Yet Another Secret to French Cooking
According to The Bordeaux Kitchen book, where I take the reader on a journey through learning the secrets to French cooking, and especially how to cook meats, one of these secrets is, in fact, using high-quality utensils, including a cast-iron Dutch oven. Here is my blog post about the pots and pans I use and why.
High Quality Pots and Pans
I use both enameled and non-enameled cast-iron Dutch ovens, from Staub and Le Creuset. For frying things like steaks or burgers, I will use American-made Lodge iron pans or stainless steel Belgian-made 7-layer Proline pans from Demeyere. (This Demeyere line brand does not have a knob inside the pan itself connecting the handle to the pan on the inside of the pan, the way most brands do. This makes for easier cleaning and a complete and smooth surface all the way around the inside of the pan.) I use Demeyere curved sauté pots (Williams Sonoma) for the same reason. They are so thick that they act like double boilers; you can make sauces and even melt chocolate without worry of burning because of the thick, professional layering.
Heavyweight Champions on Display
Dutch ovens come in lovely colors and are great for displaying! Cast-iron is, in fact, quite heavy, especially with a lid, and the outer enamel colors are, in fact, fragile and can be chipped relatively easily during use, storage, and washing. Displaying and storing enameled Dutch ovens/these kinds of pots and pans on a dedicated shelf or spot on the counter in the kitchen, dining room, or even on the oven is a great way to upgrade the look of your kitchen, if you’re going for a French look, but most importantly, it gives the pans their own space. Because they are heavy, storing enameled Dutch ovens at waist level or counter level is easiest, where you will be less likely to hit the pot against another piece of equipment or cabinet doors, and where your center of gravity is most stable as you move the pot from counter or cabinet to the stove and back to its storage spot. We display our lovely colored Dutch ovens in the kitchen and dining room when they are not in use. If you are storing your enameled pots and pans in a cabinet, cover them with kitchen towels – between the lid and pot, and on top of the lid, and/or on padding to reduce chances of scratching and chipping.
My Bordeaux Kitchen Cooking Philosophy
My cooking philosophy is based on ancestral techniques, and I do not cure or keep my pan oiled with any vegetable or flaxseed oil as per the common recommendation, because I do not want to ingest these from “curing” the pan, nor from cooking with them. Instead, I wash and dry each pan, whether enameled or not, and “cure” only with tallow, if needed, and wipe off the excess with a dedicated cloth or paper towel. Wipe it out with a paper towel or a clean kitchen towel dedicated to this purpose. Rust Busters! Your pot is ready to begin cooking! Add your cooking fat and cook away! (Even tallow oxidizes eventually, so melting and wiping out a bit of fresh tallow right before cooking is perhaps the best solution.)
The Dark Side of Vegetable Oils
I do not use cooking or vegetable oils in my cooking (or pan “curing”), because I do not want to ingest these inflammatory, oxidized, nutrient-deficient oils. The last thing you want to do is use these seed oils in curing pans or cooking food. The discussion of vegetable seed oils is very technical and can be confusing. The best resource for this work is that of Dr. Cate Shanahan, author of several books, who has been studying vegetable seed oil chemistry the longest.
Nutrients in Animal Fats
I only use animal fats in my cooking, usually tallow, butter, or duck fat. These are nutrient dense fats that confer such nutrients as vitamins D, A, E and K from the animals’ fat stores, especially when they are eating their natural diet (grass-fed for cows, for example). Grass-fed tallow is also rich in conjugated linoleic acids (CLAs) and omega-3s, and in this respect, grass-fed tallow is great for the skin, too, because of its nourishing elements. Tallow means sebum in Latin, and matches our skin’s fatty acid profile more so than plants do. See my Etsy boutique BordeauxKitchen which offers tallow, shea, mango, kokum, and cocoa butters in balms, body butters, serums, and soaps. Animal fats are the most recognizable, with their bioavailable nutrients, to our bodies. On a personal note, I have learned my lesson from severe malnutrition, anemia, and infections from having been a vegetarian in the early 1990s when I was in my mid-twenties, when I was also only using vegetable oils for cooking in cheap non-stick coated pans.
Animal Fats Have a Stable Cooking Profile
The higher percentage of saturated fatty acids in animal fats create a solid, more stable cooking fat that is less likely to burn at high temperatures. Tallow is highest in saturated fatty acids, it stores well, and it does not oxidize as easily. By now, hopefully, most people know that industrially refined vegetable seed oils (canola, sunflower, safflower, soy, corn, rice, etc. – even the “organic” kind) are inflammatory to the body and are already oxidized (and refined: deodorized, heated at high temperatures, often hexane-infused) before they are even bottled. Again, I defer to Dr. Cate Shanahan for the chemistry and science-backed arguments.
Tallow in Skincare
This goes for ingredients, like sunflower oil, in skincare as well. Industrially refined seed oils are primarily comprised of polyunsaturated fatty acids, known more commonly as PUFAs, which oxidize very easily and can even make the skin more sensitive to sunlight. In my opinion, the best sunscreens are tallow-based and contain non-nano zinc oxide, and eating a tallow-rich diet. Find my Bordeaux Kitchen Naturals grass-fed tallow skincare products in my Etsy shop!
Cooking with Tallow
I use grass-fed beef tallow to cook almost everything, from steaks and burgers, to browning meats for stews. I add butter or use clarified butter (which have numerous bioavailable nutrients) for flavor to finish off steaks or to sauté vegetables, but I do not heat any oils that are liquid at room temperature, which is most vegetable oils. I would not recommend heating (or curing pans with) olive oil or avocado oil because these alter the chemistry of the oils. Saturated fat molecules such as tallow are comprised of straight chains that stack easily and are hard at room temperature. Tallow stores well because of its chemistry: It naturally has a high stearic acid content and an overall high percentage of saturated fatty acids, it can be cooked at high temperatures before burning, all making it ideal for “curing” cast iron pots and pans, cooking, and storing.
How to Source Tallow
You can render tallow yourself from fatty ground beef: Buy an 80/20% fat ground beef, that is less expensive anyway. While the ground meat is still hot after cooking in the, pan (as taco-style beef or in the shape of hamburger patties), remove the meat and pour off the remaining (now liquid) fat through a fine strainer into a small glass jar or Pyrex container. It will harden on the counter or in the refrigerator. Freeze (good for a few months) for future use, or store in the refrigerator for up two weeks. Save batches in small jars in the freezer. No time for “rendering” your own tallow? You can find beef tallow and other animal fats in glass jars by companies like Epic and Fatworks at some gourmet grocery stores or on Amazon. But the best way to source tallow is by supporting your local butcher and/or farmer! Also, websites such as US Wellness Meats and farms like Polyface sell tallow and products from farmers who raise their animals in well-managed pastures (grass-fed). This is called regenerative agriculture, a rapidly growing sector that even McDonald’s Corporation is investing in.
If you cannot cook in tallow and feel it absolutely necessary to use an oil for cooking and cleaning, I would go with virgin organic coconut oil (warning: this will have the coconut flavor ), otherwise perhaps steam-refined organic coconut oil (which has a neutral taste). Coconut oil is made up of about 60% saturated fat and can withstand high heat.
Check out how I was quoted by CNN Underscored in an article about cast iron pots and pans, and check out my other blog post on My Favorite Pots and Pans! (The items listed above are linked to my Amazon Associates account, so I earn a few pennies if you click on them and purchase, yay!)
Cleaning, Maintaining, and Storing Enameled Cast-Iron Cookware
Cleaning and maintaining enamel cast-iron cookware is perhaps easier to maintain and keep from rusting than regular cast-iron cookware because of the enameling. To clean enameled cast-iron cookware, we allow the cookware to cool and then use warm water and a gentle soap such as Seventh Generation unscented dish soap with a non-abrasive sponge outside and inside. Maintaining enamel cast-iron doesn’t really require much maintenance again because of the enameling. I use dish liquid and a slightly abrasive sponge (Scrub Daddy) to clean the inside and the outside of the pot or pan. Store with the lid on between uses, but only after it has been washed and is thoroughly dry. Place the pot on a warm burner until all moisture has evaporated, or hand-dry with a dish towel and allow to air dry overnight, and replace the lid in the morning.
Cleaning Regular Cast-Iron Cookware
To clean regular, non-enameled cast-iron cookware, I also use warm water and a slightly abrasive sponge to clean both the inside and outside of the pot or pan. Place the pot on a warm burner until all moisture has evaporated, or else hand dry with a dish towel and allow to air dry overnight, and replace the lid if it has one in the morning. Store with the lid on between uses, but only after it has been washed and is thoroughly dry.
Who Ya Gonna Call? Rust Busters! (The Ancient Secret: Tallow!)
If you find rusty spots or areas on cast iron after it has dried, wipe it with a dry cloth. If you will be using the pan again in the next several days, melt a quarter to half a teaspoon of grass-fed beef tallow (or organic virgin coconut oil if you are vegetarian) in the pot or pan and use a paper towel or cloth to spread the melted fat around the entire inside surface of the pot. Wipe it out with a paper towel or a clean kitchen towel dedicated to this purpose. Repeat this step right before cooking as well, if desired. Regular cast-iron does not require soap. For regular cast iron, I will use steel wool sometimes to remove baked-on food after soaking for half an hour in water. After thoroughly rinsing the pan (whether it’s enamel or not), I dry off the pot or pan completely, warm it on a burner to evaporate moisture, or allow it to air dry overnight before putting a cover back on, if it has one. “Cure” with tallow before the next use, if necessary. Please quote me: Tallow is the ultimate rust-buster!
