How to Lock Screw in Skillet Handle?

[BadDog]

I've never had that problem. But the handle of my skillets were cast along with the rest of the pan over 60 years ago. Added bonus, can be used as a bludgeoning weapon, and provides a good forearm workout in use.

[SteveHGraham]

Cast iron is great. Except when it's not.

[BadDog]

True.

And it's NOT great any time if my wife gets ahold of it. She's currently forbidden from using my cast iron. She's got a bunch of those green/copper/ceramic/whatever's that last a year or so before beginning to be worse than non-non-stick.

I've no use for those. When I fix breakfast, it's always cast iron. Usually bacon followed by "dirty eggs". Then just scrub the pan a bit, maybe with some salt on a dry rag if something stuck (like reseasoning after my wife screws it up), and back in my private "HANDS OFF" cupboard. Not too long ago I got a sort of "chain mail dishrag" for cleaning them, and I like it a lot. Anything at all chunky left over, scrub it over with that, wipe out, and back in my cupboard. Treated with some care, they are the best "no stick" you can find, not to mention the nice even steady heat.

Side note: I also have "my knives". A bunch of old school carbon steel knives that hold amazing edges, but again, have to be taken care of to prevent rust, and rolling the edges. She uses stainless and tosses them in the dishwasher. Once in a while I fix the edges with a steel. Last time she wanted something that would "cut easily" and snuck borrowed one of my knives, she nearly needed stitches to fix her finger. Busted! The edge on MY knives don't need much opportunity to cut.

[John Hasler]

Sharpen her stainless steel knives on the belt grinder. Less work and it's not like you could ruin them.

[BadDog]

LOL, truth.

[SteveHGraham]

Women never have sharp knives. For a woman, to own a sharp kitchen knife would be like owning a collection of records that aren't total embarrassing crap. It just doesn't happen. To prove a woman lives in a house, all you have to look for are Target knives and Kenny G. If you find Art Tatum or Sviatoslav Richter, the homeowner is a bachelor.

I have had great success with cheap stainless knives and diamond hones. I tried nice Japanese knives, but they were so fragile and demanding I got rid of most of them. I throw my Forschners and Mundials in the dishwasher, and if they get dull, it takes 10 seconds to fix one.

My most amazing knife is a $9 cleaver from The Wok Shop. When it's sharp, you can fold a paper towel in two, hold it out unsupported, and wave the cleaver right through it. Unfortunately, it's carbon steel.

I think cast iron would be perfect if it weren't for scrambled eggs. Fried eggs fall right out, but I have never gotten good results with scrambled.

I got the Teflon pan because I was tired of cleaning my cast iron breakfast skillet by hand. Then I started washing the Teflon skillet by hand. And the screw backed out.

[BadDog]

Cleaning cast iron, even scrambled eggs, is easy with something like this. Completely eliminated the main reason I was reluctant to use my cast iron.

As for knives, I took a quick google search for some examples and found what except for a couple of odd-balls could be my knives on this blog page. Including those with half the blade having been sharpened away.

[SteveHGraham]

That looks useful, but my feeling is that if I can't prevent scrambled eggs from sticking in the first place, I would rather use Teflon.

As for the knives, my grandmother used that brand. After she died, we were allowed to go to the house and pick things we wanted. My relatives went after expensive things. I was amazed that no one wanted her knives, so I took what I could.

[BadDog]

Good choice on the knives. Many of mine belonged to my mother's parents. They came to me in a similar manner, along with her cast iron. Some from my father's parents. Others picked up along the way. My father was a butcher as well, so I learned an appreciation for knives and their care long ago.

Once well seasoned, an iron skillet will do scrambled eggs just fine. I grew up with my grandmother cooking sausage/bacon/ham in that same skillet, almost invariably with scrambled eggs. She always saved bacon grease to wipe it down after cooking, and it was used so much it always just sat on the back of the stove ready for whatever. Until well seasoned though, it can be a mess. Still, once in a while something will leave what amounts to debris behind. In the past, I used salt with a heavy paper towel to scrub it smooth again. But that chain mail rag makes it a small amount of nothing. And it seems to sort of burnishes the seasoning smooth making things better, but maybe that's in my head.

[John Hasler]

I fry scrambled eggs with onions, mushrooms, and cheese in my cast-iron skillet frequently and clean it with no difficulty. Run the steel spatula around it once to break loose anything stuck (usually isn't anything), wipe it out with a paper towel, and put it on the back of the stove ready for next time.

[SteveHGraham]

I think a lot depends on what "scrambled" means to the cook. Real scrambled eggs are stirred up (not merely folded) while cooking in the pan.

If "scrambled" means pouring beaten eggs into a skillet, standing by while they firm up into a disk, or folding them very carefully (folding isn't scrambling) and then flopping them out, my skillets will do scrambled eggs just fine. If it means pouring eggs into a skillet and scrambling them for several minutes while they cook, and then removing them instantly with a spatula, with no trace of egg left sticking to the skillet, then it's a different story. There will always be a certain amount of egg stuck to the pan, which does not happen with fried eggs.

With Teflon, you can scramble eggs and cheese and probably rubber cement with no fat, stirring them all you want, and nothing will stick. You just turn the pan, and everything slides out.

There are a bunch of Youtube videos in which people claim to cook scrambled eggs without sticking, but in the end, the eggs always stick, unless the cooks fake scrambling by folding the eggs. They may not stick badly, but they do stick.

[John Hasler]

SteveHGraham writes:
If it means pouring eggs into a skillet and scrambling them for several minutes while they cook,
and then removing them instantly with a spatula, with no trace of egg left sticking to the skillet,
then it's a different story.

That's exactly what I do and I clean the skillet as I described.