Circulon cookware
CIRCULON COOKWARE
There are differences between Circulon types!
You may have read another guide on this site about Circulon cookware, one that makes the product sound like a bizarre nightmare. Read on…
A while back, our T-Fal pots and pans, which we thought were pretty “high-end” at over $150 for the set, started wearing after several seasons of use. The non-stick coating was peeling off and the outer enameled paint was chipping. At this stage of our lives, I felt we deserved REALLY good cookware, maybe the kind profesional chefs use. I started my usual routine of searching the internet for information and reviews. I had owned stainless steel cookware, good ones, and I didn’t want to go that route again. I decided I wanted hard-anodized aluminum with a non-stick finish, but I didn’t like some of the features of the typical high-end brand name sets. All-Clad was just too expensive, despite the raves from professionals, and Calphalon was another type that expected you to buy sleeves that slip over the long metal handles of the skillets to keep from burning your hand. Circulon offered an unusual grooved surface inside the base of each piece that supposedly improved cooking and bolstered the non-stick feature, but I could not find as many positive user reviews of this brand as the others.
As I began my shopping search, I was also led to eBay, where much better deals could be had on all sorts of better cookware. While viewing and comparing items, I found commercial levels of several brands, one of which was Circulon. As I read the features of Circulon Commercial from the auction listings, one of the immediate differences found from the standard Circulon sets was the silicon coated handles. I’ll admit I wasn’t looking forward to hand washing all my pots and pans, but I was already treating my Wusthof cutlery with the same care so it wasn’t a big stretch. I bit the bullet and bid on a 13 piece set, and wound up winning it for a very reasonable price.
When the cookware arrived, I was a little taken aback by the stoic appearance of the set. They actually did look like what you’d find in a busy restaurant’s kitchen. But I washed each piece by hand before the first use as recommended, and eagerly awaited our first cooking experience. (By the way, as opposed to the other guide to which I earlier referred, there was no mention in the documentation that came with it that a special cleaning tool was required.) We used one of the skillets first, found it to indeed cook exceedingly well, and what we were frying certainly did not stick at all. The rest of the pots exhibited the same wonderful traits in cooking evenly, heating quickly, and being easy to use. While they were heavier pieces than we’d been use to, the difference was not so extreme as to be a burden.
Now came the moment to clean them. At the first, I used some liquid dish detergent on a sponge, and as I wiped the surfaces inside and out, not one iota of food remained, and I was astounded at how easily they returned to looking brand new. I anticipated problems getting them dry, but surprisingly, a few wipes of a towel dried them completely, inside and out. I was starting to feel pretty good about my choice, but of course, time tells everything. After a few days, I began skipping the detergent step, finding that simply washing under very hot running water had the exact same effect since nothing, and I mean NOTHING was sticking to this stuff! Not egg, not pasta sauce, not fried food, NOTHING. Even if you burned something, it wiped out like it was never there.
We’ve owned the cookware for over three years now. Except for some heat marks on the bottoms of some of them, they look pretty much like they just came out of the box. They have performed beyond our wildest expectations, and my initial trepidation over cleaning has turned into a pleasure simply because of the ease and the result. There is absoluely NO wearing of the non-stick coating that I can detect; as advised in the manual, we have never used any metal utensils with these, sticking with wood or plastic exclusively. We love this cookware so much, we have been buying it as gifts for our children over the years so they too can have sets that they may very well never need to replace.
I have visited the Circulon site and, oddly, they don’t even list as available Circulon Commercial 2 (they modified the style by darkening the color and changing the lids to glass instead of our stainless steel ones). The ONLY place I have been able to find this type at all is on eBay, and I have no idea why this stuff is such a guarded secret, but as long as I can continue to get my hands on it I dont’ care! So please don’t judge Circulon based on what you’ve read about the non-commercial grade cookware. If you shop eBay wisely, and there aren’t always a lot of these sets out there up for auction, you can get a nice, NEW 11 piece set for well under $200 delivered. I hope this has been helpful, and good cooking to you!