Tomatoes and Cast Iron?

I've heard alot of comments about not cooking tomatoe based foods in cast iron. Is this a 50/50 preference on taste or do you need a well seasoned piece to do this or what?
 
A WELL seasoned piece is the way to go. But do not let is sit in your piece longer than need be. When I make baked beans, there is are some tomato based ingredients in there. That is the only time I use any iron and tomato base products. :glutton:
 
My housemate politely asked if she could make a Paella (Spanish dish of rice, beans, and meat simmered in a spiced tomato base). I turned her loose on our Griswold slant logo No.9 skillet, which has only been used maybe 30 times since it was stripped and re-seasoned. The pan performed beautifully and was not adversely affected, a prompt scrubbing and re-oiling after use was all that it took to return it to normal.
So, in my opinion, tomato based dishes are okay in even moderately seasoned cast iron as long as you've got some other ingredients, and oils in the dish.
The Paella was delicious by the way.
 
Be careful with Paprika and chili powder also. I made chorizo in a skillet that was not well seasoned and I didn't clean it until later that day. It ate up a lot of seasoning that was starting to build up. But the chorizo was good! :icon_thumbsup:
 
I'm new to the cast iron,so it just baffles me on the tomato thing. How did the cowboys make their chili? What about pinto beans?
 
"Real" chili basically consists of meat, chile peppers, onions, and other seasonings. I'm guessing real cowboys probably didn't have tomatoes readily available. I would also guess the type of seasoning built up from constant usage "out on the range" would quickly become impervious to most of the things we say to avoid cooking in ours today.
 
Doug nailed it. Also, keep in mind that people were clueless about iron overdose, and also if you were a cowboy or anyone else you had little choice but to just accept it if some of your food tasted metallic, it's not like you could opt for a teflon pot instead.
Another scary thought; many/most restaurants still use big aluminum stock pots to cook in so that tomato soup your getting as an appetizer might come with a side of Alzheimer's.
 
I cook chili in my cast iron quite often. On one piece that isn't really well seasoned yet, I noticed a very slight bit of the seasoning looking a little thin after slow cooking chili for a few hours.

Well seasoned and once you're done cooking transfer the contents into another container and clean the pot.
 
Thank you all for the input. I kind of thought that about the cowboys,:icon_scratchchin:, just wondering if anyone else thought the same.
 
Thank you all for the input. I kind of thought that about the cowboys,:icon_scratchchin:, just wondering if anyone else thought the same.


The way I see it, and I don't know if this is true.......

When Great Great Great Grandma got a new skillet for her 40th wedding anniversary, she may have wiped it down with some lard, or bacon fat to keep it from rusting. I doubt if she had a long, complicated seasoning ritual that involved exotic oils and very specific temperatures, and 7 layers of seasoning before cooking the first pancake.

Most likely the skillet/pot went into immediate use, and whatever happened happened. Everything was cooked in it, and the world did not end if one layer of the 49 layers of seasoning was stripped off by cooking chili or something acidic once, twice, or 10 times a month.

As much as some of us who collect like to romanticize about people taking great care of their iron, to pass on from generation to generation, we're mostly wrong. For generations people looked at cast iron as a tool, nothing more. My Father has passed tools onto me, Wrenches, files, drills, etc.. Mothers passed on their tools as well. Utensils, pots, pans, recipes, etc....

I'll freely admit that I have pieces that I baby and I have my workhorse pieces, but that's because I collect. I know what I paid for pieces, and I know what they're worth. My workhorse pieces, although some are pretty pricey, I abuse the hell out of them and they never seem to be phased by it.

Ok, that was long... I'll just leave with, use your cast iron, don't worry too much about it.
 
As I truly respect the seasoning in my Dutch oven I was concerned about long cooking/acidic ingredients. Every so often I even fry a mess of bacon in it to help build the seasoning so I don't want to wreck it.

Solution: I bought some litmus paper. The dishes cooked in the Dutch oven turned out to be much less acidic than I had guessed. On a scale from 1 to 14 most came out to be a 6 which is moderate acidity and does not eat my seasoning. I'm talking about chili, meat spaghetti sauce and stews with a lot of onion, etc. Anything with meat in it or sautéed in butter seems to be OK. Onion soup made with a bottle of wine is not recommended. After cooking the moderate dishes are transferred to SS. Chicken & dumplings can sit in the pot until cool.

With the paper you can make what you wish, test it and see if it needs to be removed from your CI. Piece of mind for $2. Even with a short cooking time, some things need to be removed from the CI almost immediately after cooking, like corn bread and up-side down pineapple cake.

Hilditch
 
up-side down pineapple cake.

Hilditch

I loaned my Sister a 12" skillet to cook this in on Easter. There was no way this was going to stay in the skillet for any length of time. We wanted it out, and into our bellies. It was delicious! :glutton:
 
The fact that the cake was so good meant that it wasn't cooked on Good Friday and kept in the pan. I agree Great x3 Grandma didn't worry about loosing a layer of seasoning. She did know cornbread left in the skillet overnight tasted a whole lot like iron bread 'cause Grandpa let her know. Unfortunately this and so many other things about technique using CI didn't get passed along after the 40's so I learned the hard way.

Although I don't consider myself a CI collector, my most prized piece is an 1880 CI wood stove. Made before they invented oven thermometers so your hand told you wether the oven was warm, moderate or hot. If you get a chance, try teaming up your cookware to a CI wood stove for a few meals. It will leave you with a new understanding and appreciation of your CI cookware. Some rental cabins and even a Provincial Park campground in SW Ontario, Canada have wood stoves available for use. They are a treat. That's cookin'!

Hilditch
 
Doug nailed it. Also, keep in mind that people were clueless about iron overdose, and also if you were a cowboy or anyone else you had little choice but to just accept it if some of your food tasted metallic, it's not like you could opt for a teflon pot instead.
Another scary thought; many/most restaurants still use big aluminum stock pots to cook in so that tomato soup your getting as an appetizer might come with a side of Alzheimer's.

When you're eating next to a bunch of cowboys that haven't bathed in a month, nor even had the luxury of a proper outhouse, and in the midst of a heard of hundreds of longhorn cattle... I don't think a little iron taste affected the Michelin rating of the chuck wagon.
 
I also have a ci stove out in the cook shed for heat and cooking purposes.
Getting the temp right and cooking a rustic meal reminds me of a simpler life.
 
A friend lives on a 38 ft sailboat, and they cook and heat with a small cast iron wood stove. When they got it, it stirred my interest in CI, and eventually led me here.
 
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