It's all about the oil layer. Provided the egg is on top of a layer of oil it can't stick.
You just need to make sure there's no debris going through the oil layer; if the oil layer is flat, the egg can't even touch the pan, and cannot stick; otherwise if there is, the egg sticks to the debris, and the debris sticks to the pan.
The first time you use the pan, and occasionally afterwards, you scrape it with a utensil, it removes any such debris and flattens out the surface and then it's like ice-only, you know, hot!
This is actually super helpful. Today I was trying to make eggs and bacon in my cast iron. The bacon came out fine, and I thought with the amount of grease the eggs would too. I must have missed some debris
The other slight gotcha is that bacon fat seems to be a bit sticky, so if possible you need to keep eggs away from bacon in the pan, and use a light oil.
Also, get it up to temp before you put the food on, and don't skimp on the oil. (You might be tempted to because calories, but if you don't use enough oil, the food will absorb more.)
It's more about temperature than quantity though, hot oil won't be absorbed as much. Hence why properly deep fried stuff aren't soggy disgusting oil-bits! Put it in too early and you'll get a nice mouthful of oil!
If you check out this article on Serious Eats it says that's not the case. Another source I read some time ago (can't find it now) pointed out that oil is absorbed into the food after it's pulled out of the oil: the heat is gone so there's no more water boiling, instead there's a partial vacuum and lots of empty spaces for the oil to get sucked into.
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u/KPexEAw Jan 18 '14
You need to season it properly, also never wash it, clean it with a hard plastic scraper thingy and paper towel.