No, this isn’t a cast iron thing. Using stainless pans, you can get nonstick effects that, in my experience, far outperform Teflon anyway. The process is called “spot seasoning.” I have cooked crispy, cheesy rice noodles with eggs with zero sticking.
I love my cast iron pans, but stainless is my daily go-to. Added bonus: use 100% copper wool to clean your stainless pan. The copper-coated wool at most grocery stores is problematic; you might get a few uses out of the coated garbage and then it starts shedding metal bits.
Sis anyone else watch the video? I was waiting for his”spot seasoning method” until I saw just how much oil he used to cook and egg without sticking to his wok. Dude lost all credibility right there, and I quit watching
“the egg glides freely…”
the egg does not, in fact, glide freely. it’s also fucking burned to a crisp and there’s like an ocean of oil in there. terrible, terrible video.
“Floats…”
You can absolutely cook an egg without sticking without needing that much fat and without the egg burning.
This is how you cook with stainless. Get a high smoke point oil, get the pan and oil plenty hot, the put the food in. It immediately sears the contact surface and this is what prevents sticking. This is also why you slowly place food in the pan (other than to avoid spatter), it gives a little extra time for this to happen. Otherwise you gotta wait for the surface to brown and hopefully unstick, which might work for things like chicken or the skin side of fish, but anything liquid like eggs or super soft like the fish meat will have a good chance of sticking.
IOW, just do what chefs usually tell you to do with stainless and get it hot with the correct oil. Best odds of not sticking. Modern non-stick pans are pretty good if you obey the rules about using them.
Yeah plus when cooking some foods in stainless (such as meat) you want some sticking so you can build a fond which you then deglaze to make a pan sauce. Carbon steel is less ideal for this because the seasoning will react with acids such as vinegars, wines, or citrus which are all common ingredients in pan sauces. While a well-seasoned carbon steel pan can survive a deglaze with vinegar the dissolved seasoning can ruin the flavour of your pan sauce.
I have that same wok. You need a lot more oil for a flat bottom wok than a round bottom because the flat bottom doesn’t let the oil pool to the middle.
You absolutely can get nonstick eggs with a stainless steel frying pan and a small amount of oil but you need to actually practice heat control and cooking technique. It’s actually much easier with butter because the water in it will begin to fizz and you just need to wait for the fizzing to stop and the pan will be just about hot enough.
You still need to use the right heat setting which is specific to your stove and pan, so practice is needed but you can get a good feel for it by how quickly the butter melts. If it melts rapidly and gives off a lot of steam and begins browning then the pan is too hot (unless you want to do a crispy egg, but that should be done with oil instead of butter which has milk solids that burn and turn bitter).
slightly wet your fingers and flick little drops of water into the oil for the same “fizzy” test for regular oil… it’s not enough water to be problematic, but plenty enough to give you a light to heavy fizz to tell you how hot the pan is
I have used the water drop trick occasionally. Usually I cook an egg at higher temperature though. I wait until the oil smokes and fry it to get a golden brown crispy bottom. My favourite egg to throw on a noodle or rice bowl.
I wait for water beads to dance arund on metal and then turn down the heat and wait a few mins. I put on oil and roll it around to ensure every pore is hit and then slap the egg on. That way you can use lower temperature.
Ive found when oil shimmers it is hot enough to not stick, but its not reliable.
Generally my crispy egg method causes the egg to stick but then it releases!