I accidentally used dairy butter to make popcorn in a meaty pan. I thought it was margarine. I haven’t made this mistake before. How can I fix this problem and make my meaty pan kosher again? Thank you!

Shalom, Thank you for your question. You are correct that you need to re-kosher your pan, as it is forbidden to use the same pan for both milk and meat. Here’s how to do that – 1. The pan needs to be totally cleaned. 2. You should leave the pan for at least 24 hours between the forbidden use and the koshering. 3. If you can, you should immerse the whole pan into a larger pot of boiling water. It needs to be really boiling – so after you put the pan in you should leave it there for a while until the water regains its heat and reaches a hard boil again. (In many communities they organize koshering for Passover, with large pots of boiling water etc. If you live near a religious community it might be worth asking if they have such a service, and then waiting until Passover to kosher your pot). 4. If the pan is to large to fit into a pot of boiling water (because you don’t have large enough pot to immerse it in), then you should fill up the unkosher pan to the very top with water and bring it to a strong boil. Then, very carefully, heat up a small stone (using tongs or pliers) over the fire, and drop it into the water. This will cause boiling water to overflow the rim of the pan and kosher the rim also. (The outer surface does not need to come into contact with the boiling water, but the rim does). 5. If you used a lid making the pop-corn, it also needs to be koshered by immersing it in boiling water. 6. Then the pan (and lid) should be run under cold water. 7. After this koshering, the pan is now parve. I hope this is of a help to you. Please take care when koshering the pan to make sure that nobody gets hurt from the boiling water or pots. Blessings.