Pots and Pans!
There are just a few tools we really need to cook. We've covered techniques and knives. Now we move on to pots and pans. Remember, this is NOT a review of pots and pans or an endorsement of any particular brand or type. It's definitions and a description of what the pots and pans are and are used for. I have and have used everything from the flimsy pots at the Dollar Store to pots selling for hundreds of dollars. They all work, some more dependent upon the watchful eye of the cook and some less needy. You use what you have.
Many people practice survivalism every single day--they just don’t think of it that way. Survivalism is more than just learning what to do if the apocalypse comes. Survivalism is knowing how to make the best of any situation. It’s knowing how to make do with the resources at hand. And this is where survivalism intersects with the notion of “sustainable living.” Living sustainably is survivalism. In this group, we’ll not only talk about how to survive TEOTWAWKI--we’ll talk about how to survive from day to day. We talk about everything from fixing a broken zipper to knowing how to stockpile food. Join us for the whole wide range of practical survivalism and sustainable living.
Materials
Stainless Steel: Stainless steel is an alloy of iron, most commonly with nickel and chromium. It usually has a copper or anodized aluminum plate on the bottom to conduct heat because it is a poor thermal conductor. It does not, however, react with acidic foods and it is resistant to scratching and denting.
Aluminum: Aluminum is lightweight, has poor thermal conductivity due to its immediate heat transferance, reacts with acidic foods, and is a favored (unproven) culprit in Alzheimer's. Anodized aluminum doesn't have these faults, being a good thermal conductor, and may not react with acidic foods depending on whether it is coated or not. Anodized or not, aluminum often dents easily and may scratch easily. Coated anodyzed aluminum is a safe and inexpensive alternative to pricier pots and pans.
Copper: Copper was popular before acidic foods like tomatoes were popular. Since copper reacts with acidic foods, it was lined with tin (which was alloyed with lead to prevent tin pest) and we all know what lead does now. Most recently, with the development of cladding, we now have copper clad pots and pans. Copper clad gives you the benefits of both copper and (usually) steel. Copper has the highest conductivity of the metals used for cookery. Unlined copper is still preferred for meringues, foams, and other non-acidic foods. It is expensive, heavy, and requires special attention in care and storage.
Cast Iron: Cast iron is slow to heat, but once heated, it maintains the heat for very long times. It is best suited for really high temperature cooking and for long, slow cooking. It is heavy, relatively cheap (unless it is enameled), rusts (unless it is enameled), reactive with acidic foods, and requires special care, storage, and the occasional re-seasoning.
Carbon Steel: Carbon steel is rolled or hammered into shape. It is a poor thermal conductor, but that's to it's advantage as it is mostly used in wok and paella pans where uneven heating temperatures are required for the cooking process. It must be seasoned and stored like cast iron, because it will stick and rust if not.
Earthenware: Terra cotta pots may be glazed or unglazed. They can be used in ovens and, with care, on the stove top. Tagines, roemmertopfs, bean pots, and other such cook pots are still widely used cook pots.
Glass: Pyrex made of borosillicate glass is most often used as ovenware. It does not go well from the freezer to the stovetop, and doesn't tolerate abrupt temperature changes will. Most Pyrex is not suitable for the stovetop. Corning made a set of Pyrex that was suitable for stovetop use (Visions cookware - I still have mine and love them for certain things, mostly compounding medicinals).
I also have a thin, clear glass soup pot that can only be used to cook very, very liquidy soups, like stocks and broths.
I like cooking chicken feet in it. At Halloween, I tell people I am cooking the hands of aliens because they do look a lot like hands.
Glass-ceramic: Corningware in the US and Pyroflam in Europe, this is the white with the blue cornflowers cookware with which many of us are familiar. It can tolerate freezer to oven or stovetop temperature changes. They are almost entirely immune to thermal shock. They have clip on handles to make the tiny little side tabs more user-friendly.
Leather: Usually of rawhide but we've made deerskin pots in scouts that worked relatively well. Not recommended for every day civilized cooking, but if you're in a survival situation, it is possible to make a pot of animal skin (elk, bison, and bear are more durable than deer, deer is marginally tastier). Rawhide is more durable and lasts longer, but tastes more of the leather than softer brain-tanned deer skin. Only suitable (to our tastes) for meaty, very liquidy soups, and it cooks more like a crockpot than a soup pot.
Woven: The Miwok method of cooking in a basket.
Teflon: Teflon has changed a lot since its early days. Now there are so many different types of Teflon and non-stick coatings with differing degrees of toughness that navigating among them is bewildering. Some are cheap straight interior coatings that need to avoid abrasives, harsh scrubbers, high temperatures, and metal utensils. Others have ceramics, titanium or hardeners added that allow them to be handled the same way as in a professional kitchen - those are very expensive pots and pans, though. I like teflon coated pans for making crepes, blinis, and piki bread.
Pots:
Pot: Pots are cooking vessels with sides as high as their diameter or higher, sloped or straight,, used primarily for cooking dishes which are higher in liquid. It can be metal, earthernware, leather, or tightly woven grasses. Smaller pots have a single handle, larger ones often have either one long handle and a shorter looped handle on the opposite side or two looped handles on opposite sides. Most have lids.
Sizes: Pots are measured in volume and range in size from the 1 cup saucepot to the large 60 quart stock pots. Use the smallest size you need for greater efficiency.
Saucepan/saucepot/pot: Saucepans have one handle, often have a lid, may have a pour spout. The sides are the same diameter as the bottom, allowing for both boiling and simmering. They are measured by the volume they will hold, from as small as 1 cup to as large as 6 quarts. Any large, and they are generally called stock pots.
Sauciere: Like a saucepot, but with sloping sides, best for making sauces. Also called a Windsor pan. Like the saucepan, it is measured in volume and comes in sizes ranging from 1 cup to 4 quarts for home kitchen and larger for commercial kitchens.
Casserole Pot: This pot always comes with a lid. It may be glass (Pyrex, Corning) or enameled cast iron, cast iron, or earthenware. It is used either stove top for simmering thick, juicy stews, or in the oven to slow cook one-pot meals or to make casseroles.
Stock pots: Stock pots have sides that are generally taller than their diameter to allow for long simmering. The sides are generally straight. It will have 2 handles, usually looped ones, for ease in lifting and carrying.
Pans:
Pan: A Cooking vessel with a flat bottom and shallow sides, used primarily for "dry" cooking and frying.
Sizes: Pans are measured in inches across the diameter of the pan, unless it's rectangular, and then it gets the measurement of the sides (A 4"x12" fish fryer, for example, or a square 9"x9").
Skillet/frying pan/frypan: Round, shallow, flat bottomed for pan frying, mostly meats.
Braiser/roaster: The difference between these is that the roaster has a lid and the braiser doesn't. They are oval, shallow, flat-bottomed for cooking chickens and large cuts of beef, pork, or other meats.
Grill pan: Grill pans have ribs for draining the fat off of meats and to leave sear marks as if it had been cooked on a grill. Used Mostly for meats, but also larger cuts of vegetables, like eggplants and large squashes and potatoes.
Saute pan: Smaller than a fry pan, with straight vertical sides for tossing the food as it cooks to allow steam to better escape. Used mostly for vegetables and diced or minced meats.
Griddle: A wide flat pan with no or very low sides, it may have a shallow depression running around its edges and is often rectangular, but may also be round. Used mostly
Wok: Woks are shallow bowl shaped pans, many now come with a small flat bottom for using on the stove top. The round bottomed pans may still come with a wok ring for placing around the fire and balancing the pan on while cooking. It is used for stir frying, deep frying tempura frying, steaming, for infusing salts with flavors, and even for stove top baking.
Specialty Pots and Pans:
Dutch Oven: This is the crockpot before it was electrified - usually of cast iron or of enameled cast iron, it was used for long, slow stovetop or campfire cooking.
Fish Pan: This is an oval or rectangular fry pan used for cooking fish, mostly over a campfire, but also suitable for using over a grill or stovetop.
Omelet Pan: A fry pan with gentle, sloping sides to make flipping and folding the omelet easier.
Crepe Pan: A wide, shallow pan that is either domed or slightly bowl shaped and may come with a batter spreader so the crepe batter can be smoothed across it quickly.
Steamer: While a steamer may be an insert into a pot to be used for steaming, it sometimes comes as a special pot with holes or slots on the bottom so it can sit atop another pot. It is used for steaming vegetables, fruits, fish, and rice and other grains.
Poacher: This is a 2 part pan, one is shallow and the other fits inside and has shallow indentations in it for holding an egg to be poached.
Pressure Cooker: A specialty pot that is designed to build up pressure for faster cooking and frying of foods. Larger ones may also be used for canning.
Kettle: Kettle is often another name for a stock pot.
Double boiler: Two pots that fit together to stack so the bottom one holds boiling water while the top one holds fragile ingredients like chocolate or delicate sauces. It's sometimes used as a steamer.
Deep fryer: A deep, straight sided fry pan used to hold hot oil for deep frying foods.
Chef's Pan: A Chef's Pan is a deep, slope sided pan with a lid that looks like a hybrid between a skillet and a wok, capable of frying chicken, stir-frying, deep frying, sauteeing, and more. It has a long handle on one side and a loop handle on the opposite side.
Bean Pot: The bean pot is a wide bellied narrow necked pot to reduce evaporation used mostly to cook beans. It's glazed inside and out so can't be used for clay pot cookery.
Tagine: A tagine is a 2 prt clay pot. The bottom is a shallow circular piece. For the Moroccan tagine, the top is cone shaped top and a small at the top. Tunisian tagines have a dome shaped top with a small knob for easy removal. The tops collect and return condensation to the food to keep it moist as it cooks a long time at a comparatively low temperature. It can be used in an oven, on the stove top, or on hot coals with more coals piled up around the top of it. It is the Middle-eastern crock pot.
Caldero The caldero is usually cast iron with a tight fitting lid. It is the "everything pot" of the Hispanic kitchen, and many cooks have them in several sizes for cooking rice, beans, soups, and stews. It has loop handles on opposite sides and can be used on coals, on the stove, and if the lid and handles are also cast iron, into the oven.
Karahi: This is the pot of the Indias, round, bowl-shaped, deeper than a wok, with loop shaped handles on opposite sides. It often doesn't have a lid. It's used for stewing, frying, and so on. Originally, they were made of cast iron, but now they are made of stainless, copper, non-stick, and even flat-bottomed.
Wonder Pot: The Wonder Pot is an Israeli stove top baker, shaped sort of like an angelfood pan with a perforated lid and a heat dispurser with a center hole. It is used to bake cakes, casseroles, baked apples and potatoes, and roasts.
Cassole: A French glazed clay pot for cooking cassoulet.
Stovetop Smoker: This device has a base, rack, lid, drip pan, and is used for smoking meats and vegetable son the stovetop. It functions much like a smoker for a grill but produces less smoke. It still smokes, though, so I'd recommend using a vent hood or having an open window nearby if using one.
Cazuela: A cazuela is a dense, heavy, straight sided, round, clay cook pot, glazed on the inside, of Spanish origin for cooking Spanish and South American casseroles and stews. It has no lid, and most have no handles.
Ebelskiver: A cast iron pan of Nordic origin that has dimples in it for making the round, filled pancakes known as ebelskiver.
Paella Pan: These are heavy, slope sided shallow round pans for cooking paella. Some may be slightly oval, but most are round.
Asparagus/Pasta Cooker: This is a tall, narrow stock pot with a removable basket for steaming asparagus and for cooking and draining pasta.
Couscoussier: A couscoissier is a double pot - the base is used for cooking the stew and the perforated top is used for steaming the couscous, rice, or vermicelli that accompanies the stew. It has a tight fitting lid.
Terrine: A Polish pot for cooking stove top casseroles, generally made of glazed clay. It's a wide bellied narrower top pot similar to a bean pot only squatter and often painted with Polish patterns under the glazing.
Fondue Pot: Originally a pot that held seasoned melted cheese over a heat source where the diners could use long skewers to dip food into the cheese. Now, it's also used for chocolate, and even for hot oils or broths for cooking thin slivers of meat.
Teakettle: A enclosed pot with a spout for heating water for tea. Sometimes the spout has a whistle in it so the tea kettle will whistle when the water is hot enough.
Cornbread Pan: A round skillet of cast iron that has wedge division in it for the making of stovetop cornbread and scones.
Olla: An unglazed ceramic jar with a bulbous body and a short narrow neck used for cooking stews and soups in the southwest.
Korean Grill: This is a cast iron domed pan with a drip ledge around it ridges to sear and hold the cooking food, and a pour spout and looped side handles. It is placed over a heat source and allowed to get hot before the food is placed on it. It can also be used to cook Thai and Vietnamese dishes, too. It is sometimes called a reverse wok.
Doufeu: The French doufeu is a cast iron (enameled, now) pot with a recessed lid for placing ice cubes. The dual cooking temperatures make for a moister meat or stew using less water. It does have to be seasoned more highly because the condensation dilutes the seasoning.
Daubiere: The French daubiere is an earthenware version of the doufeu, and uses water instead of ice in the recesssed lid.
Donabe: The donabe is a Japanese clay pot that looks like a soft ball, flattened bottom, rounded sides, domed top. The interior is glazed but the exterior is not. It is used for stove top cooking of soups and stews. The pot's outside must be absolutely dry before heating, it must be heated slowly, and it must never be heated empty or it will crack.
Mongolian Hot Pot: Also called a steamboat and a Chinese Fondue pot and the Japanese shabu shabu, Thai suki, and Vietnamese lau. It is a simmering pot of stock set on the table for diners to cook their choice of ingredients. Some dump all the ingredients in and allow it to return to a boil then dip out what they want, others dip the food in leisurely to cook a bit at a time and eating it with dipping sauces. Afterwards, the fragrant broth is ladled out to drink.
Plett Pan: Made of cast iron, it looks like an ebelskiver pan except the dimples are flat instead of rounded. There are usually 7 indents for making the little Swedish pancakes.
Electric Appliances:
Crock Pot: A glazed ceramic pot with lid inside an electrified heating pot to slowly cook food over the span of hours. Most have 2 settings, some have 3.
Waffle Iron: Under this category are Belgian waffles, waffles, pizzelles, krumkakes, rose cakes, and other deeply indented cakes baked between 2 ornamental hot plates.
Electric Skillet: Just like a skillet only electric. They are often square instead of round, though.
Electric Wok: Just like a slightly flat bottomed wok, electrified.
Electric Deep Fryer: These may or may not have removable baskets for deep frying chips, potatoes, fish, chicken, and other foods. The grease well may or may not be removable.
Electric Griddle: Like a cast iron griddle, only usually nonstick and electric.
Electric Rice Cooker: Automatically steams rice and holds it hot. Some brands will form a crust along the bottom of the rice in the cooker - do as the Chinese do and use that crusty rice for making Singing Rice Soup! I have an electric rice cooker that forms a crust on my rice if I don't get to it fast enough. I eat a lot of Singing Rice soup!
Electric Steamer: Uses electric heat to steam foods.
Electric Panini Pan: Uses electricity to heat ridged plated for pressing panini sandwiches. Can also use a George Foreman grill or an electric sandwich maker or even a waffle iron.
Electric Sandwich Maker: An electric device used for making toasted sandwiches.
Electric Egg Cooker: Makes boiled eggs in an electric cooker.
Electric Crepe Maker: Some are cordless now, but basically it heats up electrically for making crepes. Some you dip the domed pan into the batter, and some your pur hte batter across and spread it with a spreader.
Electric Quesadilla Pan: A round electric sandwich maker to toast filled tortillas.
Electric Hot Dog Roller: Like the rollers at some gas stations, this rolls and cooks the hot dog in family sized portions - electrically, of course.
Electric Popcorn Popper: This comes in three varieties: hot air, theater style, and spinner style. The hot air needs to have oil sprtized on it for flavor toppings to stick. The theater style one is hard to clean. The spinner style, that had a spinning arm at the bottom to stir the kernels is easy to clean but hard to turn over to get the bowl of popped corn off. Stove top remains my favorite way to pop popcorn.
Electric Yogurt Maker: This has several tubs for making homemade yogurt.
Electric Arepa Maker: The electric arepa maker looks kind of like it makes rounded muffin tops, but they use arepa flour or cornmeal that has been prepared for making the flattened Venezuelan breads known as arepas.
Electric Hot Pot: Instead of using propane or coal to heat the hot pot at the table, there are now electric ones. I have one that I use for making Dead Poets Soup and Soup Onna Stick.
Ready Set Go: This machine is versatile. It makes pancakes, individual roulades, omelets, ebelskivers, stuffed soup, individual cakes, pies, burritos, eggrolls, and more. I have one that I take with me when I stay in hotels. With it, a mini fridge, and a Magic Bullet mixer, I can make hundreds of different meals.