It was a dark and stormy night. I was grounded by the weather, and the movie I'd planned to check out was history. With the windfall of a three-hour window, I decided to tackle my No. 1 New Year's resolution, a chore too long put off -- cleaning all the pots and pans on the pot rack.
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By Darrell Sapp, Post-Gazette |
Job description: Remove interior stains and scour the outside crud and multi-layers of cooked-on grease from the exteriors of a mish-mash of American (mostly All-Clad) and European brands of cookware. In three hours. What an optimist.
The project got off to an energetic start, but after expending considerable elbow grease and going well into overtime, I threw in the towel. Literally.
The next day I called for help from two experts: Chris Sommer, the consumer service hot-line guru at All-Clad Metalcrafters, and my live-in chemist and food scientist, my husband, Bob Wolke. Both of them agreed that you need the right products to clean specific surfaces, and you should clean your cookware long before it gets this bad. Right.
Chris (who volunteered to make a house call, since his mom lives right down the street, and he'd stop there first for a home-cooked dinner), Bob and I tackled the phase-two pot-cleaning project together a few weeks ago. Here's our advice to you.
Assemble the arsenal
First, gather cleaning products from your own shelves, then go shopping for others appropriate to your specific needs. Fill a basket with all of them so everything is handy.
You may have your favorites, but we chose the following: Bar Keepers Friend (this powdered cleanser that's been around since 1882 is a favorite with the folks at All-Clad), Soft Scrub (liquid) cleanser, Wright's Copper Cream, Scotch Brite green scouring pads, curly nylon scrubbers, thick Handi-wipes, terry cloth and T-shirt rags, Cascade automatic dishwasher detergent, Clorox bleach, white vinegar, baking soda, a vegetable brush, a pointy wooden skewer, table salt and a fresh lemon.
There are many other excellent stainless steel cleaners at hardware, restaurant and janitorial supply stores that will remove stains and discolora-tions. Cameo stainless steel and aluminum cleaner contains sulfamic acid, and it removes discoloration from pans that have been overheated. Keep an eye out for Sheila Spray, a professional product usually purchased by the tub by restaurants but occasionally available in 6-ounce aerosol cans for homemakers. Pan Clean Pre-Wash is a new product being advertised in national shelter magazines but not yet available in Pittsburgh.
Do not even think about using oven cleaner. It contains lye, which can eat into the metal of your pans.
Use cleaning rules of thumb. Wear rubber gloves; some of this stuff would peel bark from a tree. Test a small area of the object to be cleaned with one cleaner, then another cleaner or two for comparison. As you clean, keep changing the rubbing-spot on your cloth or pad or you'll end up grinding crud into crud. Rinse often.
Clean it
Copper: To clean All-Clad's Copper Chef or any copper pan, use Bar Keepers Friend made a bit soupy with water. Using a soft cloth and, moving it often, rub off the tarnish. Finish the outside of the utensil with a commercial copper polish such as Copper Glo. Older pans with brass handles will come to life.
In a pinch, you can dip a freshly cut lemon half into a saucer of table salt, then rub the lemon on the surface of the copper. It works, but the downside is that the acidity of the lemon and the abrasiveness of the salt can mar the finish of a good piece of copper. Stick with a commercial product.
But no matter what you do, copper will tarnish again in time by developing a dark coating of copper oxide. Bar Keepers Friend contains oxalic acid, which is what chemists call a reducing agent; it reacts with the oxide.
White porcelain-lined pots and pans: Their interiors are easily stained, but also easily cleaned. Remove any cooked-on food with a nylon scrubber and Soft Scrub. Then fill the saucepan with water, add two tablespoons of Clorox and allow to sit in the sink or laundry tub for a few hours or overnight. Empty, and wash the pan with hot sudsy water. If any chlorine odor remains, rinse and swirl the interior of the pan with white vinegar straight from the bottle. Why? The chemical in Clorox (sodium hypochlorite) is alkaline and will be neutralized by the vinegar's acetic acid.
Stainless steel: On a regular basis, clean with Soft Scrub or Bar Keepers Friend made a bit soupy with water and rubbed with terry cloth using a circular motion. You can also use a green nylon pad such as Scotch Brite on the interior of the pans. It will leave small scratches which will have no effect on performance. Do not use steel wool pads because tiny bits of the pad can become embedded in the pan's surface and will eventually rust.
For heavy, burned-on grease on the interior of a skillet (shame on you!), the best thing to do is to soften and loosen the crud rather than try to scrape or scour it away.
Here's how. Place the skillet on the range burner. Using a saucepan to ferry water, fill the skillet to the rim, add a few tablespoons of Cascade or other dishwasher detergent. Turn on the range hood and bring the water to the boil. Lower the heat and simmer for 30 minutes. Using a straight-edged wooden spatula, push away the loosened crud from the surface of the pan. It works like a miracle.
Allow the water to cool, or very carefully, decant the water. Transfer the skillet to the sink, and go at any remaining stubborn spots with Soft Scrub or Bar Keepers Friend and water, a soft cloth and elbow grease.
Using this method to clean the outside of a pan with baked-on grease is harder because it has been subjected to higher, longer heat. But it can be done.
To loosen the gook on the outside of a skillet (and inside at the same time), find a pan wide enough to submerge the skillet, something like a deep, wide canning pot or stockpot. Make a solution of water and dishwasher detergent as described above, and simmer for 30 minutes. This is how I cleaned the outside of a once-gorgeous 12-inch crepe pan with 15-year-old baked-on grease, thanks to a teenager with pancake fever.
Once the heavy stuff is off, clean up the remaining spots with Soft Scrub. Clean and scrape the softened crud around the rivets with the point of a wooden skewer.
This method is for stainless steel only because dishwasher detergents contain phosphates and highly alkaline washing soda (sodium carbonate) and are quite caustic. Even though it works, the procedure is not recommended by All-Clad because it could alter the exterior finish permanently. Never use this method to clean LTD, any copper or any nonstick surface.
All-Clad's LTD exterior: You can't scratch the LTD exterior with normal cleaning, according to Sommer. He recommends that you go at it with Bar Keepers Friend and water and a Scotch Brite coarse nylon pad. If you clean the outside every time you use the pan, there's less buildup and less work in removing it. Admittedly, LTD's outer surface is tough to clean, and it can be stained beyond restoration if you don't keep at it. This also applies to similar brands of pots and pans.
Nonstick interior surfaces: Try this: Run a nonstick surface under the tap water. If water sticks in places, expect food to stick there, too.
Nonstick pans are especially vulnerable to crud buildup since we tend to use less oil in them, less oil heats up faster and the dark surface makes it hard to see what's happening.
Don't be fooled by how easy it seems to clean a nonstick pan. Clean it with a sponge and hot, soapy water and elbow grease after each use, until water beads up on it and rolls off.
The problem is that at medium-high heat or higher, oils start to carbonize, forming a hard film on the surface that's difficult to see and scrub off. Almost all problems with nonstick surfaces are caused by a buildup of such invisible layers of cooking residue.
For that reason, never use aerosol cooking spray on a nonstick pan. It's so thin that it burns invisibly onto the pan and causes the surface to eventually "gum up." If you learn nothing else here, remember this: NEVER SPRAY NONSTICK PANS WITH A NONSTICK BAKING SPRAY SUCH AS PAM.
On the other hand, never heat an EMPTY nonstick pan for more than a few minutes. Avoid temperatures above 500 degrees, because most nonstick coatings will break down and produce toxic fumes.
Sommer recommends cleaning nonstick surfaces with a paste made of equal parts baking soda and water. Rub in a circular motion with a soft cloth or sponge. If the baking soda mixture starts turning brown, you're on the right track. If nothing is happening, try substituting Soft Scrub or Bar Keepers Friend for the baking soda. Rinse well and dry.
Non-metallic scrubbing and cleaning pads recommended as being safe for use on nonstick surfaces may also be used, as well as soft brushes such as a vegetable brush.
It's important to realize that the life span of any nonstick coating material depends to a great extent on its use, care and maintenance. It will not last forever.
Cast-iron skillets: Once seasoned, these are a cook's best friend. To clean, give skillets a quick rinse under hot water, scrubbing with a plastic doughnut. If you have crusted meat or burned sugar to contend with, soak the pan until the food is loosened, giving it an occasional scrub. Remove a stubborn spot with a flat plastic or wooden scraper. Shake off the water, put the skillet on the range burner over medium-high heat long enough to dry completely. That will prevent rust.
To recondition a cast-iron skillet, smear it inside and out with a light coating of Crisco, or preferably lard, place in a preheated 250-degree oven for three hours. Animal fats produce the best coatings on these utensils.
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