Thread: JUNE

I have always liked inventing things. I recently invented a new style of cooking. Steam griddling.



Lodge 17” skillet with water



Fill skillet up half way, add a Lodge pizza iron on top. Add food and whatever seasoning you wish.



Dome over both. Now water is rising up, heating pizza pan to roughly 200 degrees. Then there is steam circulating above as well.

This allows for a very delicate presentation. Look I made an egg.



Maybe I was crazy, but it tasted like the best egg I ever had. No seasoning. Just an egg. It was creamy and the yolk was dark yellow and spilled out, didn’t run. Perfectly done. You can always hammer your eggs, but coaxing them yields better flavors. They do well when you are gentle and patient.

The chicken tenderloins did well. I lacked experience with the thing, so they kind of limped across the finish line. I can see now, after this experiment, that steam and hot water can provide more than enough heat. All I need to do is control the imparted flavors on the pizza pan surface. The steam isn’t washing away anything.

The chicken had a steamed consistency. Not exactly what I wanted. Now fish, shrimp, scallops…..well I bet they will be awesome. I can spray oil on the pizza pan, add seafood and then my flavors, then steam until done, and not worry about steam flushing away flavors as with a normal steamer.

Is it worth someone going out and buying two $70 cast iron pans, a burner and a dome ? Probably not, but I did. I suspect that this technique may never take off, but all it really needs is someone to come along and do something cool with it. Like me. Steam griddling. Saw it here first. Place is great and we are lucky to hang out here.

The egg was way beyond a poached egg. It was like a fried egg without the burnt edges or the oily film. Just really nice. I bet you could do something similar using other pots and pans. Use hot water to heat griddle surface, add steam from above, use the griddle to impart flavor.

The egg had no seasoning and was fabulous all on it’s own. I plan to experiment some more.

Very interesting to say the least.

Wekk I got my charbroiler. It is made by Toastmaster, a maker of commercial kitchen products. My unit is called the 36” PRO Series, counter top broiler. It costs about $1,700 new, but saw a few that cost more. Three burners each producing 30,000 btu, for a total of 90,000. However after the conversion from gas to propane, these numbers may be way off.

Here it is.



The dog was sniffing and looking around it. She has been lonely without her buddy.

You can see that it is all stainless steel construction. It has radiant heat deflector plates that sit over top of the burners. The cast iron grates weigh so much that it seems they are made of lead. I was shocked to see how much they weigh. They have a thin side and a fat side, and set atop a ledge to secure.

It looks rough, but once I get it cleaned up good she will shine. It was converted to bottled propane because it was plumbed into a kitchen that had natural gas. I need to use long lighters to get ignition. It needs a nice stand. It has adjustable legs to level the unit and a grease hole in the front like griddles. Everything drops through the grates and past the deflectors into a large pan underneath that slides in and out for removal. They tell me to keep water in the pan to make it easier to clean. They also say you can flip the cast iron grates over every so often when they need cleaning.

He also said to be careful about going full throttle as it gets super duper hot. He had scorched one of the deflector plates which meant his gas conversion was close, but not perfect. I’ll just be careful with it.

This unit has no visible scratches or dents that I could see. It needs a roll around cart to hold it as well as the bottle. I am thinking stainless steel restaurant type of cart. Something with big wheels that will roll easy so I can roll it out from under the porch and out into open air above.

I am thinking about using cast iron pans and skillets and such for now, but with an eye towards one of those flat top griddle thingies to lay on top.

This thing is going to give me lots of freedom to decide what and how to cook things. It is built like a tank and will easily last many many years. He said it only had a few hours on it when he got it. I think the restaurant wanted something else. It has grease on it now from his having used it.

So….. I can cook steaks seus vide then sear on this unit. I can griddle in my cast iron skillet and I can steam griddle. I can toast, broil and grill. I can cook in my Dutch ovens sitting on a portable induction cook top, and I can deep fry on my Bayou Classic burner. I would say that makes for a nice outdoor kitchen that isn’t taking up a lot of space. I just need to buy another Akorn grill so I can smoke meats, too.


Now I plan to put it all together with the charbroiler being the centerpiece. The Akorn beside that table, and I will hang the cast iron off hooks I will install along the wall. Make everything look nice for when she entertains, I can be Do Boy and serve everyone. Which is my favorite part of a party, slopping the hogs. I used to cook stuff just outside the garage, but she said that I use that as an excuse to hide, leaving her to do all the entertaining. Well it was kind of true, but she loves to do the entertaining anyways. So now I will be on the back porch where they can at least watch me, maybe call me over for more shrimp or something.

”Oh Cabana Boy…….more shrimp please”

Now I am watching videos showing how to cook things that are different from what I have cooked previously. I want to try some food from Spain using fruit juices and marinades and such. Some Mexican dishes. I can pan fry with very little oil now that I have my cast iron stuff seasoned up nicely. It was well worth the effort to do that right.

So I was not allowed to have a griddle, so I am doing the best I can to get by without it.

90,000 is definitely a lot of btu's. Should sear a steak in just a couple of seconds

Dog



HAH…. I think she has certain expectations here.

All cleaned up and looking great