If You’re Looking for a New Style, Consider Stainless Steel

If you’ll excuse me pun intended, skillets seem to be a hot topic all the time.

More than in other fields of cooking, there is a constant search for the best, or the best you can afford. I’ve seen magic come and go for copper, iron-ironand carbon steel.

At the Mall of New Hampshire in the 1980s, I remember watching the miraculous sight of omelets coming out of a Teflon pan. Then, a few years ago, the industry dropped the entire Teflon line like a hot potato because of the pan’s tendency to emit foul fumes when heated too much. Fragile ceramics he immediately filled the void, and we can already see how he can lose his magic.

All the while, stainless steel pans have been waiting in the wings. It is stronger, lighter and thinner than cast iron and carbon steel. They are not static, but are often prepared with a pat of butter. They hunt well, and with a little TLC, they are built to work hard for a lifetime.

All-Clad has been one of the best stainless products over the years, but I wonder if some of the less expensive products are worth looking at, especially since some are new to the market and some have been flying under the radar. Along with the 10-inch All-Clad, I ordered matching pans from Hestan, Viking, and Heritage Steel. Trying it all out seemed like fun at first, but things got weird and it was still confusing for a while, and only after collecting data and time on the stove did I understand which pans to recommend.

Pan’s Labyrinth

A clever and easy trick for someone like me is to use All-Clad’s 10-inch D3 Fry Pan as a starting point. (“Fry pan” and “skillet” are used interchangeably in this category.) The D3 has been a favorite of America’s Test Kitchen and Wirecutter for years, with proponents looking for qualities like uniform heat on its surface, a good handle, and coatings (layers of different metals). I am $170 with lid and $150 withoutwhich is a good interest rate, but it feels like a high price to pay for the stability of life.

I have and love one of the All-Clad’s 4-quart D5 Essential Panswhich is like a side pan, and has a very good cooking surface. But the cooking surface of the D3 skillet All-Clad that was sent to me for this article was slightly bent in the middle and low on the outside – not bad, but surprising to me, and among the dozen pens I ordered, it was in the farthest category. I also noticed that the rivets that hold the pan handle are not flush there. It sounded good and didn’t vibrate, but an All-Clad representative confirmed that this was not correct. He sent another pan, and the ribs were as they should be on it, but the bottom was very much the same. I learned that this amount of control is within All-Clad’s tolerance, but not within mine. What can I say? I love cooking, I thought, looking longingly at my lovely D5.

I had a similar problem with another pan that I had high hopes for. The new 10-inch Viking Pure Glide Prothat I have ever seen my favorite showit has a layer of titanium baked on top of the aluminum core and a stainless steel bottom. Interestingly, the combination of these materials created a solid non-stick finish that I would be very happy with if it was part of a better, stronger pan. The Viking had heat control issues that I’ll get to in a moment, and it would bend or get so crooked that the heating oil would form a channel in the center of the pan. If Viking fixes this, the Pure Glide Pro has the potential to be a hell of a fire, but it isn’t here yet.