spend more time with his young children.
But DB could have been a bear snack.
. Can’t talk to dad about it tonight though as he is bored of it and is also going off over his taxes so I’m staying as far away as possible he almost hit me in the head when he threw the salt shaker and he is mad over the fact I sold my car so now we don’t have an extra running one. I told him he didn’t drive it anyway so why is he worried about it.
