Cooking Sour Foods in Cast Iron Is Okay (and Other Cast Iron Myths Debunked)
You’ve probably heard that cooking acidic foods like tomato sauces, wine sauces, or chili peppers in cast iron is not a good idea because iron can penetrate food and add a bitter metallic taste. Well America’s Test Kitchen has tested this theory (and a few others), and what’s the result? Everything is fine.
First of all, it is absolutely true that when you cook acidic ingredients in cast iron for extended periods of time, trace amounts of iron molecules from the metal can end up in your food. The good news is, firstly, it’s not bad for you at all, and secondly, you won’t try it. In fact, America’s Test Kitchen says it won’t even notice if you don’t cook for a long time. To test the theory, they boiled a very sour tomato sauce over medium heat in a cast iron skillet and checked every 15 minutes for any off-flavors and any damage the sauce might have caused to the pan:
In the end, our tasters were only able to detect a metallic taste in tomato sauce after simmering for a full 30 minutes. So, while you can definitely cook with acidic ingredients in your cast iron skillet, you have to be careful. First, make sure your skillet is well seasoned; Seasonings keep the acid from interacting with iron – to a certain extent. The sour sauce can allow it to sit in a well-seasoned skillet for a short while without any dire consequences. You also need to be careful to remove acidic foods from the pan after they have finished cooking; Do not let them sit in a warm skillet for too long and transfer the leftovers to an airtight container. (These rules do not apply to enamelled cast iron pans; the enamel finish allows acidic ingredients to be cooked safely for any length of time.)
So that’s okay – you just need to be careful about how long you cook the sauce and how long you let the sauce stay in the pan. For less acidic sauces than dough tomato sauce, you could get by with a longer boil without noticing any odd aromas or effects on the pan itself, which is great news if you’re looking to make something like the traditional shakshuka . cast iron (and delicious.)
ATK has also tested some other myths about cast iron cooking, such as the notion that a rusty cast iron pan is messed up (spoiler: it isn’t, but it might take some work to bring it back to life) and the old adage about that the cast iron cooks evenly, which is why it’s so great (in fact, cast iron does not conduct much current and can heat up very unevenly, so preheating in the oven is necessary if you want to quickly or even toast something before adding other ingredients). Click on the link below to read the entire article.
Six Stubborn Cast Iron Myths Debunked | America’s Test Kitchen