Who says cookware has to be heavy to be high quality? Certainly not the team behind Solidteknics and its Aus-Ion cookware, who has now launched another set of its popular pots and pans on Kickstarter that promise to be even lighter than (but just as strong as) before. Branded as “the world’s only seamless one-piece steel chef pans,” the Aus-Ion pans promise to cook just like cast iron, but weigh just half as much.
While they’re heavier than your disposable coated aluminum cookware, the Aus-Ion line from SolidTeknics is still much less unwieldy than other pans of similar quality. The firm’s 18cm skillet weighs just 0.8kg, the 26cm skillet weighs 1.6kg, and even the largest Sauteuse Bombée/Wok comes in at just 1.6kg. That means that flipping a pancake in one of these pans won’t break your wrist.
So what’s changed from the last time Solidteknics released its pans? For one thing, the company has introduced the shot peening process to create a “luxe satin finish” that not only looks nice, but also purports to allow for tastier food, as seasoning sticks to your ingredients more easily. Shot peening, or shot blasting, is a process by which thousands of steel balls are fired at a pan’s surface to indent (or peen) the pan without actually removing any metal. This minutely hammered surface promises to be better for anchoring seasoning in the ‘craters,’ resulting in tastier food.
Moreover, the company has also introduced their largest piece of cookware yet — the 30cm skillet. Because when you’re cooking with something so light, you’re OK with cooking for bigger groups, right?
Currently, you can order one of these super-light pans from Kickstarter, where the early-bird price stands around $67 for the 18cm skillet. Larger sizes of the skillet are also available, as are a 24cm crépe grid and a 30cm wok. So no matter what cuisine you’re tackling, rest assured that you can do it in a lightweight fashion.
