Casa de Kei: How to Clean + Season Cast Iron Like a PRO

My brother Keisuke, aka Casa de Kei, is a pro. He went to culinary school, paid his dues as sous chef at Spago in Beverly Hills, and is now working alongside our father (also a chef) at Sushi Kuni restaurant in Cupertino, CA. He came over this weekend and we worked on some "kitchen projects" together.

Johnny's cast iron pan has been needing a serious deep cleaning and a shiny new coat, but it has been intimidating. I had scrubbed the hell out of this age-old pan many times, but the burnt steaks and lamb chops just were not coming off. There were layers upon layers of junk that stubbornly would not sponge off.


My pan before the deep clean

And don't they say that you should never wash your cast iron anyway? Doesn't that promote rusting? But that's what Martha did, along with countless other online video tutorials – but it just was not working for our dirty-ass pan. I used sponges, steel wool, and a tawashi. Nothing worked.

So, with Keisuke over, you could understand that I, ahem, put him to work. How should I clean and re-season this pan? Here, he gives us some pro tips of the trade that I had not encountered before. Pssst, KOSHER SALT is the answer.



Et voila! Our cast iron is as good as new.



Well, it still has a little gunk on it but this shall brown meats and vegetables prrrrrrrrretty nicely going forward. Of course, be careful not to burn yourself during this process, the cast iron is, after all, very HOT.

Thanks K for this priceless tutorial!