Le Creuset 4 1/4 Quart Soup Pot with Cover, Caribbean

Easy to clean, well, really, VERY easy to clean. And I LOVE the red color. I find NOTHING other than cost and weight to criticize but let us face it: one gets what one pays for and this is a lifetime pot, your lifetime, your kid's lifetime, you r grandkids lifetime. Moreover, considering it is a pot and a Nautilus in one.......


A great starter piece or addition to your Le Creuset collection   September 16, 2006
L. T. Beasimer (Dallas, TX)
42 out of 45 found this review helpful

Le Creuset manufactures porcelain enameled cast iron cooking vessels as well as other products. These cooking vessels are cast from molten iron poured in sand moulds that are used only once. For this reason, one pot may look like another, but each is unique in its own way.

Cast iron is a highly efficient material which absorbs and distributes heat efficiently. It is recommended to use low to medium heat when cooking with cast. There are a few exceptions like boiling water where cooking on high heat is appropriate and okay. Otherwise, cooking with high heat may cause food to stick, discolor the enamel coating, or cook the food unevenly. Remove cast iron from the heat and it does not cool off quickly. This helps your food stay warm while serving. Beware; iron tends to be heavy so these cooking vessels tend to be heavy as well.

Cast iron is an effective material for cooking so why cover it with enamel? Iron tends to rust; iron oxide (rust) doesn't add any complimentary flavors to your food. If your cast iron cooking vessel was not enameled, you would have to season and maintain it. Adding the porcelain enamel not only looks good, but has multiple benefits. The enamel, being a solid coating, is one of the most hygienic surfaces to cook on, does not stain, absorb odors, retain flavors, and is easy to clean. The enamel can be damaged, so limit cooking tools to plastic or wood.

The benefits of cooking with Le Creuset cast iron are many, but lets get down to the soup pot specifically. 4 1/4 quarts is not a whole lot of space when it comes to making soups, consider your recipes when determining the size you need. The soup pot tends to do best if at least 3/4 full. Any less and you may overwhelm your food with the pot's evenly dispersed heat.

The pot has flat bottom that broadly curves up the sides to 4 inches high making stirring your soup simple. Atop internal diameter of about 10 1/2 inches makes for a wide top allowing room for a whole chicken. The tight fitting lid is slightly angled sealing in heat, moisture, and flavors. Use the lid to hold your meat while you are making a sauce from the drippings, or holding your prepared vegetables while creating your culinary feast. Its shape and design makes this an extremely versatile pan. I tend to cook large amounts so this pan is usually used for mole de pollo, chili con carne, chicken and dumplings, tomato sauce, and soups.

Once you get beyond the basic functionality, the soup pot can really open up the possibilities. Keep in mind this is a 4 1/4 quart pan with about a 10 1/2 inch diameter, perhaps the optimal pan for families from 2-4. Some possibilities for this pan besides soups include rice pilaf, roasted chicken, braising, steamed artichokes, Jell-O molds, and assembling a baked Alaska.

One feature that people tend to complain about is the cost. The cost does seem steep compared to other pans made from other materials. Cast iron doesn't seem like it should be expensive, compared to the old cast iron pans past generations have used for cornbread and camping. However the manufacturing process requires making a mould for each and every pan produced. These heavy pans then go through an enameling process before being shipped. If you take what goes into making and distributing these high quality cast iron products, the cost tends to make sense. Then consider that this pan will easily last a lifetime when taken care of.

PROS:
Efficient absorption and distribution of heat
Hygienic enamel cooking surface
Does not stain, absorb odors, or retain flavors
Easy to clean when not abused or misused
Can be transferred from stove top to the oven to the table
Can easily last a lifetime

CONS:
Its heavy, as cast iron tends to be weighing in at about 10 pounds.


Just the right size!!   August 2, 2005
Wayne Fogel (The Villages, FL)
24 out of 25 found this review helpful

This is a wonderful all-purpose pot. I use it for a multitude of purposes:

1. Making sauces for pastas and then adding the pasta to the sauce and tossing. The curved sides make it perfect for the quick and easy blending of shrimp scampi with lemon spaghetti for example.
2. Stir-fry. The sloping sides and great heat retention make stir-fry a natural.
3. Casseroles - Easy clean up and a comfortable size make this a wonderful casserole pot.
4. Reheating - the large surface area makes this the pot to go to when reheating almost any main course - lamb shanks come to mind immediately.

I find that I use this pot for almost everything except soup. For soup I turn to my handy 5- quart Le Creuset Dutch oven. Less surface area means less chance to slop over when stirring. I had the 7- quart soup pot and gave it away. It was far too much of a space hog on top of the stove. However this pot is neither too large not too small - it is just right!


Better Than Your Mom's Old Soup Pot   February 8, 2003
22 out of 22 found this review helpful

First let me say that I would not have bought this kind of high-end cookware had Amazon not made me an offer I couldn't refuse. I actually bought this on a whim thinking that if it wasn't anything special, then it goes into the church rummage sale.
The maiden voyage dish was a pot roast with vegetables. Okay, so it wasn't soup, but what a great roast. I browned the meat as usual, drained the fat, added the veggies and liquid. The whole thing went into the oven, cover and all. I served the meal from the stylish pot with rave reviews on all the components. Since then I have made soups and stews. It really holds up to slow stove-top cooking also.
Clean up? The enamel coating makes everything slide off with hot soapy water and a little nylon scubby. What more could you ask for? Okay, someone to come and actually do the cooking and clean up. But if you don't have the luxury of a personal chef, get this pot. I actually think of it as a potential heirloom to be passed on to my daughter. It is a little pricy, but worth the splurge.
Hey Amazon, make me a few more offers on Le Creuset cookware and I'll buy. Thanks from the bottom of my pot.


great piece of cookware   November 19, 2004
a.k.a. mommy (Illinois)
19 out of 21 found this review helpful

This is a great piece of cookware.

I realize now that for my purposes I should have gotten the dutch oven, but for the price I am not complaining.

I use it mostly for meat sauce for spaghetti and for stews.

I have browned 4 large boneless skinless chicken breasts in it.(I suspect I could fit 6 if I tried)

Although they will not all fit/lay flattly on the bottom, when I lay them around the base (like a wreath) whatever is in contact with the pot, anywhere, browns. (lightly oil the chicken first)

As mentioned I wish I had goten the dutch oven instead because it would give me a larger FLAT cooking surface. And in reality it could be used as a soup pot as well.

This pot is not big enough to make soup (the way I do)for my family of four. I have the butcher cut up a whole chicken, then I throw in a package of wings. By the time I would add carrots, turnips, celery and water this little pot would be OVERFLOWING. I purchased an 8qt pressure cooker to make stock instead.

But this makes a really fine meat sauce for spaghetti!

Happy cooking!