If you will forgive pun, skillets always seem to be a hot topic.
More than any other culinary field, there is a constant quest for the best, or at least the best you can afford. I have seen the lustful cycles come and seek the copper, cast ironand carbon steel.
At the Mall of New Hampshire in the 1980s, I remember watching a miraculous display of omelets sliding effortlessly out of a Teflon pan. Then, just a few years ago, the industry largely abandoned the entire Teflon range as a hot potato due to the pot’s ability to emit harmful fumes when heated too much. Less permanent ceramics it immediately filled the void, and we already realize how it can lose its wandless magic.
All this time, cast-iron pans have been waiting in the wings. They are longer, lighter and less fussy than cast iron and carbon steel. They are non-sticky, but that is often fixed with a pat of butter. They look great, and with a little TLC, they’re built for a lifetime of hard work.
All-Clad has been one of the best brands in stainless over the years, but I wondered if some of the more expensive kits were worth a look, especially since some are new to the market and others have been flying under the radar. Along with the 10-inch All Cloth, I ordered similar sized pans from Hestan, Viking, and Heritage Steel. Trying all of this out seemed fun at first, but things got weird and stayed weird for a while, and it was with a bunch of manual data collection and time on the stove that I understood what pans I could recommend.
Pans Labyrinth
A great and easy cheat for someone like me is to use All-Clad’s 10-inch D3 Fry Pan as a base. (“Fry pan” and “skillet” are used interchangeably in this category.) The D3 has been a favorite of America’s Test Kitchen and Wirecutter for years, with proponents looking for features like its surface heat, comfortable handle, and coating (layers of different metals). It is $170 with cover and $150 withoutwhich is a nice chunk of change, but it feels like a fair price for the durability of a lifetime purchase.
I own and love one of the All-Clad’s 4-quart D5 Essential Panswhich is like a pot that sits on top, and has a flat cooking surface. But the cooking surface on the D3 All-Clad pan sent to me for this story was ruled—high in the middle and low around the outside—not terribly, but it surprised me, and of the dozen or so pans I called, it was among the farthest from the problem. I also noticed that the rivets that hold the handle to the pot are not fully engaged. It felt good and didn’t shake, but a representative from All Clothing confirmed that this was wrong. They sent another pan, and the rivets were as they should be on that one, but the bottom was fine. I learned that this amount of dominance is within the tolerance range of All-Clad, but not within mine. What can I say? I like flat pans, I thought, looking sadly at my perfect D5.
I had the same level of trouble with another pot that I had high hopes for. 10 new inches Viking Pure Glide Prowhich I had seen my favorite trade showit has a titanium layer with a cooking surface structure on an aluminum base and a stainless steel bottom layer. Admirably, this combination of materials created a capable non-stick competitor that I would have been more pleased with if it had been part of a better, sturdier pan. The Viking had some temperature management issues that I’ll get to in a moment, and it wobbled or got around so much that the heating oil would make a hole in the middle of the pan. If Viking fixes this, the Pure Glide Pro has the potential to be a hell of a pan, but it’s not quite there yet.
