The one pan for happy holiday meals

With the holiday season fast approaching, one piece of cookware should be on everyone’s kitchen wish list: a stainless steel roasting pan. There’s no better culinary tool to cook the perfect Thanksgiving turkey or Christmas ham.

Roasting pans can be pricey, but their versatility makes them worth every penny. A quality roasting pan can be a triple threat, working well in the oven, under a broiler or on the stovetop. And if you’re willing to splurge on a good one, it’ll be a reliable culinary companion for years.

I recommend splurging for a stainless steal roaster. It’s easy to clean and extremely durable, and can take the intense heat of a broiler.

Nonstick surfaces are too easy to damage, either with utensils or high temperatures. Aluminum pans perform well, but acidic ingredients will react with the metal and leach aluminum into your food.

When shopping for a stainless steel roasting pan, look for a few key things. The first is how the pan is constructed. A triple-ply pan with an aluminum core sandwiched between layers of steel will produce significantly better heat distribution than a thinner, all-steel pan.

Look for a larger pan that can hold a whole turkey or ham, as the extra space will not only make Thanksgiving or Christmas dinner a breeze, but it will give you more surface area to allow ingredients to brown properly. And to make sure that big piece of meat has perfect crispy skin, you’ll definitely want to buy a pan with a roasting rack that can be inserted.

The highest-end stainless steel pans from brands such as All-Clad can cost well over $200. On the more budget-friendly side, a well-built triple-ply roasting pan from a brand such as Cuisinart will cost around $100.

Roasting pans obviously are ideal for roasting just about anything (it’s right there in the name, y’all), but they have many other uses.

They can do the job of a sheet pan — and sometimes do it better. If, for example, you want to prepare a large batch of braised short ribs, you can place the pan over two burners on the stove to brown the meat directly in the pan before deglazing with wine or stock (that much liquid sloshing around in a sheet pan is tricky). Add the remaining ingredients, slide the whole affair into the oven, and you’re done.

Roasting pans also work well for jumbo-size batches of lasagna or casseroles. And if you’re baking anything in ramekins that requires a water bath to prevent burning, such as delicate flans or custards, a roasting pan is large enough to handle that with ease.

If you’re roasting a chicken, turkey or large piece of beef or pork, a stainless steel roaster makes it easy to make gravy from drippings without dirtying another pan. Once you’ve removed the meat to rest, drain off all but 2 tablespoons of the rendered fat in the pan and place the pan over two burners on the stove. Sprinkle 3 tablespoons

of flour into the sizzling fat and juices, and stir until it’s smooth and the flour is slightly browned, about 5 minutes.

Now, add 2 to 3 cups of stock, milk or water to the pan and whisk until smooth and thickened.

When it comes to cleanup, stainless steel roasting pans are fairly easy to deal with. Most stains and stuck-on food can be removed with a good soak and scrub. For more challenging

stains, sprinkle the pan with a generous quantity of baking soda and then pour in about a half cup of vinegar, which will immediately cause a bubbling chemical reaction. Let the pan soak with the vinegar solution inside it for about 30 minutes, then scrub away any lingering debris with a scouring pad.

IStockphoto Stainless steel roasting pans are excellent in the oven or on the stovetop.