In article >,
bugbear > wrote:

> A while ago I was attempting to cook a curry.
> The early stage involved frying some onions
> until they were damn near dry, and a dark brown
> colour (like french polished mahogany).
>
> This worked OK, and the flavour was most
> distinctive.
>
> However...
>
> The (Meyer) non stick pan ended up with a tightly
> bonded thin (say 0.3 - 0.5 mm) layer
> of black "stuff", which was not easily removable.
> I tried soaking the pan (for 2 days) and boiling water
> in it, but the stuff wouldn't come off.
>
> I threw the pan out.
>
> Recently, I did the recipe again, using a different
> cast aluminium frying pan. I fried around 1Lb of finely
> sliced onions, using around 10ml of oil.
>
> Same result :-(
>
> Although this time I eventually
> managed to clean the pan, probably damaging the non stick
> in the process, since the cleaning was rather "physical".
>
> Am I doing something wrong, either in the cooking
> or cleaning process?

Yes. You're trying to get the job done too fast, with too much heat.

Isaac