Purchasing, receiving or inheriting cast iron cookware comes with great responsibility — proper care. Thankfully, there are various methods you can follow to clean cast iron cookware properly including the traditional salt method and the controversial soap method. It’s important that you find one that works best for you because, if properly taken care of, cast iron cookware can last several lifetimes and be passed on from generation to generation. The best part of proper care is that the longer your cast iron pot or pan has been in use and the more often it’s been reseasoned, the more delicious flavour you get out of it. In this guide, we discuss several methods at great length as well as how to reseason your cast iron products.

What is Cast Iron Cookware?

Cast iron cookware has been used for centuries by people from around the world. Seeing as these pots, pans, kettles, skillets and dishes are made from 97-99% iron (a commonly found material), they were and continue to be some of the most popular cookware choices. Cast iron is also exceptionally durable and, with the right care, can last for generations.

How to Clean Cast Iron Cookware

Here are a few methods you can follow to clean cast iron cookware properly. Read on to discover how to keep your pot and pans in a good condition for years to come.

Boiling Water

If your cookware has a lot of food particles stuck to it, this method may be your best bet. Just make sure whatever you are planning to wash has enough depth to hold water.

1. Put the item you want to wash on the stove, fill with some water and bring to the boil.
2. After a few minutes, the food particles should begin to float to the surface.
3. Use an appropriate kitchen utensil, like a spatula, and scrape off the extra-clingy food particles.
4. Allow the water to cool and throw it down the drain along with the food residue
5. Rinse out the cookware with hot water
6. Use dry paper towel to wipe away any remaining dirt.

Salt and Water

Salt methods are typically pro chefs’ preferred choice seeing as salt is used to keep the surface of the cast iron cookware smooth and seasoned. Kosher salt is particularly coarse and thus acts as an abrasive cleaning solution for stuck-on food particles.

1. Cooldown the cookware but not completely.
2. Cover the surface with a generous helping of coarse kosher salt.
3. Add just a small amount of hot water to the surface so that the salt forms a paste-like texture
4. Use a sponge to scrape all around the cookware.
5. Rinse with hot water to remove all salt and food particles. Repeat if necessary.

Salt Without Water

Some people believe cast iron cookware should never come into contact with water and thus prefer this method to keep their precious pots and pans clean.

1. Cover the surface of the cookware with a generous helping of coarse kosher salt.
2. Use a paper towel to rub the salt into the stuck-on food particles.
3. Add more salt and continue to scrub.
4. Once satisfied with the results, use a paper towel to wipe off all residue and dump contents into the trash.

Soap and Water

In some circles, washing cast iron cookware with soap is seen as sacrilege because soap can potentially remove the flavour-enhancing seasoning layer of your pot or pan. However, if you follow this method correctly, it can be an excellent way to clean new cookware and remove rust.

1. Put a tiny amount of non-abrasive soap or detergent in the middle of your cookware.
2. Add a small amount of hot water and scrub the surface with steel wool, a scrubber or sponge.
3. Rinse with hot water.
4. Use a sponge or non-abrasive pan and scrub once more with soap.
5. Rinse again.  

How to Reseason Cast Iron Cookware

Though keeping your cast iron cookware clean is important, what you do afterward is what really determines its longevity. After you have cleaned your pots and pans make sure to rid them of all moisture and reseason their surface.

Cast iron can easily rust so make sure it is bone dry before storing it away. We recommend you set your pots and pans on the stove or in the oven at 230-260°C to ensure that all water is evaporated. Once the moisture has been removed, take a paper towel and rub a neutral oil or shortening over the entire pot or pan. Then, take another paper towel and wipe away the excess oil. Place the pot or pan on the stove until it begins to smoke.

Care Tips

Follow these care tips to increase the life of your cast iron cookware.

• Make sure it’s always bone dry before storing. If you leave water in the pot or if you soak it, it can rust.
• Avoid warping by cooling the pot or pan before you bring it into contact with cold water.
• Always wipe away excess oil when seasoning otherwise it will be left with a sticky surface.
• Store without a lid as it can trap moisture inside the pot or pan.
• If you are cleaning the pot or pan in a sink, line it with towels to prevent the bottom from scratching.
• If you use an oven to reseason your pot or pan, make sure it is as hot as possible because it must go past smoking point to smoothly bond with the surface.
• When using the oven, place your cookware upside down and place foil underneath to catch any oil that might drip off during the process.

HOW TO CREATE THE PERFECT WINE LIST

There are two aims when it comes to setting up a restaurant wine list – profit and enjoyability. You want to create a list of wines that your guests will want to order while simultaneously granting you the maximum amount of profit. To do this try these industry insider Core Tips:

Find The Right Flavour Profile

The most important strategy to follow is to match the theme of your food menu with your wine menu. Make sure to compile a list of wines that complement the food you serve, for example, steakhouses should have lots of bold, full-bodied, high-tannin red wines and less floral whites while Asian restaurants will be well off offering a selection of more delicate, spice and fruit-filled wines that counteract the heat.

There are so many different cultivars on the market with diverse flavour profiles that it can be difficult to find a selection that best fits your menu. The flavour and mouthfeel of the wine irrespective of its cultivar can vary based on a number of important factors, for example, higher sugar content results in a wine with a sweeter flavour, whereas high tannin levels make wine feel more dry or bitter in the mouth. So to make it easier we have listed commonly found cultivars and the food they pair well with below.

• Cabernet Sauvignon – poultry and red meat
• Shiraz – vegetables and red meat
• Merlot –  fish, vegetables and red meat
• Malbec – Mexican, spicy food and red meat
• Pinot Noir – grains, mushrooms and poultry
• Chardonnay – poultry and shellfish
• Sauvignon Blanc – vegetables, seafood and Greek
• Riesling – fruit, vegetables and Asian

In order to create a well-varied wine list, you’ll need to consider the following factors and profiles commonly used to describe the flavour of wine.

• Sweetness – when creating a wine pairing, always make sure the wine is as least as sweet as the food. Dry, semi-dry, semi-sweet and sweet are the descriptive words you can use to denote the level of sweetness in the wine.
• Acidity – more acidic wines are better at cleansing your palate, which makes them ideal for pairing with rich, creamy dishes.
• Complexity – wines with complex flavours should be paired with simpler food and vice versa.
• Alcohol content – salty and spicy food is best paired with wines with a lower alcohol content.
• Oak influence – the more oaky the wine, the better it will pair with robust, smoky flavours.

Build The Brand

Restaurateurs often put all their attention on their food menu leaving their wine list as an afterthought. This is a big mistake because your wine list is just as much an extension of your establishment’s brand. Wine carries a rich history and is made with intense labour so with the right selection of wines you can augment the theme of your restaurant and help to tell its story.

For instance, if your restaurant is located on the Western Cape wine route, it makes sense to only use wines from the region. Chances are many of your patrons are coming to the region for tourism and would really appreciate a fully-immersive experience. Similarly, if your restaurant is focused on organic food and produce, it would be a great idea to only sell organic wine.

Knowledge Is Key

Even if your wine menu is neatly laid out with comprehensive but concise information, chances are it can still be confusing for your customers. In general, people don’t know that much about wine and they also don’t like reading so, how do you get them to make a purchase they’ll enjoy? The answer is knowledgeable staff.

It pays to give your service staff training about all aspects of your restaurant including your wine list. If your staff can give your patrons, well-educated recommendations when they place their drinks order, chances are they might even go for a more adventurous or expensive bottle. Some restaurants even do away with the menu entirely and have their bartenders or waitrons interview patrons about the kind of wines and flavours they have enjoyed before in order to make tailor-made suggestions, leaving every patron feeling special and particularly looked after.   

The Perfect Price Points

When it comes to pricing the general rule of thumb is a markup of 2 to 3 times the actual bottle cost. This means a R50 bottle of wine should go for about R100 to R150, which is the average price people expect to pay when dining out. However, what should you do with your more expensive offerings? Certainly, it would be quite difficult to sell a R150 bottle of wine for R450 even for patrons who are better off in the pocket. The answer is price margins.

If you are determined to sell more expensive options, you can play around with the price margins of your entire wine list. For instance, you can make your cheaper wines a little bit more expensive so that you can offer your more expensive wines at a slightly cheaper price point. This way your cheaper wines subsidise your more expensive options securing you a good profit on either option.

Playing around with price margins is a balancing act and you need to make sure that doesn’t seem obvious on your menu. Nothing will turn your customers more off than seeing a wine list where all the wines have clearly been marked up beyond the 2 to 3 times markup. You can get around this conundrum by offering a selection of wines that are not commonly found elsewhere so that your guests can compare your prices with your competitor, allowing you to get away with larger margin adjustments.

The Do’s And Don’ts Of Designing a Wine List

Once you have decided which wines you will be serving, take a strategic approach to listing them on your menu so that you can benefit from maximum profitability:

Do not organise wine by price. People too easily assume that price and quality go hand-in-hand when it’s not really the case when it comes to wine. Mixing them up will force your guests to go over the list in more detail to find what they are looking for instead of just opting for the cheapest or most expensive bottle.

Make your menu easy to read by keeping the list simple and providing important information like vintage, country of origin, body, and price per glass or bottle.

Arrange it in an order that makes logical sense such as dry to sweet, by geographical origin, or body of the wine.

Highlight specially selected mid- to high-priced wines on the menu to upsell or showcase.

Suggest food and wine pairings on menu items.

Keep your wines rotating seasonally to keep it from becoming too stale or boring. This can also help with stock keep as people are more likely to order white wines and rosés during the summer and red wines during winter.