There've been various discussions on frying pans, brands, and such. I fry a lot of food, generally with a bit of oil, often my own version of fried scrambled eggs with cheese which I do very hot. Actually anything I cook in them I do very hot and very fast, veges and eggs mostly.

I have Circulon pans with those concentric circles, which I find tend to trap food and oil particles and always looks a bit dirty. You can clean them, but it's pretty tough. When new nothing sticks to them, but they rapidly lose that ability. I've also read that non-stick coatings get soft at high temperatures and get damaged more easily. I'm going to try the recommended white vinegar to clean them.

Does anyone use plain steel or other types of pans for their high temperature cooking, keeping the good pans for lower temperature stuff? How do you find them?

As an aside I've realised extra virgin oil olive oil is about the worst oil for frying. I've been buying it for years because it's meant to be the best, but it has the lowest smoke point of just about any oil. Virgin or light olive oil is meant to be better, but I went for peanut oil which has a high smoke point again. The pan definitely seems easier to clean with peanut oil than extra virgin olive oil.

NB: this thread is from 2014. My conclusion is marked as the answer on page nine :)