Pages

Sunday, April 18, 2010

Cast Iron Grill Plan Clean-Up Post Tandoori Chicken

I thought I'd taken a photo of what this cast iron grill pan looked like after the Tandoori Chicken was prepared, before I put water in it. Alas, this is where we shall start.

The grill pan, complete with Tandoori Chicken jerky pieces, was placed over two burners, filled with water, and the burners turned on to medium flame. The water was allowed to boil until the boil was going pretty good, enough that the water became brown from the residual chicken and was reduced in quantity.

I had tried doing a little scrubbing of the grill pan while the water was boiling, but that was just a hot, possibly painful, mess waiting to happen. Instead of asking for trouble, I quit that scrubbing business and added more water, bringing it back to boiling.


When the water level was reduced slightly, the burners were turned off and the pan allowed to cool a few minuted.  Ideally it could wait until just warm, but I had other things to do and I needed to get the show on the road.  I put the stainless steel brush back to the grill pan and managed to do some scrubbing with only a slightly less possibility of major burns. The loosened chicken bits were pushed to one side of the grill pan, which was allowed to cool until it wasn't too scary to move. The water and loose chunkies were drained into the sink.


After draining, there was a lot of chicken chunks remaining, now looking like wet charcoal. More water was added to the grill pan; my thoughts were that they weren't stuck on, just weren't rinsed off. Well, after draining a second time, it was evident those charcoal bits were stuck on.


The grill pan then went into the sink for some serious scrubbing by the stainless steel-bristled brush. Afterwards, the grill pan was returned to the stove-top in order to dry over two burners with flame set on medium.


Once the grill pan was dry (and ignoring the few small charcoal-y chunks), I lubed the grill pan with oil and let the oil cook off over medium heat. The oil was smoking quite a bit, so I turned on the hood to evacuate the smoke.

And that's it. That's how I cleaned up the grill pan in anticipation of some Korean food action.  Cleaning this nasty thing took about 30 minutes!


FYI, the cast iron skillet was cleaned simultaneously but it has been through the cleaning-seasoning ropes a couple times and it is now a cinch!


0 comments: