Best fry Pan Buying Guide

One of the secrets to cooking well is choosing the right pots.

However, choosing the most suitable pots for our kitchen is not so easy. Before purchasing, it is necessary to evaluate several elements, all essential for the success of our dishes.

Here are five useful tips for making the right choice!

Pay attention to the material of the cookware

The choice of materials is the most important step because each material cooks food differently.

There are usually three characteristics that a good pot material must have :

1. it must be able to distribute the heat evenly (this prevents the food from burning in some places and cooking in others);
2. it must guarantee safety, that is, it must not release toxic substances and must not alter the taste of food at all ;
3. it must also ensure excellent resistance over time and not deform.

The best materials for cookware

Having said that, let’s see what are the most common materials on the market and their most important characteristics:

• stainless steel is one of the most used materials for the construction of cookware; resistant to rust, heat, and impact, easy to clean, and ideal for cooking broths, soups, roasts, and braised meats. Make sure during the purchase that the pans are exactly 18/10 stainless steel to avoid rusting.
• aluminum stands out for its practicality, lightness, and resistance to corrosion; furthermore, by spreading the heat evenly, the cooking of all dishes is homogeneous. Due to the speed with which it heats up, care must be taken that the food does not stick to the bottom of the pot. 
• copper has always enjoyed an excellent reputation for its thermal conductivity; it also preserves the nutritional properties of foods and their flavors unaltered. It is perfect for long and precise cooking, such as risotto and pastry creams.
• cast iron is a material with resistance and durability, in fact very heavy and unwieldy; due to its excellent heat retention, it is particularly suitable for browning, grilling, and braising.
• stone is a porous material that, having poor thermal conductivity, is ideal for slow cooking, thanks to the slow release of heat.
• Finally, the non-stick material covers non-stick pans, it is the most common and lends itself well to all cooking, especially those without seasoning and for quick cooking.

Evaluate different types of cookware

After deciding on the material of the cookware, you need to choose the shape of the cookware. Each type of cooking corresponds to a specific type of pot. 

It starts with the pots used for the first courses (pasta and bulky foods), usually in steel with thicker walls and high edges, moving on to the pans used for the second courses, side dishes, or mixing the sauce into the pasta.

Pans and casseroles cannot be missing in cooking for the preparation of longer and more delicate dishes such as meat sauce, stews, and stews.

On the other hand, to prepare healthy dishes by steaming it is essential to have a steamer or a pressure cooker, whose structure can maintain the nutritional properties of food unaltered.

Check that the pots are suitable for your hob (especially if induction)

When you decide to buy pots for your kitchen, you tend to leave out a fundamental feature: the type of hob.

If you have an induction hob you must be careful to check during the purchase that the pots are suitable for the hob. The induction hob works like a magnet, which, when powered by electricity, generates a large transfer of heat.

Ferrous materials, such as steel and cast iron are perfect for cooking with induction, while pots made of terracotta, copper, stone, or other non-ferrous materials such as aluminum are to be excluded.

For a traditional gas hob, however, it is not necessary to purchase specific pans for the induction hob, as all the materials are suitable for a traditional hob.

Create tailor-made cookware sets by integrating different models

The penultimate thing to consider is the number of pots, which usually varies according to the number of people in the family or the use made.

Each material has specific characteristics and different cooking methods, therefore it is not functional to buy a battery of steel pots only.

We at Coltelleria Piva usually advise customers to create a set of tailor-made pots, choosing different pieces according to their use in the kitchen:

In this way, you can insert different types of pots such as stainless steel pots, non-stick pans for quick cooking, cast iron grills (perfect for meat because it can be preheated), and, finally, special pieces such as pressure cookers. and steamer.

Buy professional brand cookware

The choice the brand of the pots is, therefore, an important choice to take into consideration. Nowadays there are many brands on the market, which are not always synonymous with quality. We should consider those brands that have been producing quality cookware for years.

A good pot is forever or nearly forever.

Among the best-known cookware skillet brands, there are certainly Ballarini, Paderno, Barazzoni, Swiss Diamond, Wald, Le Creuset, Staub, and Emile Henry pots.