All-Clad 12" Skillet

It is a fantastic pan, and my favorite cooking tool in the kitchen. (I say that as though I have other favorite cooking tools out of the kitchen. But I digress.) Because most of my cooking life up to this point involved nonstick pans -- with the exception of my favorite heavy aluminum pan that was consumed in the Philly house fire -- I had been wary of using this awesome pan for more than searing meat. Before I go any further, it is amazing for searing meat and producing a great simple pan-sauce. You simply can't develop the kind of fond that is necessary for a good pan-sauce in a non-stick skillet.

Being from a non-stick background, I was sure that all sorts of things would stick to it and that it would be a real pain in the rear to clean. But the only thing that seems to stick is eggs (I tried again today during lunch but ended up with a gloppy mess yet again). This morning, I made Seppo pancakes for his birthday breakfast in this pan, and they just slid right off. If you don't properly pre-heat the pan (or if you over-heat it), then you might get the kind of chicken thigh stickage that I got a few weeks ago, but otherwise you'll be fine.

I swear that I will never go back to non-stick, except for eggs. Hmm, and maybe baking pans...

Cleaning is simple. If you are making a pan-sauce of some sort by deglazing, then you are 90% of the way to a clean pan already. If you don't want to make a sauce, that's fine. Just put some water in the pan (to cover the bottom) and act like you are deglazing, except you are taking all the bits off to chuck. If you are too lazy to do this, stick the pan in the sink while it's hot, run some water on it as you swish a scrubby around in it with a little soap, and it's all clean in a matter of seconds. If you wait, it takes longer, but soaking also helps, so either way, it's still a snap.