Soapstone is a porous stone that retains heat efficiently and evenly. It’s an excellent material for cookware. Soapstone pans and pots are handmade in Brazil and are able to withstand temperatures twice as high as cast iron and other metal cookware. Soapstone develops a natural non-stick surface and lustrous black patina finish after curing. They can be put in the oven or on the stovetop. Greenfeet sells a range of soapstone cookware. The 12″ pizza stone show here sells for $55.
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Are the items (bowls) without metal microwave safe? Are they dishwasher safe? Unless they are they are not really an equal replacement. Also, can they leach anything back into the foods? And are the elements safe? I assume that there’s pure soapstone and soapstone that’s not so pure (contains other elements). The idea sounds great, I’m just no sure on how this plays out in real life.
Soapstone is a pure stone — it doesn’t leach. People have cooked with it for 4000 years. Like cast iron, these pans need to be cured, so I probably wouldn’t want to put them in the dishwasher.
What kind of heating source would be best? I’m a fan of ceramic heating with glass cooktops, but I imagine these would scratch the heck out of them. Does anybody actually have these?
I’d be very careful with using it in the microwave; try on an inexpensive sample (and inexpensive microwave) first. Because it’s porous, I would expect any water within the stone could be similarly superheated and result in some unpredictable (and spectacular) behaviour.