Salt - non stick?

[ilovemybed]

Hello all,
As a nipper, my mum would tell me that to make a bare-metal frying pan non-stick, all one had to do was cover the bottom in dry salt and heat it up to a very high temperature, then after a while discard the salt (somewhere safe coz it's hot!). Obviously this effect was only present until one used and washed the pan.

I wonder - has anyone else heard this? Would it work in a camping/open fire situation? It might save some washing up and is fairly environmentally sound.

I used to think this was to do with melting a tiny amount of salt as a coating onto the surface of the pan. Now, I'm not sure though as I found out to melt salt you need to reach over 800 degreesC while aluminium (we had cheap pans...) melts at about 650 degrees, which means the pan would melt and give a nice coating to the salt! So, instead I think it's just a clever heatproof abraisive that means the pan's nice and clean making it less sticky.

Any opinions?

[Ogri the trog]

Ilovemybed,
Yup, you're right there, scorching salt onto a new pan will give it some nonstick abilities, similarly when seasoning a new wok, get it very hot and use a cloth to smear oil around the inside of it. Often books say that the best way of perpetuating this effect is to only wipe out the pot, rather than wash it in detegent and water. My Dad used to tell about his time in the desert, when to wash your mess-tins would waste precious water, instead they'd wander away from camp a few yards and rub sand around the pots etc until they all gleamed. Grasses, leaves etc do a good enough job and can be burnt on the camp fire afterwards.

ATB

Ogri the trog

[Beakytzw]

My Hungarian neighbour, puts a layer of salt onto his baking tray when ever he makes chicken, its definately non stick and soaks up the fat from the chicken. It works a treat.

[Tantalus]

My Dad used to tell about his time in the desert, when to wash your mess-tins would waste precious water, instead they'd wander away from camp a few yards and rub sand around the pots etc until they all gleamed

Ahhhhhh, "Beach" the wonder cleaner :D

Tant

[Motorbike Man]

Hello all,
As a nipper, my mum would tell me that to make a bare-metal frying pan non-stick, all one had to do was cover the bottom in dry salt and heat it up to a very high temperature, then after a while discard the salt (somewhere safe coz it's hot!). Obviously this effect was only present until one used and washed the pan.

I wonder - has anyone else heard this? Would it work in a camping/open fire situation? It might save some washing up and is fairly environmentally sound.

I used to think this was to do with melting a tiny amount of salt as a coating onto the surface of the pan. Now, I'm not sure though as I found out to melt salt you need to reach over 800 degreesC while aluminium (we had cheap pans...) melts at about 650 degrees, which means the pan would melt and give a nice coating to the salt! So, instead I think it's just a clever heatproof abraisive that means the pan's nice and clean making it less sticky.

Any opinions?
I'm not sure if you're actually intending to dump piles of salt all over the place, but if you are, I should point out that that is most definaltely NOT environmentally sound and will quickly kill off anything it's dumped on or around. But of course you knew that and I misunderstood what you were intending ;) :D

[ilovemybed]

I'm not sure if you're actually intending to dump piles of salt all over the place, but if you are, I should point out that that is most definaltely NOT environmentally sound and will quickly kill off anything it's dumped on or around. But of course you knew that and I misunderstood what you were intending ;) :D

Well, I didn't realise that...
I suppose one could dilute it before disposal- we are talking about a couple of teaspoons here, not a couple of kilos. Or get the weeds on the path...

[Motorbike Man]

Well, I didn't realise that...
I suppose one could dilute it before disposal- we are talking about a couple of teaspoons here, not a couple of kilos. Or get the weeds on the path...
Salt was used in times of war by retreating armies to poison land so that the invading armies couldn't grow anything. It doesn't take a lot to kill of the soil. I seriously wouldn't consider disposing of salt in the great outdoors. Another wat to look at it is to see how long it takes for the grass to grow back along the edge of a road after a winter's gritting.

Of course, if you want to get the weeds on the garden path, that's another matter :D

[Toddy]

Ahhhhhh, "Beach" the wonder cleaner :D

Tant

duh! :rolleyes: :D

Cheers,
Toddy