Clay pot, saucepan or cast iron

A clay pot heats slowly and evenly and holds its heat a long time, so it suits dishes that simmer for hours. A saucepan answers at once: it heats fast, cools fast and gives you control. Cast iron sits between — it holds heat almost like clay, but it is heavy and it rusts. None wins outright; each is better for a different kind of dish.

How each of them treats heat

Two things decide everything: how fast a vessel takes heat up and how long it keeps it. Metal conducts heat many times better than fired clay, so a saucepan warms the moment you set it on the ring and cools the moment you take it off. Clay conducts poorly and is thick besides, so it takes heat up slowly — but keeps it just as long.

Cast iron has both qualities at once: it conducts well and it has great mass. So it heats evenly and holds its heat, which is why it is loved for baking and long cooking. That is the ground where it overlaps with the clay pot.

For the same reason the food in a clay pot stays warm after it is taken off the fire. The same quality has another side: the fire does not go out in clay at once. When you turn the flame off, the pot goes on cooking for a while.

Control: where the saucepan wins

A sauce that has to come quickly to the boil and reduce, water for pasta, or anything cooked in half an hour or less wants a vessel that obeys the flame at once. A clay pot does not: a change in the strength of the fire reaches the food late, and sudden changes are not for clay anyway — thermal shock is the commonest reason a vessel cracks.

What each dish asks for

• Clay pot — beans, stews, goulash and anything that simmers for hours on a low fire, where steady, gentle heat matters more than control
• Saucepan — pasta, quick sauces, cooking to an exact temperature and anything that needs the heat to change at once
• Cast iron — baking, frying and long cooking, when you want both fierce heat and good retention of it
• Acidic dishes — uncoated cast iron usually dislikes long cooking of very acidic food, which strips its layer of fat; unglazed clay has no such fault

Weight, durability and care

A saucepan is the lightest and practically indestructible. Cast iron and a clay pot are both heavy, each in its own way, and they differ in what destroys them: iron does not crack from heat but rusts if it is not kept up, while clay does not rust but cracks from a sudden change of temperature and from a knock. The same comparison on the example of the sac is in the text on the iron or clay sac.

A clay pot is not washed with detergent, because the porous wall takes up whatever it is washed with — why, and how it is washed instead. It also has to dry completely before it is put away, which a saucepan does not ask.

Ring and induction

A saucepan marked for induction and cast iron work on an induction hob with nothing added. A clay pot works on induction only with a metal adapter, because clay is not metal and the hob does not respond to it. On an electric ring and on gas all three go, except that clay wants a gradual start.

Heating

saucepan: fast · cast iron: even · clay pot: slow

Holding heat

saucepan: poorly · cast iron and clay pot: for long

Control of the fire

saucepan: at once · clay pot: with a delay

What destroys it

clay pot: thermal shock and knocks · cast iron: rust

Induction

saucepan and cast iron: directly · clay pot: with a metal adapter

Best for

clay pot: dishes that simmer for hours · saucepan: quick cooking