Episode Details

Superintendent:
Welcome to the Supercast. I'm your host, Superintendent Anthony Godfrey. Have you ever wondered what's the very best way to cookie perfect steak? Some students in the ProStart Culinary Program say it's by using a cast iron skillet on this sizzling episode of the super cast. I head to Mountain Ridge High School with my brand new cast iron skillet in hand, ready for a cooking class like no other. I was inspired to learn the art of cast iron skillet, cooking by one student who appeared on a previous Supercast and said he was having "Steaks-giving" instead of Thanksgiving. Let's start in Ms. Anderson's classroom kitchen, where we prepare our skillet. Tell me about seasoning a skillet. Obviously yours is over 50 years old, so it's well seasoned. Tell us about that process.

Student:
For that process, what we do is we heat up the skillet with just some oil and to kind of rub oil all around the inside to make sure that the oil absorbs within the skillet a little bit and allows it to be more non-stick and it just allows food to cook better on it.

Superintendent:
So I asked Mike Anderson, our Associate Superintendent, who is here with us. Say hi to everybody.

Mike:
Hi everybody.

Superintendent:
He seasoned mine, it was pre-seasoned. And then he seasoned it at home because it needs another layer. So tell me why yours is so much blacker and shinier than any others I've seen.

Ms. Anderson:
My husband's cast iron skillet, I believe he got it from his grandparents, and it has just been used throughout the years. And it's just insanely smooth for cast iron, but you really have to use it in order for it to get that way.

Superintendent:
And we have a couple of students here with us as well. Tell us your names.

Student:
I'm Aaron Butterfield and I will be cooking the steaks for you today.

Superintendent:
What do we have set up here?

Student:
So it's basically getting all your recipe and all the equipment you'll need and the food you'll need. We've got our cast iron skillets, and then we'll preheat those in a minute. Then we have butter, garlic, salt, pepper, and the oil we will be cooking with. We have a thermometer to watch the temperature of our meat, so we don't over or under cook it. And then, just some other utensils that we will be using.

Superintendent:
Now, this really is a nice way to approach just about anything. You have everything right in front of you that you need so that you're not in the middle of trying to cook something on a particular timeline and then find yourself scrambling for what you're missing.

Student:
Yes, exactly.

Superintendent:
Tell me a little bit about the cut of steaks that we have here. They look absolutely gorgeous. I want to spray shellac on that and just put it on my desk because it looks so delicious.

Student:
All right. So we have some ribeye steaks. We opted for the boneless versio