Cooking pan notes
Materials
tl;dr: aluminium is your easy go-to. If you like to spend time cooking, there can be nicer choices.
Aluminium
Upsides:
- light
- cheap
- good heat conductivity
Moderates;
- not always easy to keep clean
- wear easily, through use and through harsh cleaning.
- often relatively thin, which isn't ideal for heat spread
Downsides:
- acidic foods will shorten its lifespan, and may react a little (read: put some aluminium compound in your food)
- health issue: see previous point
Aluminium with coating
- properties of most coating
- avoids the acidic-food issue
Steel
Upsides
- cheapish
- deals well with high temperatures
- deals with acidic food better than e.g. aluminium
- ...so probably lasts longer than e.g. aluminium
Downsides
- conductivity not so good, so does not heat quite as evenly
- ...though with a layered bottom it's good enough for most purposes
- nickel or chrome (verify) bleed into your food a tiny amount
- Not enough to be a general issue, except when you have allergies
- Not an issue for surgical steel pans(verify), but most aren't
Steel with ceramic coating
- Removes possible allergy issue
Carbon steel
Generally similar to cast iron and such
Upsides
- heats more evenly than basic steel
- stronger / less brittle than cast iron
- smaller pores than cast iron, should last longer
- light (useful for camping gear)
Downsides:
- needs care (oil every now and then, avoid soap when unnecessary)
- pricier than cast iron
Purpose dependent:
- Does not retain heat so well
Cast iron
Upsides
- Deals well with higher temperatures
- moderate heat capacity (more if thicker)
Downsides
- won't last long if not treated well (porous, so rusts easily, and harder to clean)
- acidic foods can shorten its lifespan, though this is often overstated
Care:
- wait for it to cool (cold water on a very hot pan is thermal shock )
- oil it between uses and/or before use (significanyly lessens corrosion)
- there's warning against soap, but that's basically because you shouldn't leave it on there. The simplest way not to do that is to skip the soap, but soap will not ruin it.
Cast iron with ceramic coating
Upsides
- removes issue with acidic foods
- removes issue with porous nature
Iron
Does not conduct heat very well. Useful for some specific tasks
Downsides:
- won't last long if not treated well
Copper
These usually have an inside coating of stainless steel, tin, or ceramic.
There are also pans of just copper, but they are only for some specific uses.
Tin, while nicely non-stick, has some footnotes to use, so stainless and ceramic are the most useful for non-chefs.
(note there are also e.g. stainless pans with a copper bottom, for heat spreading, which is basically the same, but without the 'the whole pan looks nice' angle)
Upsides
- conducts well, so
- doesn't need preheating (actually best avoided)
- avoids hotspots
- lets you cook on somewhat lower heat, arguably a little more energy efficient
- people like the patina and/or shined look
Downsides
- very acidic or salty food can corrode any copper it finds
- won't last long if not treated well (e.g. cleaned abrasively. Also, copper is a little too reactive(verify) for dishwasher cleaning, and don't use things like chlorine)
- a tin coating can't stand very high temperatures (e.g. preheating without food/oil), or scratching
- costly
Glass
Typically pyrex or similar.
Arguably not so useful beyond ovens and microwaves.
Upsides
- deals with high temperatures without issue
- does not react
Downsides
- does not deal with thermal shock
- low conductivity
- breaks easily
Terracotta
Ceramic treated for use in cooking.
High heat capacity and bad conductivity, which makes it useful for specific tasks, mostly slow stewing.
Upsides
- convenient for specific tasks
Downsides
- not general-purpose
- won't last long if not treated well (e.g. thermal shock, or not soaking it every now and then)
Silicone
Upsides:
- has anti-stick properties
- deals with high-ish temperatures
Downsides:
- does not deal with fire, so only useful with indirect heat (ovens, microwaves)
May need to be cleaned before first use
what is (property) good for?
Conductivity
More conductivity can
Heat capacity
More heat capacity tends to mean
- a thick layer
- it is easier to spread the heat (avoids local burning on high-ish heat)
- it is easier to have fairly constant temperature
- also making it easier to work with lower temperatures (e.g. stewing)
Less heat capacity tends to mean
- a thin layer
- it is easy to deliver a lot of heat quickly, e.g. useful in wokking
Coatings
Upsides
- anti-stick
- ...so needs less oil
Downsides:
- care. For all coating, avoid:
- scratching with metal
- harsh cleaning
- anti-stick properties also often mean less contact, so it's harder to intentionally singe e.g. potatoes or meat
Teflon
PTFE (for Polytetrafluoroethylene), better known as Teflon
Upsides:
- well-treated teflon is very non-stick
Downsides:
- Health issues: PFOA (tl;dr: no big worry)
TOSORT
Woks are often carbon steel, or sometimes cast iron.
Originally non-coated. Teflon versions were introduced in the west, and picked up in the east, but you can't use metal utensils.
Due to its quick delivery of heat it is best suited for quick frying and searing. Slower cooking such as boiling and stewing can only be done for wet dishes.
Physics-wise:
- thermal conductivity - how quickly it spreads heat.
- thermal capacity - how well it stores heat (formally: how much energy is needed to change temperature)
In more practical terms:
- thermal response - how quickly the inside of the pan reacts to a change in heat (mostly a function of conductivity and thickness)
- hot spots - ...on the inside of the pan, due to fire directly heats the pan only in a few smallish spots.
Material, thickness, and some manufacturing tricks
creates pans for various purposes.
For quick-ish cooking, you want conductivity and response. For example, cheap thin aluminium pans make it easy to quickly fry things.
...and burn things. For slower cooking such as stewing, even delivery makes things much easier. Higher capacity and slower response tend, thicker materials and such make for even heating and avoids hot spots. For example, a thick cast iron pan.
A wok is meant for fast cooking, but the heat is so high that it would
In much cooking, we want
Something with high conductivity tends to heat more evenly ()
Something with low thermal capacity quickly cools off (due to convection and such), though also
For example, aluminium has high conductivity and low capacity,
while cast iron has lower conductivity and higher capacity, and steel is somewhere inbetween.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cookware_and_bakeware
http://www.cookingforengineers.com/article/120/Common-Materials-of-Cookware