My experience with Le Creuset cocottes

Many of you have questions about the advantages of cooking with in casserole. That’s why today Raquel, author of Los Tragaldabas, tells us about her experience cooking with it, the benefits it offers, gives us some tips to get the best out of it and ensure its upkeep, and inspires us with some recipes you’ll surely love. Welcome to the world of Le Cresuet cocottes!

Le Creuset cocottes have been accompanying kitchens around the world since 1925. This means, besides a long history, a success in their enameled iron cookware that without a doubt are your perfect ally in the kitchen. For me, using Le Creuset cocottes is synonymous with quality, healthy cooking, a perfect result and a perfect presentation at the table. For almost a century cocottes have been recognized for their great performance, durability and such an elegant design.

How to cook in the cast iron casserole

Cast iron is an excellent, durable material and highly recommended for cooking. If you want to know more about its benefits, Miguel explained it perfectly in this post. Enameled iron has the property of retaining heat evenly, which means we don’t have to cook over high heat but rather use medium-low heat, allowing our food to cook perfectly while keeping all its qualities. All this leads to notable energy savings. I always, before cooking, place the casserole on the burner while it’s off, turn on the cooktop to a medium-low temperature, and when it heats up I start cooking in it. That’s the correct way to do it—don’t place it over a strong lit flame, as suddenly exposing it to a high temperature can damage the enamel.

It’s a type of cooking very much like our grandmothers’, that simmering that makes our dishes cook in a traditional way. Stews like this one of chickpeas and spinach, or rice dishes —like this delicious black rice with cuttlefish- are recipes whose results I find perfect and with that concentrated flavor that isn’t achieved in other types of cookware. This is due to how it distributes heat and the vitrified interior, which doesn’t add any additional flavor to the food.

Cast iron can be used safely on any heat source, including induction and the oven. Don’t tell me it isn’t perfect! How many times after preparing our dish do we need to give it a final touch in the oven? Well, you can put the casserole in there without any problem, making your dish come out perfect—you just need to make sure the lid knob is oven-safe (in some models it’s plastic and wouldn’t allow it).

Besides cooking, remember you can use the casserole to keep your food in the fridge or freezer if what we want is to make a dish in advance and have it ready for the chosen day. Even if we want to present a cold dish on hot summer days, it’s the best option to keep our preparation perfect and fresh by simply keeping it a few hours in the fridge. Did you know you can make delicious marinades in the casserole? The enameled surface is non-porous, which makes it perfect both for storing raw foods and for the acidic ingredients used for marinating. A recipe that turned out perfect for me and that I always repeat in it is this Quail Escabeche: the flavor is so strong and delicious that my mother, since she tried it, doesn’t change it for anything.

The variety Le Creuset offers in its cocottes is very wide: sizes, shapes, colors... the goal is to adapt to different cooking styles and meet serving needs, because your table certainly won’t look the same if the presentation isn’t right. With cocottes your table will look perfect and their presentation will be unbeatable, besides the convenience of having used the same dish from start to finish. Tall cocottes, shallow, round, oval, Shallow Casserole type... and the Doufeu, don’t know it? They’re cocottes with the particularity of being able to put water or cold ice in their lid and thus cook while our foods stay perfectly hydrated, ideal for preparing meats and stews with prolonged cooking.

Le Creuset is so confident in its products that it offers you a lifetime warranty! Although the initial investment may seem high, I assure you that every euro paid is amortized because you will likely spend more in the long run if you don’t make a good choice of your kitchen utensils.

Maintenance and cleaning

Maintenance is very important and therefore I leave you some tips to follow:

• To stir, use silicone or wooden utensils. Remember the surface can be scratched with metal items or if you hit it.

• Let it cool before washing with water and soap.

• If there are stuck food residues, don’t scrub it directly with the scouring pad: cover it with water and wait for them to soften, then wash it with a sponge and soap.

• Dry well before storing.

• Do not drag over the ceramic cooktop, lift it.

• Choose the right heat for your casserole; this way you’ll avoid overheating the sides or wearing down the handles.

• Never place on the oven floor.

• Let it heat gradually, that way cooking will be more even.

• To preserve the interior enamel, it’s advisable not to heat the casserole empty. We should always add oil, butter, or any liquid fully covering the bottom of the casserole.

Some recipes

Here are some recipe suggestions to whet your appetite —you’ll surely love them!

Meatballs in teriyaki sauce

Bread in casserole

Carrot cream soup

Winter cocotte

Seafood soup

Old-fashioned chicken fricassee

New Evolution model from Le Creuset

Le Creuset has just launched the new model of casseroles, called Evoltion. This new 2015 model is very similar to the traditional casserole model but offers certain improvements. You can discover them at this post.