[Sca-cooks] CAST IRON SKILLET

[Darren Gasser]

ED Reese wrote:
> Do you do anything special to prepare your terra cotta plate? For
> instance, does it need to be misted first? Tell me more! I'm
> currently building a "raised hearth" in the front yard, whose cooking
> surfaces are going to include two large terra cotta square tiles, and
> some other neat things from the pottery section!

Alton Brown's "I'm Just Here For The Food" contains a section on some of the
various culinary uses of a terra cotta planter.  The drain base makes a
wonderful baking stone for hearth breads of all sorts, including pizzas.
The planter body can be inverted onto the base to make an in-oven tandoor
for clay oven roasting.  Supposedly the only preparation necessary is to
make sure you have the proper (unglazed, untreated) terra cotta and that
it's clean.

I do prefer cast iron for cooking deep dish pizzas, as do most of the better
Chicago pizzeria from what I remember.  Stone or clay seems to be the medium
of choice for thin crust, though.

-Lorenz