Cookin' With Coal

 
Hoytman
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Location: swOH near a little town where the homes are mobile and the cars aren’t
Hand Fed Coal Stove: Hitzer 354
Coal Size/Type: nut coal
Other Heating: electric, wood, oil

Post by Hoytman » Thu. Feb. 25, 2021 12:01 pm

A simple outdoor grill takes care of any "hot enough" issues and a gas grill is easiest. Soap and water washing doesn't hurt a thing so long as the soap isn't too strong in the water. Trust me, you'll know when it's too strong. My wife applied Dawn directly too a skillet. She hated to show me the spot the soap had made. Decades old seasoning as well. Oh well, nothing a quick strip down and one time over seasoning didn't fix.

We generally do not wash our pans not because we don't want to, but because hot water in the skillet placed on the stove works more than not. On rare occasion will we wash a skillet, but I am not afraid to. My family has washed them since before 1900. Just have to be smart about it and in the water and rinse. Make it quick, dry with rag, finish drying in stove or in oven, lightly oil if using again soon.

Waxing is something else, not new at all as most would have you believe and was/is another process used many decades by my family. Perhaps marketing wax mixed with oils is new, but the practice is not. A lot of times it was done for skillets not often used as most natural fats go rancid after awhile and even skillets well seasoned, blackened with good seasoning yet still dry to the touch can rust without occasional use and care, thus the wax. I won't buy waxed skillets, and it's easy to tell most times when they're waxed because they are simply too shiny without being oily. Often times these people want a premium for a skillet that shouldn't at all cost that much. I prefer to buy seasoned or rusty skillets, or new ones. Some nice American companies out there today and all are producing some very nice products.

Carbon skillets are the only ones I take issue with regarding the seasoning process. I have tried numerous things and the best information I have found came from the Asians seasoning of woks. Clean that puppy over super high heat, like that from an outdoor fish cooker, turn it blue and apply the seasoning, let it smoke off, and you're good to go. Once and done, just like my cast iron. We use ours...I don't take time to apply numerous layers taking massive amounts of time. I find more often than not that the sticking is from a skillet not yet hot enough and/or trying to turn food too quickly before it browns. Oil & butter...heat. It's really that simple.
Last edited by Hoytman on Thu. Feb. 25, 2021 1:45 pm, edited 1 time in total.


 
fig
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Hand Fed Coal Boiler: Harman SF360
Hand Fed Coal Stove: T.O.M (Warm Morning converted to baseburner by Steve) Round Oak 1917 Door model O-3, Warm Morning 400, Warm Morning 524, Warm Morning 414,Florence No.77, Warm Morning 523-b
Hand Fed Coal Furnace: Clayton 7.1/DS Machine basement stove/ Harman SF1500
Baseburners & Antiques: Renown Parlor stove 87B
Coal Size/Type: Bituminous/anthracite
Other Heating: Harman Accentra, enviro omega, Vermont Ironworks Elm stove, Quadrafire Mt Vernon, Logwood stove, Sotz barrel stove,

Post by fig » Thu. Feb. 25, 2021 1:00 pm

Hoytman wrote:
Wed. Feb. 24, 2021 10:53 pm
Lard and a pat of butter, smooth Griswold or bumpy Lodge...either will slide an egg in this house.
I remember an old timer say when he was growing up they were so poor he had to eat lard sandwiches.

 
Hoytman
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Posts: 6019
Joined: Wed. Jan. 18, 2017 11:30 pm
Location: swOH near a little town where the homes are mobile and the cars aren’t
Hand Fed Coal Stove: Hitzer 354
Coal Size/Type: nut coal
Other Heating: electric, wood, oil

Post by Hoytman » Thu. Feb. 25, 2021 1:42 pm

I still have people in my family that use lard like that. Simply spread the lard in bread like butter. It’s a practice started long ago when our family lived in the rural mountains of the bluegrass state. They weren’t poor except only by today’s time and standards , just didn’t have much, didn’t need much and were happier then than most are now.

I’ve seen Mayo used in the same manner. Mayo browns bread up real nice for grilled cheese or hot sandwiches.

 
fig
Member
Posts: 1137
Joined: Fri. Feb. 12, 2016 2:36 pm
Hand Fed Coal Boiler: Harman SF360
Hand Fed Coal Stove: T.O.M (Warm Morning converted to baseburner by Steve) Round Oak 1917 Door model O-3, Warm Morning 400, Warm Morning 524, Warm Morning 414,Florence No.77, Warm Morning 523-b
Hand Fed Coal Furnace: Clayton 7.1/DS Machine basement stove/ Harman SF1500
Baseburners & Antiques: Renown Parlor stove 87B
Coal Size/Type: Bituminous/anthracite
Other Heating: Harman Accentra, enviro omega, Vermont Ironworks Elm stove, Quadrafire Mt Vernon, Logwood stove, Sotz barrel stove,

Post by fig » Thu. Feb. 25, 2021 2:16 pm

Yeh we used to eat mayonnaise and mustard sandwiches when I was a kid because bologna was scarce. In the summer we got to squeeze a couple slices of tomato in between. Missed out on the lard sandwiches though.

 
Hoytman
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Posts: 6019
Joined: Wed. Jan. 18, 2017 11:30 pm
Location: swOH near a little town where the homes are mobile and the cars aren’t
Hand Fed Coal Stove: Hitzer 354
Coal Size/Type: nut coal
Other Heating: electric, wood, oil

Post by Hoytman » Thu. Feb. 25, 2021 2:25 pm

Nothing finer than bread slathered with Mayo and a good slice of home grown tomato on it with some salt and pepper...‘cept one with a slice of sweet onion on it. Of course, some Kentucky round steak doesn’t hurt either.

That’s right up there with wilted lettuce and bacon grease, and BLT’s, biscuits and bulldog gravy, and bulldog gravy with tomato’s.

 
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Sunny Boy
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Coal Size/Type: Nuts !
Other Heating: Oil &electric plenum furnace

Post by Sunny Boy » Thu. Feb. 25, 2021 6:15 pm

ReidH wrote:
Thu. Feb. 25, 2021 8:50 am
You are quite right Paul,
It is not likely I can get the oven hot enough to cremate the residues off a pan in a few hours. It might take days to clean or not work at all.
As these ovens are self clean by being "on" all the time, there is the possibility to perform a long term test.

I have used the yellow can Easy Off to clean cast iron and AGA range parts. It does a good job and may be my best choice now.

Reid

Reid, not quite. A correction is needed. ;)

The antique range ovens are not "self cleaning" because they are "on all the time", it's because the oven's heat source is coming from the oven walls, not a seperate burner, which because the walls are hotter that a modern oven's walls, they don't condense the oven "vapors" that cause modern ovens to need cleaning.

No need to clean when the oven is designed to not deposit baking/broiling gook on the oven walls. ;)

Paul

 
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Wren
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Post by Wren » Tue. Mar. 09, 2021 8:34 am

How I miss the days when girls took home economics! They don't teach it over here anymore. I'm not really on friendly terms with much of the present.
A lard sandwich might sound gross, but if you fry bread in it, or even apply it to dry toast and salt it it is very pleasant. I remember looking askance at my father when he ate that but I eat it myself now although we called it drippings instead of lard?
I have a square of plain knitted wool. I never soak the cast iron but I do dip it in warm soapy water, wipe it out with the wool, rinse it, and the put it at the right end of the range. Then when it's dry I rub more olive oil on and put it in the oven for a bit. I haven't cooked with grapeseed but I'm hearing it's also good for applying to skin.


 
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freetown fred
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Post by freetown fred » Tue. Mar. 09, 2021 10:39 am

W, Native Americans have been doing fried bread for eons. :)

 
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Wren
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Post by Wren » Tue. Mar. 09, 2021 9:52 pm

Have they, indeed? Just remembering, when they brought up lard sandwiches above. Except I'm not clear whether lard and reserved bacon fat(we called it drippings) are the same thing. Too lazy to google it.

 
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Wren
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Post by Wren » Tue. Mar. 09, 2021 10:35 pm

Ok. So I've done a quick google and just skimmed it enough to be arrogant and bet soda farls are older than frybread. I'm guessing my father learned to eat unhealthy fried bread in the British Navy during the war. He ate it about twice a year when I was young and disapproved but now I'm old and it could kill me faster I have it once a year and that's probably too often already. For me I think the cast iron skillet makes it too easy to fry things but my son is cooking quinoa and lentils on the range so no excuse.

 
ReidH
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Post by ReidH » Thu. Mar. 18, 2021 8:20 pm

The victorian British had some pretty nasty bread. A number of fillers added to the flour, alum being an example of one. Bread dough risen with CO2 directly versus adding yeast.
Frying that bread would probably make it more palatable.

Reid

 
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Post by ReidH » Thu. Mar. 18, 2021 8:31 pm

An example of another piece of cookware that can be used when "Cookin' with Coal"
The griddle that replaces two stove covers. Depending on your stove you may be able to install in so that the temps are consistent across the griddle or set up so one end of the griddle is closer to the firebox than the other.
The example in the pictures fits well for 9 inch covers, but I have seen different size number griddles of the same design.
I suppose it can be used for small scale teppanyaki. I will find out how it works for that sometime.

Reid

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freetown fred
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Post by freetown fred » Thu. Mar. 18, 2021 8:37 pm

W, if it drips, it's drippings!!! LOL
Wren wrote:
Tue. Mar. 09, 2021 9:52 pm
Have they, indeed? Just remembering, when they brought up lard sandwiches above. Except I'm not clear whether lard and reserved bacon fat(we called it drippings) are the same thing. Too lazy to google it.

 
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Sunny Boy
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Location: Central NY
Hand Fed Coal Boiler: Anthracite Industrial, domestic hot water heater
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Coal Size/Type: Nuts !
Other Heating: Oil &electric plenum furnace

Post by Sunny Boy » Fri. Mar. 19, 2021 11:10 am

ReidH wrote:
Thu. Mar. 18, 2021 8:31 pm
An example of another piece of cookware that can be used when "Cookin' with Coal"
The griddle that replaces two stove covers. Depending on your stove you may be able to install in so that the temps are consistent across the griddle or set up so one end of the griddle is closer to the firebox than the other.
The example in the pictures fits well for 9 inch covers, but I have seen different size number griddles of the same design.
I suppose it can be used for small scale teppanyaki. I will find out how it works for that sometime.

Reid
I had one like that cast in aluminum, with a detachable handle on one side. Too big to fit down in my Glenwood's 8 inch round cover holes, but might fit 9 inch holes.

But I doubt it was meant for use on wood/coal stoves. It was handed down from an Aunt who got married during WWII, so it was likely made after the war, when aluminum cookware was becoming very popular as war production was shifting over to post war industry.

Most likely it was made to sit on two burners of a gas stove to make pan cakes. However, it was the same shape as the cooktop plates over the firebox - the hottest parts of the cooktop - so it could get maximum cooking temps needed for frying. I hate cooking on anything aluminum so it never got used.

I have a Wagner cast iron griddle that is more rectangular, but fits nicely over the firebox area of the cooktop and that is the pancake griddle now. Doesn't add a bad aluminum taste to food, less likely for food to stick to, and it's a lot easier to clean than aluminum. ;)

Paul

 
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Sunny Boy
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Posts: 25567
Joined: Mon. Nov. 11, 2013 1:40 pm
Location: Central NY
Hand Fed Coal Boiler: Anthracite Industrial, domestic hot water heater
Baseburners & Antiques: Glenwood range 208, # 6 base heater, 2 Modern Oak 118.
Coal Size/Type: Nuts !
Other Heating: Oil &electric plenum furnace

Post by Sunny Boy » Fri. Mar. 19, 2021 11:16 am

Hoytman wrote:
Thu. Feb. 25, 2021 12:01 pm
A simple outdoor grill takes care of any "hot enough" issues and a gas grill is easiest. Soap and water washing doesn't hurt a thing so long as the soap isn't too strong in the water. Trust me, you'll know when it's too strong. My wife applied Dawn directly too a skillet. She hated to show me the spot the soap had made. Decades old seasoning as well. Oh well, nothing a quick strip down and one time over seasoning didn't fix.

We generally do not wash our pans not because we don't want to, but because hot water in the skillet placed on the stove works more than not. On rare occasion will we wash a skillet, but I am not afraid to. My family has washed them since before 1900. Just have to be smart about it and in the water and rinse. Make it quick, dry with rag, finish drying in stove or in oven, lightly oil if using again soon.

.............................................

Same here.

And if there is any stuck-on food I use one of those blue non-abrasive scrubbing pads meant for use on Teflon coated cookware. Removes the burn-on crustiness but doesn't hurt the seasoning.

Paul


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