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old cast iron skillets are well seasoned with years of fat...the soap will eat and deteriorate this seasoning later on, i recommend you stop scrubbing them with soap, choice is yours though
There have been several threads about cast iron here very recently, with a lot of very good information about how to season them, and how to handle them properly. Use the Search function to pull them up.
I love my cast iron skillet and clean them with coarse salt and paper towels. For really tough messes a little bit of soap every once in a while is fine as long as you dry the pan and recoat with a bit of oil.
Nothing is better then a ribeye seared on a cast iron skillet.
To me the best thing about a cast iron pan is the way it can easily go from stovetop to oven, so foods that need to be seared, then roasted, do well in cast iron. You can season a pork shoulder or beef chuck roast, sear it all over in cast iron, add some liquid like broth or wine, then cover with foil for a slow braise in the oven under it's tender.
My favorite use for cast iron is for a whole roast chicken. The problem with most roast chicken is that by the time the dark meat is done, the breast is dried out. Searing the bird backside-down in a hot cast iron pan before it goes into a 350F oven gives the dark meat a jump start in temperature which helps dark and white meat finish cooking at the same time. It also crisps up the flabby, fatty skin over the thighs and backbone. Pull chicken from the oven when it's no more than 135F in the breast and at least 180F in the thigh, and after a 10 minute rest the breast will rise to a perfect 140F.
Preheat the pan before cooking in it. Four minutes for my ten inch skillet seems to work, five for my twelve inch. Water should sizzle and bounce a little as it evaporates when it's the right temp.
If you get a gummy feeling in the pan, wipe salt around with a paper towel. It will remove the extra funk without ruining the seasoning.
If you get something real sticky, boil a little water in the pan. That will loosen the stuff and you can use a nylon brush to remove the rest.
Oh, no nylon spatulas either. The pan get too hot and will melt the plastic. Use square faced metal spatulas instead.
Pick up a cast iron dutch oven. Enameled or not, it makes awesome fried or baked chicken and great stews.
Bacon will not only get everyone out of bed in the morning, it will season your pan like nothing else. Make it frequently. Deep fried french fries work great too.
Pull chicken from the oven when it's no more than 135F in the breast and at least 180F in the thigh, and after a 10 minute rest the breast will rise to a perfect 140F.
Sorry, no, this is dangerous advice.
Chicken must reach 165 F to be safe to eat, as the current health alert about 300 reported cases of salmonella poisoning in 18 states involving Foster Farms chicken reminds us.
Every morning I make my husband a dosa (thin savory pancake) using our skillet. Nothing does it better! It also makes great scrambled eggs for me, not mention chicken, and oh yea, toasted cheese!
If this old cooks makes a mess, I just use a crumpled up piece of foil to do the heavy scrapping and then on the salt and hot water. Soap causes the oil based seasoning to break down. In the worst case situation for a dearly loved skillet, it can be sand blasted at a machine shop! If you do use soap or a brillo type pad, be prepared to reseason the skillet as if it were new.
its great for meat, just get it really hot before you grill on it, if you cook at a low tempature it tends to burn faster (if that makes any sense). make sure the heat is evenly distributed, and you wont have issues.
never wash them with soap, they will rust. use baking soda only, and you can "cure" or "temper" you skillet by putting fat on it and baking it for a short time, this will keep it rust proof for awhile. they will eventually rust at times, just wash it off with something alkaline, baking soda, lemon juice, onion peels will work as well.
enjoy
I wash mine with soap all the time. You just have to put it on the burner and dry it thoroughly. Sometimes I have to use steel wool if something like chicken gets burned on. Cleaning it with just baking soda doesn't sound sanitary enough. I've never had mine rust as long as you get them hot enough.
Never put them on the grill I lost years of seasoning with that mistake.
Did you ever make corn bread in an iron skillet? I just bought some apple butter from an apple orchard. I think I'll make some today
Definitely season it some way though. I did a pretty elaborate season with Flaxseed oil, but you can also just cook lots of bacon and over a couple of years it will be nice and slick. Or like I said, do the flaxseed and then cook lots of bacon!
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I lost years of seasoning with that mistake.
