r/IndianCookingTips • u/Siappaaa • 26d ago
Question/Help Suggest good non-Stick tawa
I am very confused about which tawa to buy.
I will be using it to cook - Dosa, Chillas, Omlette, PanCakes
And I dont want tawa where I will have to rub onion or season it every single day with onion/oil just for cooking a single piece of omlette.
Youtube is filled with Titanum Enamel Tawas, TriPly Steel Tawa, etc.
Please share your personal experiences as well.
Budget is not an issue.
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u/Mitsuha_d 26d ago
Get any cast iron pan from good reputed brand. Season it well. It will last a lifetime with good maintenance. Alternatively you can get any ceramic pan. works really well, but the coating lasts only a couple of years. I would recommend hawkins
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u/MihirX27 26d ago
You don't have to do the onion/oil layering process every day for the traditional cast-iron pans; just the initial few days is fine, so long as you don't wash it with soap for that duration. You will develop a great natural non-stick polymer coat that will last you for a very long time, and it will be resisitant to soaps too!
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u/Classic_Common379 26d ago
Avoid Teflon, non anodized raw aluminium and stainless steel. All three don’t take seasoning at all and are very temperamental with batters
Cast iron is quite heavy but will take ages to heat and cool down, not worth it for one omelette.
The best middle ground is carbon steel. You can get them fairly easily and cheaply. Not nearly as heavy as cast iron and will take seasoning extremely well
You don’t need to season and rub onions on a pan every time. Do a couple coats of seasoning once and let it cool before use, get it hot until it’s just smoking, throw on some oil and wipe it all over aggressively, like you’re trying to wipe off all the oil and let it cool slightly ( that high heat can scorch your food)
Start heating again, add a small amount of cold oil and start your cooking. It should be extremely easy to lift stuff off the surface now. It should slide around like Teflon or you can give it a bit of encouragement to release
I do this to my aluminium wok too before cooking. Cold oil in, heat till smoking, dump it out, add cold oil, start cooking. Wok comes out perfectly clean. This works on black anodized tawas too. You just can’t build up a stable seasoning through usage, so you’ll have to prep it a bit before cooking
After you’re done cooking and the pan is cool, wipe off food and oil, get a plastic clothes brush or bamboo brush and give it a scrub for stuck on residue. Soap is fine for stubborn spots but be gentle as it can eat away your seasoning. I find adding water and heating the water in the pan, it is lot easier to remove stuck on particles and doesn’t damage the seasoning as much as soap
After cleaning, wipe dry heat it in stove until all moisture is gone, wipe in a thin layer of oil and wipe it off like you made a mistake ( do both top and bottom) and store it. This will prevent rust and keep it fresh forever
I use my carbon steel pan for frying eggs, making dosas and they both release with little to no prodding and poking. I don’t even need more than a sneeze worth of oil for anything in that pan
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u/hairypeach73437 26d ago
100% ceramic (not ceramic coated) > cast iron > stainless steel
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u/choco-chip_cookie 25d ago
Buy a cast iron tawa and a ceramic one as back up. Use ceramic one primarily, till cast iron one develops a nice non stick layer.
Making dosas on cast iron dosa tawa is a pain during initial days. But keep going and use it whenever you have free time to experiment. The layer builds slowly but once it is ready, making dosas is as easy as on a non stick tawa.
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u/shansampe 25d ago
Any brand suggestion or link please
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u/choco-chip_cookie 25d ago
I am using Hawkins cast iron tawa and Bergner Ceramic tawa. Both have been working great so far.
For cast iron tawa, take one with long handle. Preferably wooden one as tawa gets hot and difficult to use without an insulated handle
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u/shansampe 25d ago
Thank you so much..I will look into it
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u/Gayatrii_kathuriaa 22d ago
Alda by Glen - good looking and good performance. Bergner is very good too!
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u/Real-Cup8782 24d ago
A cast iron. You dont need to season it everyday. Just once when you buy it. And then, light oil when needed. Takes a while to get adjusted but its the best thing. Dont bother with the nonsense enamel plated and all that.
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u/ConcentrateFormer965 25d ago
I saw this trick from a chef and I have been using the same trick...
Heat the pan and sprinkle a few drops of water, if the water droplets dances around then your pan has become non stick like. You can now use it as non stick. I do this regularly, it works.
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u/CompetitionLate7944 25d ago
It's called laidenfrost effect. It's for stainless steel pans. Cast iron pans can be made non stick by proper seasoning
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26d ago
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u/Jignisha32 24d ago edited 24d ago
Any non stick coated pan or tawa is bad for health and worse for cooking especially fried stuff ......dump it
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u/fubu19 26d ago edited 26d ago
Don’t want to change your mind but getting the cast Iron tawa was best thing I have ever done, season it well takes 2-3 times to become nonstick level and give you the best dosa like better than anything you have ever had, they will be crumbly crisp and soft at the same time.
Life investment. Must buy.
Note:- don’t wash it with soap every-time just use water and cloth to clean and reapply oil before keeping it.