Skillet

A pan for cooking food by hand. Set it on a lit Firebox (or over lava), then right-click it holding a food.

The minigame

A lever sets how much of the fire the pan gets, from off the fire (bottom) to full on it (top). Drag it, or use the arrow keys or the mouse wheel. The pan face glows with the setting, and a pale mark beside the lever shows where the food's own heat has got to.

The food's own heat lags behind the pan's, so it takes a while to warm and a while to cool, and what it has cooked it cannot uncook. It goes raw, cooked through, dried out, charred by the same rules as in a Furnace or Smoker. The food sits in the pan as its item over a patch that browns, then blackens; the rim of the pan glows with the food's heat, so you can watch it catch up to the face. Bubbles and steam rise as it cooks, smoke and a shaking pan mean it is charring, a flash and a chime mean it just cooked through, and four pips under the pan with a word say where it is. When you take it off, the pan sizzles and puffs smoke (black if it burnt). Aim to land it cooked through: get it hot enough to cook, then ease off before it dries or chars, remembering the food keeps coasting after you back off. Close the screen (Esc) to take it off. You cook one piece at a time.

A vessel left alone on a fixed fire does the same job with no skill, at whatever heat the fire has.

The pan has no heat of its own: with no fire under it, it won't open.

Recipe: three iron plates and a stick.