In article >,
Louis Cohen > wrote:

> When I saute fish fillets in my stainless (not non-stick pan), they
> stick badly. Last time I made sure the pan was good and hot, and I used
> plenty of oil - they still had to be scraped off the pan.
>
> What's the trick for sauteing fillets so that they don't stick?

Fish is tricky, especially if it's a delicate fillet. And stainless
steel pans are prone to hot spots and sticking, even the high quality
ones with aluminum backing (All-Clad, etc.).

You can try to reduce sticking by frequently giving the pan a jiggle.
"Saute" is French for "jump", so keep those fish jumping.

Some cooks recommend using a pan that is just large enough to fit the
item being sauteed, and using enough fat (oil and/or butter) to give it
some buoyancy. Not enough for deep frying, but enough to lift it off
the bottom of the pan, or at least to fill in all the gaps between food
and pan. If you live with a righteous nutritionist (as I do), that's
not an option. But some of the same cooks will tell you that, if you
fry quickly at the right temp, there will actually be less fat absorbed
into the food than if you fry it for a longer time with less fat in the
pan. Purists might draw a distinction and say that this technique is
frying, not sauteing.

If you want to saute in a minimal amount of fat, your best bet is a
non-stick pan. Teflon certainly works, if you are not paranoid about
the recent news stories that it leaches toxic chemicals (I am not yet
convinced on that). I also have good results with ScanPan cookware.
They make pans with a hard ceramic coating on an aluminum core. Not as
slippery as Teflon, but food releases much better than from SS, and the
ceramic coating is quite durable. More so than the aluminum pans with
anodized coatings.

--
Julian Vrieslander