Are posh pans better?

I’ve been given some money to buy pans & am suffering from choice overload. I want all stainless ones so they can go in the oven if necessary & after some lengthy surfing sessions have 2 likely contenders, John Lewis & Le Creuset (I liked the look of Iittala & Alessi AJM, but don’t want to sell a kidney). Are more expensive pans more durable/ better for cooking, or is it just paying for looks? Any other brands that I should check out?

I have a set by Stella and they are well over 15 years old.

We put them in the oven and dishwasher.

Stella, Circulon & Cristel – all decent brands. Edit – you won’t need to sell a kidney for Cristel, it’ll be both of em plus your liver 😉

Which did a review not so long back.
Tesco finest came out better than Le cruset…!

I have a whole set of le cruset, and apart from the casserole dish, swapped out all foot circulon and tesco… Lighter… Better (I find)..

I’d seriously look at the sainsbury’s finest stuff too!

DrP

I have a set of John Lewis stainless steel pans that we bought when we got married 20 years ago. Used them tonight – good as new. I expect them to outlast me comfortably.

Clever design with a hollow handle spot welded to the pan. Never gets hot and no screws to come loose.

EDIT: looks like they still make something similar

Circulon get a thumbs up from me too.

Armitage Shanks here – I’m a bit of a traditionalist

You can’t miss with Armitage Shanks!

Worth checking the weight, some are bloomin’ heavy when empty!

I inherited some Le Creuset. The pouring spouts on them are infuriatingly useless. They weigh a ton (which I like) and will probably outlive me. No idea how much they cost new so can’t say if they’re worth it.

20 year old set of Meyer stainless steel pans here that are not showing any real signs of age. Sound a lot like cheshirecat’s.

You can’t really go wrong if all steel.

Posher pans might be smoother on the junction to the base than these and I saw some in a shop the other day that had glass and stainless steel lids that looked useful. Copper sandwiched into the base is meant to be better than aluminium.

My big pans were my gran’s from back when they had a farm. They’re probably older than I am, I don’t think they were made by Le Creuset though, I think they were forged in the fires of Mordor. When our sun goes nova, all that’ll be left will be cockroaches and my gran’s pans.

Day to day ones are a batch of Tesco’s I got on their sticker scheme about a decade ago. They’re a bit scuffed now but, well, they’re still pans and still cook things.

John Lewis own brand stainless and classic Le Crueset stove/ovenware(the heavy ones)are the way to go !

Quality basic stainless pans are the most durable. As above I have ones still going strong which are 30 years old. I am not a fan of Teflon coating, they typically last 5 years max and are too easily damaged, I buy simple ones for frying eggs etc and replace fairly regularly. Professional quality stainless are excellent (heavy bases for better heat control) but cost a lot more and are not worth it for most of us.

The classic Le Crueset are excellent, again I have pans 20 years old and have family with pans older than that (40+ years). I paid £80 for a le Crueset Teflon pan and it’s already worn, my daft mistake.

EDIT: These are the sort of stove/oven pans I mean – we have a variety of sizes / shapes. Look after them by using wooden or plastic implements and do the initial seasoning with oil/butter as recommended

Le Crueset

Circulon here too, not too heavy, alway heat evenly and quickly seem to require less heat to cook properly that stainless too.

Middle class thread of the year so far?

you’re discounting espresso machine ones, Dez ?

The last pans you’ll ever need

Okay so it’s the USA website but they’re French; there actual website is French. I have a set of the M150’s that I got as a gift and they are fantastic.

you’re discounting espresso machine ones, Dez ?

Close 2nd 🙂

My wife’s grandparents bought us a set of stainless pans for a wedding present, they wouldn’t have been expensive, just decent stuff from a hardware shop in the local town. 12 years later, they are still in superb condition. No non stick or owt, just decent pans.

While we’re on the topic – what’s a good wok? The OH got a Le Creuset one, which is cast iron, so takes a while to heat up. Prior to that we had a cheapo one which went rusty.

@ DezB – There are 7 months left to improve on it, anyone for a ‘what public school for my Tarquin’ thread?

@ sweaman2 – You forgot the requirement for me to retain all my organs!

I’ll check out Sainsbury’s/ Tecsco tomorrow.

John lewis, Which!? We should rename this place middleclassworld

Read reviews from Chef’s who use this stuff in anger, if its good enough for the pro’s etc its good enough for my tins of baked beans and boiled spuds.

Don’t spend a fortune on over priced marketed rubbish…..take a look at

http://eshop.e-dehillerin.fr/en/inox-xsl-246.html

oh and probably best avoid the copper unless you want to spend hours polishing it to keep it looking nice

Nick1c, a cheap steel wok, kept oiled, will last you years.

When I was skint I made one investment that I do not regret. A set of Scanpan saucepans. That was over 6 years ago.

They are still going strong. Good pans also make you more inclined to cook more.

Non-stick frying pans are a bit of a toss up. The £12 Ikea Tefal one is pretty good. Unfortunately after 2 years the handle is starting to come loose so I will throw it away soon.

Not if you’re MC Hammer

JL one here, going great after 20 years. Much preferred to my Le creusets.

Get a wok from a chinese supermarket and temper it.

I’d not pay a lot of attention to what a chef uses – they will use, abuse and then replace them. I doubt they keep pans as long as us mere mortals.

That was over 6 years ago.

Six whole years…. wow.

Circulon or Meyer SS pans with copper bases here. Used every day and come up looking new regardless of what I’ve managed to burn in them.

Cast for a wok seems a bit daft as the whole idea of iron is it takes longer to heat up but stays hot longer – but I can’t think of anything that you cook in a wok that requires it to stay hot for longer!
Simple oiled steel wok will last much better than a teflon one which will peel after a few years.

Le Crueset for casserole dishes FTW without a doubt.

Stainless pans all seem OK. However, paying a bit more for a quality frying pan is worth it in that they last two or three times as long which justifies the extra cost. We’ve got a Beka one that is still reasonably flat bottomed and non stick after many years of abuse.

Le crueset weigh a ton and mrs zip can’t lift the big pan when it’s full of spuds . They can’t go in the dish washer.
Good for putting your battery in for charging.

They can’t go in the dish washer.

zippy is that just their sausepans? We’ve been putting our casserole dishes in the dw for years and no harm done yet.
Weight is defo an issue.

+1 on edukator’s fry pan theory – you’ll always be disappointed with a cheap frying pan.

Meh. £6 from TKMaxx gets a frying pan that will last a couple of years.

The circulon ones are a good bet, I have some “Jamie Oliver” tefal ones which I’ve used for years, bought for exactly the goes in oven on hob reason. Best bet is heavy solid bottom ones for big pans (large sauté, casserole/pot roast etc) get and light small to mid size ones, in copper preferably, extra weight takes longer to heat but you get a more consistent heat across the inside of the pan than with lighter ones when cooking on a higher heat, small light pans cool very quickly when removed from the heart (or placed in cold water) which is very good for stopping sauces etc scrambling/splitting.

Oh and get a cheap not non stick sauté pan for anything which can /does flash like alcohol.

The only real advice I can give about pans that go in the oven is do not get in the habit of putting them on the hob when you remove them from the oven unless you’re cooking further on the hob. Buy a trivet instead. I don’t know anyone who consistently remembers that the handle on the pan on the hob is 200+ degrees as it just came out of the oven once they’ve put their cloth down/done something else

Google says you get a nasty aluminium frying pan for £25 from TKMaxx which won’t work on an induction hob and would probably melt if I forgot about it on the wood burner. The Beka non-stick stuff survived being forgotten on the wood burner.

mrs zip can’t lift the big pan

We got a set of All-Clad stainless with a copper layer sandwiched between the SS. I love them, but Mrs busydog has wrist problems and they are just too heavy for her to handle, so shopping for something lighter.
Only other issue with stainless is that they do take some work to clean up and maintain.

Shark bait, it might be the wooden handles or mrs zip just loves me to do extra washing up.

What do these “heavy” frying pans weigh? Mine is 1,5kg and 2,6kg with the glass lid.

Six whole years…. wow.

I know, great huh? Pretty sure they’ll last me the rest of my life if I’m careful. They’re backed with a lifetime warranty even if used with metal utensils.

We’ve an AGA and have AGA pans; cast aluminium and with a flat base plus flat lid/recessed handle and a detachable main handle.

Not cheap but work well.

I know nothing about pans, but I will say that Meyer (who make analon) aftersales is outstanding. Our pots and pans are anolon and have been great, non stick lasting well. However, our much used stockpot started to lose the non stick surface. We’d worked out that we’d had it around 10yrs so looked for a replacement. Whilst shopping, we noticed that the Meyer pots had a lifetime guarantee so we emailed them about it. Receipt long gone and couldn’t even remember where we bought it. Meyer responded within hours by asking for a photo. Having sent photo, they asked us to return the pan to them and a brand new £90 pot delivered to us within a week of first contacting them. Probably have around 8 analon items and no probs with any of them but it seems that their no quibble lifetime guarantee really is just that. Worth taking into consideration. The stockpot is extremely light compared to Le Creuset and used for everything – frying, hob, oven, the lot.
PS Mrs T prefers the analon pots to circulon because food can get stuck in the circulon grooves and difficult to clean.
Blimey. Responding to a thread about pots. It’s come to this……

Best non stick I’ve used are GreenPan. Fantastic but do need looking after.

Saucepans I’ve found JL are as good as any.

Frying pans I’ve gone back to properly seasoned cast iron. Tough as nails.