The Green Earth Pan by Ozeri is a non-stick frying pan with a difference. Using natural ceramic as a coating, it is one of the world’s first frying pans to achieve its non-stick status whist remaining free from PTFE (PolyTetraFluoroEthylene), PFOA (PerFluoroOctanoic Acid) and other harmful chemicals. The “Ecozeri” technology used releases absolutely no toxic fumes into the environment, even under high temperatures.
I was sent the 20cm (8 inch) pan to test out at home, to see if it lived up to the claims. My first impressions were good – this pan has a really good weight to it and has a nice fat bottom (!), it reminded me of one of those old enamelled cast iron pans. The instructions tell you to use a teeny bit of fat when cooking, which is fine by me, and that once the pan is hot you can turn down the heat because it conducts heat very well.
When I first used it I wondered if the non-stick claims were true as it seemed the opposite (I heated it up and put the food in straight away like I would with a teflon pan), but after turning the heat down a little and waiting a minute my eggs just slid off the bottom and were freely roaming around the pan cooking away. Since then I have used it a lot – I’ve let it heat up properly, turned the heat down a bit, added a little oil or butter, and then started cooking. It works really well – the ceramic coating is indeed very slippery and makes things very easy to cook properly. I imagine it’s great for fish, although I haven’t tried fillets in it yet.
The other benefit of the coating is that it’s very easy to wash. There is very little residue left after cooking and so it takes no scrubbing.
20cm is actually quite a small frying pan, even for a house with just two people – it’s big enough for four good quality sausages (the butcher made these ones fresh for us) or two decent portions of vegetable-filled bolognaise. You can also put the whole thing in the oven up to 180C which makes it a useful pan to have. I would definitely consider purchasing the larger pan for when I’m feeding more people.
Obviously I have to comment on the lime green colour – it fits with my taste perfectly (matches my kettle!) and looks great.
You can find the Ozeri Green Earth Pan on Amazon.