Oh Cast Iron, You’re a Grills Best Friend!

I’ve long thought cast iron cookware was a staple of only Southern kitchens.  There’s nothing better than hot buttered cornbread from a cast iron pan.  I was never a big fan of cornbread as a kid, but that’s a different story now.  It’s such a great childhood memory when I make cornbread in my grandmother’s old cast iron pan.  The memory is what makes it so good.  But as I’ve learned from Top Chef University, cast iron is also a favorite among chefs-even for grilling.  Really, you can get that much flavor “grilling” indoors?  I’ll admit I was skeptical when I saw my chef instructor, Spike Mendelsohn and several subsequent instructors, “grilling” on a cast iron grill pan.  They are just doing that for ease of instruction, so I thought.

I have a cast iron grill pan.  I bought it a few years ago at the Lodge store in South Pittsburgh, Tennessee, where Lodge is made.  I’d used it a time or two-mainly the smooth side for making pancakes.  The grill side of it didn’t produce a piece of meat any more flavorful than a non-stick pan, in my opinion.  Plus, my non-stick pan was a whole lot lighter and easier to manage.  Enter course 2 of Top Chef University. 

In my quest to create every recipe featured in this course, I got out the grill pan and made Chef Spike’s Asian Flank Steak.  It looked pretty with its perfect cross-hatch marks and smelled delicious.  Yes you might fool me by looks, but I’m going to bet it doesn’t taste like anything that has ever come off of my outdoor grill.  And I was right.  Very, very right.    It tasted nothing like I had ever cooked on my outdoor grill-it was better!  Sure the Asian marinade had flavored and tenderized the meat, but WOW, what a difference it made just learning a few new cooking techniques.  My grill pan has not been in the cabinet since! 

There are 2 main things I’ve learned that have contributed to my new found love of my cast iron grill.

1.      Season your cast iron grill and get it really hot before adding the meat.  To tell if it’s hot enough, hold your hand about 2 inches above the grill.  If you can’t leave it there longer than about 5 seconds, it’s ready!

2.      Use a towel to pat dry any excess moisture on meat before grilling-it will get a much better layer of browning, aka caramelization.  And as Top Chef Carla says, “There’s flavor in the brown!”