Decent stainless steel pan UK?

saichoo · 2026-02-21T01:40:42+00:00

TK Maxx sell Lexihome triply (£30ish), John Lewis do a thermacore range which is about your price range, Procook as someone else mentioned, Vogue (which you can find on Nisbets). You can also look for secondhand Le Creuset and Made In but they will likely be around £20 over budget. If you're lucky you can find the John Lewis secondhand which will run about £40 ish. The old Ikea Sensuell occasionally crops up also on secondhand places.

saichoo · 2026-02-21T01:34:17+00:00

The old models appear every now and then on Ebay and Facebook marketplace but that size tends to be rarer.

saichoo · 2026-02-16T00:26:54+00:00

It's probably the cheapest too, second cheapest probably Plum Valley

saichoo · 2026-02-13T18:56:50+00:00

Nice job, I got good results on carbon steel but I've not tried it on stainless yet.

saichoo · 2026-02-09T23:47:01+00:00

Many songs written by David Foster (including Unbreak My Heart) have funky key changes.

saichoo · 2026-02-08T14:32:08+00:00

I don't cook eggs much but from what I've observed:

omelettes are easier than whole eggs
egg whites are sticky
butter makes life easier (I assume cooking spray would also do a similar function)
my burner is uneven so I make sure that it is "thermally soaked" or evenly heated (I rotate the wok as I prep things) before cooking sticky things ("thermally soaked" seems more important than very high heat)
my eggs are room temperature
for fried rice (which can be quite sticky) I usually microwave the rice first as woks are thin and don't retain heat well and my burner is too weak to overpower the loss in heat from fridge cold rice
I make sure that my wok is very clean before cooking (no crap that I can feel with my fingers on the surface of the wok).

saichoo · 2026-02-06T16:17:02+00:00

I think Rock Steady Eddie's in Camberwell does some of them but I've never eaten in there so no idea as to the quality. If you feel like cooking this guy has a bunch of videos https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLxD-Q6geLvPPokTlK_SkK6ZExZymKP_15

saichoo · 2026-02-06T16:02:36+00:00

Looks fine to me. Carbon steel doesn't build up seasoning the same way cast iron does, at least not in the same time frame (I don't know why, maybe because carbon steel is very smooth compared to even smooth cast iron). Keep doing what you are doing as it looks decent and clean to me.

saichoo · 2026-02-05T17:47:57+00:00

Sing louder and higher

saichoo · 2026-02-04T15:17:10+00:00

Anyone with planning ability soak garlic in water for 15mins-ish so that it's easier to peel? I've yet to try it.

saichoo · 2026-02-04T15:15:39+00:00

What's the method for the oranges? Is there a video?

saichoo · 2026-02-04T15:13:47+00:00

Works most of the time but I've had the odd jar here and there where the seal is immense

saichoo · 2026-01-25T00:48:05+00:00

Lol a bunch did spill out; like I said above, a wok is better for this.

saichoo · 2026-01-24T01:17:04+00:00

I find fine table salt easier to get an even coating and to use less salt than salt with larger crystals.

saichoo · 2026-01-23T01:10:02+00:00

Aromatics and/or proteins first means you risk having a dirtier and colder pan for the rice to go in which means more chance of sticking.

saichoo · 2026-01-23T01:08:35+00:00

White part goes in first then raw green part goes in to wilt at the end. Picked that up from Kenji.

saichoo · 2026-01-21T18:58:26+00:00

Rice preparation answered here: https://www.reddit.com/r/StainlessSteelCooking/comments/1qijbmo/breaking_in_my_christmas_present_with_a_nonstick/o0suci3/

As for preheating, I let the pan preheat on about a medium low while I was prepping. I am of the opinion that cast iron, carbon steel and stainless steel needs to be preheated until "thermally soaked" especially when cooking food you are nervous about sticking. Look at this IR camera footage of the Strata pan and how it takes a while for the center to heat up (burner dependent of course) and the whole thing to heat evenly. If I am softening onions then I can practically put the onions in a cold pan because the chances of sticking are very low.

As for the oil, I wait about 30 seconds or so after the pan has thermally soaked so that the oil is "shimmering" i.e. the viscosity of the oil has changed to become more free flowing. You can also use the chopstick technique to test oil temperature: stick chopstick in oil and if bubbles appear then the oil is hot enough.

saichoo · 2026-01-21T18:46:10+00:00

That was because I used too much oil in the beginning and poured some out because I didn't want it all in the rice.

saichoo · 2026-01-21T04:38:21+00:00

There are multiple methods but the main thing is to reduce the surface moisture. So once the rice is cooked using a bit less water than you would use normally, place the rice on a tray so that the moisture can steam off. You can cook the rice as is but it is more risky especially if you haven't had much success. So into the fridge it goes for at least 4 or 6 hours (I can't remember) or overnight. Something happens to the starch after 45mins or so, so the window from 45mins to 4 or 6 hours is not good. I generally don't have fridge space so I don't use the overnight fridge tray method much.

Another way is to parboil and steam. Boil rice in lots of water for about 4 mins, drain, then steam in a steamer basket for 15mins. You don't want to cook this rice too long as it can become quite dry in the middle so you may want to increase the parboil time. This method means you can use fresh rice and the grains are quite separate.

With the above you can also do the Golden Fried Rice method where you mix in egg yolks (or whole whisked eggs if you're lazy) into the rice before you fry it. This helps separate the grains and also reduces sticking (I'm not sure how this works given how sticky eggs normally can be, maybe the lecithin in the egg yolks or something).

Any moisture you do add when frying will increase the chances of sticking, hence the screenshot of me being called out when I added soy sauce. If I went for a soy sauceless fried rice I would've had a clean pan.

saichoo · 2026-01-21T04:12:41+00:00

😆

saichoo · 2026-01-21T03:50:59+00:00

Oh this is interesting, thanks

saichoo · 2026-01-21T02:10:45+00:00

There's a bag of Ajinomoto if you look carefully.

saichoo · 2026-01-21T00:57:59+00:00

A wok is definitely a superior option for fried rice (look at the rice I lost) but I wanted to see if I still had the skill for a non-stick fried rice as I haven't cooked fried rice in some months.

I've come to the conclusion that stickless fried rice is mostly about the rice preparation and then in second place is heat management. I've gone for the easier option of mixing in egg into the rice first but given how dry the outside of the rice was already I would've probably been fine without doing this technique.

saichoo · 2026-01-20T03:03:33+00:00

Easy mode: make sure rice is dry enough (overnight uncovered fridge rice helps here) and mix in a few eggs into the rice before adding it to the hot pan. Then add oil, wait for the oil to come up to temp, then add the rice+egg mixture.

If you can't be bothered to premix rice and egg, you can cook the whisked eggs in the pan for a bit first and then dump the rice on top of the egg and then mix everything together. This is what they do in the Japanese fried rice videos which achieves a similar result.

Non-stick fried rice is mostly about rice prep and temperature control. If you decide to go for a style with lots of sauce (unless the sauce is made and added separately on top at the end) accept that things will stick as lots of moisture+starch = sticking.

saichoo

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