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Restaurant Dining: Sizzling steak plates and platters are a popular choice in restaurants, where they are used to present sizzling entrees directly to the table, creating a memorable and visually striking dining experience for patrons.

Baking Bread and Desserts: The versatility of Dutch ovens extends to baking, allowing for the creation of artisanal bread with a crispy crust and a soft interior. They are also suitable for baking desserts such as cobblers and fruit crisps.

Best for: Almost any food that needs searing, including steak and burgers. Cast-iron pans are ovenproof, so you can use them to roast meats like beef or pork and to bake cornbread, deep-dish pizza, shepherd’s pie, and more. And they retain heat so well that they’re a good choice for deep-frying chicken, doughnuts, or other foods because they keep the oil at a constant temperature.

The details: Cast-iron frying pans are practically indestructible, and they’re handed down for generations in many families. That makes their typically low price even more attractive. And if well cared for, cast iron develops a patina that releases food almost as well as nonstick. But the pans are heavy, and you have to be patient when heating them up because they don’t come up to temperature fast. Once they do, however, they retain heat.

Our tests of coated and uncoated cast-iron pans show how versatile this cookware can be. We sear steaks, brown scallops, and bake cornbread to see how well a cast-iron pan works for home cooks. The best pans ace all these tests. We also judge how easy they are to clean. Because of the enamel coating, the coated pans are a bit easier to clean than the uncoated ones.

Here are two recommended cast-iron pans from our tests.

Frying pans come in a variety of materials. Which type of frying pan is best for you will depend on what you are cooking and the level of maintenance you want to put into your pan. In most cases, you will likely need a few different types of frying pans to satisfy cooking your menu items. Take a look at these five frying pan types to determine which pans you need in your kitchen.