Dead celebrities, little pigs, sheets to the wind—all sorts of things come in threes. Sometimes they’re bad, like aviation disasters, and sometimes they’re good, like beans, cheeses, and leches. Auspicious or malignant, when there’s a triad, people pay attention.
Such was the case when the Strata pan came into our test kitchen. It’s a new piece of cookware that takes three materials—stainless steel, carbon steel, and aluminum—and combines them into a single pan. While clad stainless-steel pans with aluminum cores are common-place from brands like All-Clad (we like them quite a bit, actually), the combination of a stainless-steel base, aluminum core, and a carbon-steel cooking surface makes the Strata pan unlike any other you can find on the market.
According to Strata, the goal in creating this “carbon-clad pan” was to remedy some of the shortcomings that full carbon-steel pans typically have: heft, uneven heating, and ease of care. We brought the pan in to see whether it lived up to its promises.
Each material layer used in the Strata pan has particular qualities that are useful in cooking. Stainless steel retains heat well, aluminum heats quickly and evenly, and carbon steel develops a slick, nonstick patina over repeated uses that chefs love for searing meat.
The benefits of combining all three show differently depending on what you’re comparing it to. Next to a regular carbon-steel pan, the Strata is lighter, and heats more evenly across its surface. Because carbon steel has low thermal conductivity, even the best carbon-steel pans will demonstrate a little inconsistency in how they heat. Another nice thing about the Strata in comparison to a 100% carbon steel pan is that you don’t have to worry about maintaining a protective seasoning layer on the outside and the handle, which will rust without one. Also, if a carbon-steel pan has a carbon steel handle it can get hot on the stovetop. Something that isn’t an issue with the Strata.
Compared to a stainless steel pan, we found the advantages of the Strata exclusively on the cooking surface. On the one hand, stainless steel can be prone to sticking (especially if you aren’t a particularly skilled chef). On the other, you don’t have to worry about rust spots, which can be a problem for carbon steel pans without an established seasoning. The weight is comparable—compared to an All-Clad of the same size, the Strata pan was only a few grams heavier.
In addition to cooking with it myself, I enlisted test kitchen editor Shilpa Uskokovic into putting the pan through a few tests. She’s one of the kitchen’s carbon steel skeptics because she doesn’t think the benefits you can get are worth the upkeep involved.
She fried eggs, seared salmon, and skin on chicken thighs to get a general feel for cooking with the Strata—particularly whether food would stick to it, and how well it seared.
Before giving her the pan, I put it through the recommended initial seasoning process. First I wiped the cooking surface down with oil and put it on the stove over high heat. Within a minute, the silvery luster of fresh carbon steel began to turn bronze. With another thin wipe of oil, I put the pan upside down in a hot oven for an hour. Once cool, it was ready for action.
The results did not disappoint. The eggs were lacy, and slid gracefully around the pan. The skin on the chicken thighs developed a gribenes-like crackle, and in reference to the fish Shilpa had cooked, food director Chris Morocco said the pan had imparted a “sear of the gods.”
Now to be fair, these results could have a lot to do with Shilpa’s skills and professional training as a chef. Even so, Shilpa liked the pan’s performance and handling, despite her reservations about carbon steel.
The pan has a comfortable handle that makes it easy to maneuver, and a subtle curved lip for pouring liquids from the pan. True to Strata’s claims, the cooking surface heated quickly and evenly, on par with high-end stainless-steel pans like All-Clad. As someone more game for the full carbon-steel experience, I found the pan to be delightful and easy to use. I definitely saw the value add of the Strata’s construction compared to regular carbon-steel pans.
There’s no denying that carbon-steel requires more maintenance than stainless steel. Some people (me) don’t mind the seasoning process, but others (Shilpa) find it unnecessarily tedious—and frankly, she’s not entirely wrong. Carbon steel does take more work, especially at the beginning. Your biggest enemy with a newer carbon steel pan is rust, which easily appears if you aren’t fastidious about drying after washing. Shilpa had the Strata pan make its way through the dish pit to see how it fared when treated like any other pan in the test kitchen. Sure enough, a bit of surface rust appeared. Is it a big deal? No, you can scrub it away and just use the pan again. But is it annoying? Definitely.
In time, and with regular use, the seasoning layer will become robust enough that rust won’t be much of an issue, and you’ll be rewarded with a glossy, naturally nonstick surface. The question is whether you’re willing to go through that initial process.
If you’re a fan of naturally nonstick cookware like carbon steel and are on board for a little bit of maintenance work, the Strata pan is an improvement on the form, bringing out the best qualities of carbon steel (its searing ability and nonstick surface) while remedying several of the less ideal attributes (the weight and thermal inconsistency) through the addition of stainless steel and aluminum.