Obsession alert: Enamel cast iron cookware
It’s not often I shop our local Wal-Mart. Truth be told, I’m a Target girl. But last week my son and I braved the cluttered aisles of our local Wal-Mart to look for video games for the PS/2 my brother Matt has lent to him while he’s in Iraq. Afterwards I meandered over to the housewares department, where I was pleasantly surprised to find some enamel cast iron cookware nestled among cheap aluminum saucepans and rice cookers. Not only enamel cast iron, but well made enamel cast iron.
I own a ton (almost literally!) of enamel cast iron cookware, everything from a Le Creuset wooden-handled 1-qt. saucepan with a pouring lip to a 7-qt. Lodge French oven big enough to contain a small turkey — and heavy enough to break a toe should it drop. I don’t really need more cast iron cookware but … well, I kept thinking about that pretty, dark green Tramontina oven. About how my 5.5-qt. red Le Creuset French oven’s finish got burned off during an unfortunate encounter with caramelized onions and high heat and wouldn’t it be nice to have a pan to replace it. Not replace it, exactly, but to stand in for it when I couldn’t be bothered with the extensive cleanup the damaged red oven requires. And how pleasant a boeuf bourguignon or Irish lamb stew would look in the oven, simmering enticingly in that forest green vessel.
Oh hell, who am I kidding? I was back over there in a shot, hoping, praying that throngs of obsessive home cooks hadn’t discovered the 15-lb. treasure lurking on Wal-Mart’s shelves. Whew! My pot was still there, along with a smaller 3.5-qt. version. (I am not, I repeat not buying another pan.) When I got home, I quietly removed the red Le Creuset oven from its dining room perch and brought it to my overflow storage area in the basement, and replaced it with the green Tramontina oven.
Haven’t yet given this new acquisition a test drive … I’m going to replace the plastic knob with something more oven-proof, since it looks like it’ll only tolerate up to 350 degrees F — plus it’s still too hot here to think about braises, stews, and batches of no-knead bread. Give me another couple months. Full report TK.
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