So you’ve just cooked a fry-up (not one made up of 135 items, sadly), and are being very responsible by washing up your frying pan immediately after.
Stop right now.
Thank you very much.
That pan needs some scraping before you touch.
It turns out that you really shouldn’t clean your frying pan by immediately running it under water in your sink.
Instead, we’re all supposed to leave our pans to cool after use, then scrape away leftover grease to either reuse or put in the bin, then wipe leftover oil out of the pan with kitchen roll. Do all of that before giving your pan a good wipe down.
You may be wondering why, and the answer is the same as the justification for many other things we do: our world is polluted and burning and we need to make some attempt to save it.
Oh, and you’ll also avoid clogging up your pipes and causing a big old mess.
When you rinse your frying pan immediately after use, you splash all the oil leftover inside right down the drain.
This is bad, because oils, fats, and grease congeal and cause blockages, which can lead to all sorts of unpleasant stuff like clogged drains and explosions of sewage.
But it’s also bad because all those oils make their way into our water sources, further polluting our lakes, streams, and seas with nasty stuff.
The warning about cleaning frying pans without just tipping oil and grease down the sink comes from the Department for Environment, Food, and Rural Affairs (Defra, if you prefer something a little more catchy), who have launched a campaign to reduce the amount of oil the nation is dumping into our waterways.
They say that even one litre of oil poured down the sink (which, no, you wouldn’t do all in one go, but it all adds up) can pollute one million litres of water.
Sir James Bevan, chief executive of the Enivornment Agency, said: ‘Most people agree that water is a precious resource but too often we take it for granted and don’t see how our actions have a direct effect on the local rivers, lakes and beaches we all care about.
‘Our campaign intends to change that by urging people to use water wisely and to think before pouring cooking oil down the drain or flushing a wet wipe away.
‘We know that everyone has a duty to preserve and protect water and the campaign will also work with industry, water companies and other regulators in the longer-term to cut down on wastage.’
Okay, so you shouldn’t tip oil and grease down the plughole… what should you do with it?
If you’d like to get really eco-friendly, you can reuse it.
Let’s say you went a bit overboard with the oil for frying some onions. Once you’re done, just pour the remaining oil into a container, keep it in a cupboard, and use it the next time you need to fry something. It’s worth labelling your containers or just remembering what’s inside, as obviously you might not want onion-infused oil to make pancakes.
You can do the same thing with remaining grease, such as after cooking bacon. Again, just pop it in a container and use it to fry whatever you fancy.
Used oil and grease should stay fine to use for a week or so, but you could also freeze it in ice cubes to really stretch its potential.
If you aren’t keen on reusing your oils, instead you can just chuck them away.
After frying, let the oil or grease cool. If it hardens, scrape it into the bin. If it stays liquid, pour it into the bin.
Do all this before you even attempt to clean your frying pan. Once you’ve properly disposed of or contained your oil, you can go ahead and give your frying pan a scrub. Easy.
MORE: Whiten your trainers with this cleaning hack using a razor and nail polish remover
