Hello and welcome back to The Stone Soup Cook! Today, I’m going to wrap up my review of the Smithey 11″ Deep Skillet, although I will from time-to-time be re-visiting it to show you how it’s responding to various different recipes. We spent most of last week going over the features, benefits and performance of this beautiful piece of cookware.
My final two cooks with this pan were corn chowder and another “go” at seared salmon. I’m happy to report that both recipes were a good success.
First up, I went ahead and used this recipe for corn chowder. Please note that the first step in this recipe is to saute some of our old nemesis pancetta. This time, however, the newly-applied seasoning held up just fine:
Here’s the pan after I cleaned and re-seasoned after the chowder:
And the pan was the perfect size to hold the whole recipe of chowder.
In the preparation of this recipe, I really appreciated the longer handle on the pan, which made a heavy load like a batch of chowder easier to manage. In fact, the handle in general has been one of my favorite features of this pan. It is about 6.5 inches, versus the 12″ skillet, which has only a 5″ handle. The longer handle on this pan, coupled with the 1″ helper handle make this pan much easier to keep balanced when transporting from one place to another or when stirring.
Finally, I had another “go” at seared salmon and here’s the result:
This time, I’m happy to report that I got a lovely, crisp sear and there was no sticking.
After I cleaned and re-seasoned the pan, here’s how it looked:
As you can see, the seasoning is starting to build up nicely.
Overall, there is a lot to love about my new Smithey pan and I am very happy with it. I would recommend it without hesitation–with one small reservation.
On the plus side, as advertised, I have had very little trouble building up the new seasoning after stripping it off after the first cook. I would recommend it for roasting, searing and even making stews. I didn’t especially like it for making stock, but I don’t think that’s necessarily a negative–just something that I now know about the pan. It performed its function perfectly well, it’s just not the pan best suited to making stock. I like the handle and the helper handle and I love the overall heat delivery and retention properties. And, yes–it’s gorgeous, so what’s not to love 😉
The lid remains my only reservation about this pan.
On the plus side, it performs great for stovetop functions and for oven functions under 400*, and the lid is dishwasher safe, which I love!
On the down side, because one of the reasons I love cast iron so much is its ability to take the heat, I do fear that I am going to forget the heat limitations of the lid one of these days, and that would be a big bummer.
I hope you’ve enjoyed my review of the Smithey 11″ Deep Skillet–I know I’ve enjoyed sharing it with you!
Tune in starting tomorrow for my next series of articles featuring an abundance of PEACHES!
Until then,
Peace, love and good food,
Keri
