When I cook I like to use non-stick sauté pans. My other pans are heavy weight stainless steel, but for frying I like non-stick, and I like pans that you can use on both the stove top and in the oven. Up until now I have regarded non-stick pans as being, unfortunately, disposable. The non-stick coating wears away and gradually becomes less non-stick.

I have found two reasons for this:

 Putting non-stick pans in the dishwasher – this abrades the coating.
Using them in the oven at a temperature higher than they at which they are rated – usually around 180°C – I often use them at heat greater than this.

So up until now I have bought medium price pans, and chucked them away when they lost their non-stick. The other day I came across some Tefal Ingenio sauté pans, and I have bought a 28cm pan. They have some good design features:

The non-stick coating looks to be of very high quality, and comes with a ‘life’ guarantee – provided you don’t use it in the dishwasher or outside of the oven rating.
A high oven rating – 260°C
Removable handles so you can lift the pan from the  stove top and put it in the oven, release the handle, and you now have a non-stick roasting tray. The lift rating on the handle is 10Kg which is a lot more than any food that I cook! This also means you can have several pans and only need a couple of handles.

I bought this pan in a Designer Outlet for £42.00 – £30.00 for the pan and £12.00 for the handle. The full price should have been £62.00.

So I will treat this pan with more respect than I normally do – and definitely no dishwasher. So far it has been performing well.