PrintRachal Ray's oval pan
I don't want to start another discussion about her personality or hr food, but I seem to catch her show more and more frequently, and I'm starting to get intrigued by her pan.
Has anyone used a pan like this, oval-shaped? Is there much advantage to this shape?
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17 Comments:
The shape doesn't even make sense.
Is your burner oval? I think not so how can there be an even heat?
Hunnyoil at 3:17PM on 04/24/08
The basic shape, I think, comes from smaller pans used for whole fish or sides of fish/large fillets of fish. One thought that occurred to me about the larger oval pan is that you could use the differing levels of heat to your advantage, sort of like a wok. That is, the parts off of the burner will have a lower temperature than the part right on the burner so you could, say, brown something and move it to a lower heat portion of the pan (like moving food up the side of a wok) add something else, then bring it all back together. The new electric ranges I'm shopping also have a combine-two-burners options which would put heat under the whole thing while taking up less horizontal room on the range top.
That said, I've seen her use the huge oval pan for pasta, which I don't get. And I'm not likely to get one myself.
ccbweb at 3:24PM on 04/24/08
I've never gotten the oval pan thing. Perhaps it's what her sponsors want her to promote.
wookie at 3:43PM on 04/24/08
Who cares about her pan? I'm in love with her Chambers stove with the pop-up broiler. And BTW I'd love to find out how her refrigerator was retro-fitted and who did it.
RichardCrystal at 3:47PM on 04/24/08
@RichardCrystal--I totally agree with you. I'm not even into the retro/vintage thing, but I love those two appliances.
wookie at 4:03PM on 04/24/08
I don't know much about the pan, but it looks really heavy.
Kerosena at 4:51PM on 04/24/08
I can't wrap my brain around an oval pan! Like you RC and Wookie, LOVE the stove!!
izatryt at 4:56PM on 04/24/08
I didn't really get the concept either, though I did think cooking pasta made sense to me since you can fit the longer kinds in without having to mess with it 30 seconds or so to get everything under water.
I don't really care for the colors, but I do think the silicone handles are probably pretty cool because I bet they cool down out of the oven decently fast. I was looking at some in a store today and it just doesn't do anything for me.
However, the new Electrolux stovetops with the induction burners that boil water in 90 seconds, are MUCH more appealing to me!
bobcatsteph3 at 5:19PM on 04/24/08
It doesn't catch my fancy, but I think the idea behind the oval pans is that if you adjust them "just so", turning them the right way on your stove, you can fit more cooking pot on your stove than using traditional round pots. Or something like that.
ErikaWaz at 5:28PM on 04/24/08
Have you seen her struggle with the weight of that pan? She didn't use that shape until she got her own line of cookware with the orange handles. Now, she's forced to use it, in order to sell it. When I first started watching her, she used a grill for nearly everything she cooked. Holy Stoup, has she changed!
PerkyMac at 6:16PM on 04/24/08
PerkyMac, she's been using that pan as long as I've known of her, and at least to me, it doesn't look like she struggles (it can't possibly outweight the dutch ovens she also uses). Also, there was a pre-RR-line version without those orange handles:
http://www.amazon.com/Anolon-5-Quart-Covered-Helper-Handle/dp/B0007U01P2/ref=wl_it_dp?ie=UTF8&coliid=I2JB36705DVKH0&colid=N9ADZXAWLSKZ
The reviews I saw all mentioned that the pan was very easy to handle (lightweight, with nice handles). They all adored the pan, but I chuck that up largely to fan-dom, which is why I raised the question here. I was hoping for the slim chance that someone might have used it and been able to fairly assess it.
My only question is really about the shape. Obviously burners are not shaped in ovals, but there must be some reason for this design beyond the fish pan (let's face it, who cooks whole fish anymore? Not enough people for there to be a mass-market pan). I wondered, too, about the evenness of heating, since I saw her scrambling eggs in it today, and I think she normally uses it for browning.
ErikaWaz, I think you're probably pretty close. But that raises the question, why does RR need such a pan? And it makes me wonder if, for folks with small stoves (such as the stove that have no real separation between the 4 burners), such a pan might be an advantage, because it would take 2 burners, but leave the 2 others available. I wonder this because soon I will be one of those folk.
Ah well.
renzata at 6:46PM on 04/24/08
we had the same chambers stove in my house when i was growing up, and it is fantastic. especially that broiler!
i have that oval pan. got it super cheap at bbb. it works perfectly.
cybercita at 8:13PM on 04/24/08
I have one oval-shaped pot (not a pan, a pot) and the theory is that I could put spaghetti or other long noodles in it, lengthwise, and they'd fit.
It's a very lightweight pot, and it works well enough for that. Even heating isn't a consideration, since I'm just boiling water in it. I don't use it for much of anything else.
I'd think that an oval pan would have the same sort of heating characteristics as a square or oversized pan that doesn't fit your burner -- the outlying areas wouldn't heat as fast or as well as the interior areas. Whether that matters to you or not -- or even if it's an advantage or disadvantage -- I guess is up to your cooking needs.
dbcurrie at 8:44PM on 04/24/08
Cybercita, you are exactly who I was looking for. What do you mean by "works perfectly"? Can you tell me if it has any special advantage over a round pan?
renzata at 9:20PM on 04/24/08
I've noticed her oval pan also! Everytime she whips it out and fills it with water for pasta I always find myself thinking, "Why the hell is she using that oval pan?"
PumpkinBear at 3:05AM on 04/25/08
The oval shape on RR's pans are basically training wheels to assist with flipping the food. Not everyone can toss the pasta or veggies like Lidia does!
Personally, I think it is a gimmick....with one exception, that being if you have a very small footprint on your stove top...like in many efficiencies....you may not have room for say a classic 10 or 12" fry pan, but could accomodate a pan that is 10" across, but only 6" deep....
I hope that makes sense.
Otherwise, the only oval pan I've ever used was a grill/broiling pan from Le Creuset. Having a pan shape that fits the shape of what you are grilling or broiling is simply more efficient...again due to space constraints...imagine broiling 5 or 6 different entrees, all needed to be cooked to a different doneness.....being able to have smaller, compact pans allows a better workspace for lack of another explanation.
Think of the oval fajita platter....30-40 orders during lunch rush....
2qrs at 6:09PM on 04/25/08
A couple of people said it earlier. I just want to emphasize it because either I heard her say this or I read her explanation. She has a very small kitchen in her home, with a small stove and the oval shape allows her to fit more large pots on the stove. I can't speak to the truth of it, but that's her explanation. Her pots also come with blue handles.She has talked/written about why she designed her Furi knives the way she did, at least the santoku.
NuJoi at 7:04AM on 04/26/08