The Food Lab: Better Home Cooking Through Science

quite dense, with a great heat capacity. But copper pans are
very expensive. I’d love to have a great set of copper pots.
I’d also love to have a lifetime supply of Stilton and a yacht
with an onboard petting zoo. It ain’t gonna happen. If you
can afford a set of copper pots, you are a much richer
person than I. For the rest of us, let’s move on.
Laminated, or tri-ply, pans offer the best of both worlds.
Generally, they are constructed with a layer of aluminum
sandwiched between two layers of stainless steel. They have
the high density of a stainless steel pan, with the great
conductivity of aluminum, making them the pan of choice
for most home cooks (including me!).
Time was that nonstick pans were pretty tough to
recommend. Coatings that flake off or give off noxious
fumes when heated too much are not something you want to
be cooking with. These days, nonstick coatings are more
durable and far safer. You’ll want to own at least one good
nonstick pan for egg cookery.
The subject of cast-iron cookware is so divisive that I
feel the need to go into a little bit more detail about it. Being
a proud owner of both a puppy named Hambone and some
really nice cast-iron cookware, I’ve found that they are
remarkably similar in many respects. They both require a
little work, a little patience, and a whole lot of loyalty. The
main difference is that in return for my investment, my cast-
iron pans give me golden brown fried chicken, sizzling
bacon, corn bread, apple pies, well-charred hash, perfectly
seared steaks, bubbly pizzas, and crisp dumplings.
Hambone, on the other hand, gives me mostly licks, chews,
and a whole lot of poop. You do the math.