Chefs Love This $7 Gem I Spotted in “The Bear,” and It’s the Only Thing I’ll Ever Use to Clean My Pans

FX’s The Bear is back for another season, bringing with it all the culinary chaos. While friends and family who’ve worked in the restaurant biz live for (and cringe from) that kitchen drama, I’ll admit I’m more tuned in to the cookware and kitchen gadgets, especially when the characters use or name-drop items I know and love myself.

For starters, there was an Always Pan cameo in the first season in Sugar’s kitchen at home. (I have one in Blue Salt, and it’s a favorite among my cookware!). But the real pause-and-rewind moment for me was when Sydney recommended Bar Keepers Friend as the best way for Tina to save a pile of pots and pans from burnt oblivion. Later on in the episode, Tina triumphantly tells Syd that the stuff worked.

While I was surprised to see such a blatant product placement, I wasn’t surprised by the choice of product. BKF has been around for more than a century — and suffice it to say, the stuff really does work. Plus, it’s less than $10, and because you only use a little bit each time, it lasts for months (at least, in my kitchen).

I first heard of this “miracle in a can” when I was in my mid-20s. In pretending to be Giada De Laurentiis in my apartment’s tiny kitchen, I did a number on a stainless steel pot. When I lamented about it to a friend, I received my first recommendation for BKF. I bought a container of the powder, restored my pot, and have used it ever since to clean kitchenware.

This “magic in a bottle” can be used on tons of surfaces all over the home, like on an enamel tub, Dutch ovens, stained tiles, and even to remove knife marks from plates. But as effective as it is, I don’t use BKF to clean everything. As someone who covers cleaning products and methods, I am forever extolling the importance of doing spot tests before plunging into using any product on everything.

To be clear, there is a list on the BKF bottle of surfaces to avoid, like gold, silver, polished stone, cast iron, mirrors, and other delicate surfaces. But sometimes, desperation gets the better of us when no other cleaning products work — which is why you should always read the label. While I’m not endorsing it, if you do decide to go rogue, here are my three main rules for cleaning with BKF:

• I don’t use much elbow grease. I prefer to use a soft sponge or a microfiber cloth and let BKF’s gritty formula do most of the work.
• I don’t let it sit for too long. The container advises against leaving it on as a paste for longer than a minute. I have left it on for longer and my pots have lived to tell the tale, but we’re talking minutes here, not hours.
• I always rinse thoroughly. In fact, I don’t like using BKF on anything I can’t easily fit in the sink to give a good dousing. The only exception is the kitchen sink itself, which is probably my favorite thing to clean with BKF.

So there you have it. Time will tell whether BKF makes another cameo in The Bear this season, but for now, it has a starring role in my kitchen.

Buy: Bar Keepers Friend Superior Cookware Cleanser & Polish, $7.33

This post originally appeared on The Kitchn. See it there: Chefs Love This $7 Gem I Spotted in “The Bear,” and It’s the Only Thing I’ll Ever Use to Clean My Pans