Drawing to an Inside Straight
January 25th, 2010Gap in Skillet Collection Filled
I finally have a decent #7 skillet
I got a #7 Griswold large logo skillet a year or two ago. The finish on the inside was not perfect, and I delayed in sanding it down, and one day I somehow managed to put another pot in the skillet while the pot was wet. Some kind of electrolysis occurred, and the skillet pitted in two places.
After that, I ordered one from some dealer, and I got a good price, but it had a tiny wobble in it, which is no good for a glass range. Also, the handle had some odd sort of pitting on it.
Last week I Ebayed a third skillet, and it’s perfect. I have it in the oven right now, at 550. I’m hoping I can get most of the crud off without resorting to the clean cycle, which could warp the skillet.
I’m thinking I made a mistake when I concluded that cast iron skillets were wrong for Sicilian pizza. I reached that conclusion after baking with the skillet on a stone. Now that I bake Sicilian on the bottom rack with no stone, I’m inclined to try a skillet again. Maybe the pitted skillet would be good enough to use for this. A #7 skillet is a good size for a one-person Sicilian. It’s about 64 square inches, so about the same as an 8″ square pan.
I called Mike about my latest Sicilian, and he went to the store while we were on the phone and made me give him the particulars. I don’t know if it will work. He’s using store cheese and Pastene sauce, which is not comparable to Stanislaus. The cheese can be made to work, if he tosses it in a little olive oil before he cooks.
Should be interesting. He and I used to hog down Sicilian together by his parents’ pool table. When I think of the food our parents let us buy, I wonder if they were trying to kill us. On Friday nights, my parents used to go out, and they left me enough money to get a large pizza and a whole bag of garlic rolls, and you better believe I ate the whole order, every time.
I hope he gets good results. I owe my pizza success to his tutelage.
January 25th, 2010 at 7:15 PM
Huh… think you might be interested in this one from lifehacker just a few minutes ago:
http://lifehacker.com/5456496/cast+iron-skillet-the-key-to-serious-homemade-pizza
January 25th, 2010 at 8:08 PM
If your having skillet problems try Lodge Cast Iron Cookware.
My mother has an 8″, 12″ skillet and a 5 qt. Dutch oven she inherited from her mother. Damn near 100 yrs. old and still cooking strong. I have the same collection though much newer and have no complaints.
They also make a hibachi-type charcoal grill. It’s a bit expensive but worth every penny.
January 26th, 2010 at 12:04 AM
Thought you might be interested in this article on cooking pizza in a cast iron skillet:
http://food.theatlantic.com/stories/the-cast-iron-secret-to-serious-pizza.php
It includes a link to another super serious pizza experimenter:
http://www.varasanos.com/PizzaRecipe.htm
January 26th, 2010 at 6:52 AM
So, you’ve got a Mill, a frying pan whose bottom is less than flat…
See where I’m going with this?
If you need a method to hold it, see if you have a chuck for you lathe big enough to hold it, and if so, bolt it down using clamps to the mill table. Then clamp the skillet bottom side up in the chuck.
January 26th, 2010 at 8:41 AM
Someone else sent me that.
.
I marvel at the unnecessary tricks people do, in order to make a decent pizza. And when their Rube Goldberg methods sort of work, they claim they have unlocked The Eternal Mystery.
.
I make the best Sicilian I’ve ever eaten, and I don’t do any of that nonsense. I make better thin pizza than any place I know of, and all I do is crank up the Cuisinart, throw the crust on a screen, pull out the screen, and take out the pizza.
.
I’ll bet that pizza is mediocre. Cast iron isn’t as good as a stone. I bought a cast iron pizza pan, and it’s worthless. I was thinking of cutting it up and using it to make an extension for my rotary table.
January 26th, 2010 at 8:43 AM
That comment about Lodge was just to needle me, right? I only have a few pieces of their stuff, and I’m replacing all of it, because it doesn’t compare to the real thing. I write about that a lot.
January 26th, 2010 at 8:51 AM
That link about Varsano’s a few comments up… That guy went down a similar path regarding his experimentation with perfecting pizza at home. Now he has his own pizza place in Midtown Atlanta. I would like to try his pizza, but am reluctant to drive that far just to do it.
.
I am, however, more inclined to drive about the same distance to try this new Korean-Mexican fusion place called Hankook Taqueria.