Can a frying pan be used to cook?

Frying pans are a very common cooking utensil in our daily lives. When cooking with a frying pan, first of all, the amount of oil and the oil temperature cannot be controlled very well, which can easily cause the food to be heated unevenly. If it is not well controlled, it may also cause the food to burn. Therefore, it is generally not recommended to use a frying pan for cooking.

1. Don’t use a frying pan when cooking

Traditional pots are thicker, transfer heat slowly, and have a small bottom. When vegetable oil is added, it is concentrated at the bottom of the pot. At the beginning, we can estimate the temperature of the oil in a traditional pot or frying pan (see boiling and smoking), and then after stir-frying, the vegetable oil sticks to the food, and the food and vegetable oil are exposed to short high temperatures in batches.

A frying pan spreads the food over a large area of ​​the pan bottom. This makes it difficult for us to control the amount of oil used, and also difficult to mix the limited amount of salt evenly during the frying process. If there is too little oil, foods such as meat and eggs will stick to the bottom of the pot and easily burn. If the cooking time is shortened, the dishes will not be tasty. It also destroys nutrition. This is the biggest problem. The vegetable oil that is in contact with the bottom of the pot over a large area can easily heat up and cause our precious unsaturated fatty acids to be oxidized. It is easy to fry, probably because it is wide enough, so the oil is spread more evenly. It is most often used for frying poached eggs.

2. Braised dishes are also taboo in frying pans

Since it is a braised dish, of course it cannot be separated from soy sauce and salt, and a lot of water must be added to get a good soup in the end. Using the traditional small round-bottomed iron pan to cook braised dishes can help us make dishes with good color while using less soy sauce and salt.

Now imagine how much water you need to cover a piece of fish or some meat in a pan. Because the heat transfer is too fast, some of the water will evaporate quickly, and you will have to add water repeatedly to replenish it. It is difficult to judge the amount of salt to add when using a lot of water and adding salt repeatedly. It takes longer to make the soup into a thick sauce. In fact, frying pans are suitable for mixing cold dishes and boiled dishes.