When the giant propane-powered griddle was assembled on the porch of my parents' house, many people were confused about what to do with it. Not my sister. She came up with the idea right away.
I want to cover it with bacon.
The feeling that you can cover it with a metric ton of food is the magic of the Four-Burner Gas Griddle. You would like to make pancakes for a group, all at once, instead of one or two at a time in a skillet on the stove. You could cover it with vegetables of all sizes, or spread everything to make dinner for four across the top.
I thought of Francis Mallmann, the Argentine chef, when I thought of cooking on this thing, flipping chops on one side and a big pile of onions on the other. You might do the same thing once you get into the griddle grooves.
A giant griddle is a great way to feed a lot of people. Griddles are not new. My mom had an electric version of the kitchen counter. Large flattops are used in restaurants from greasy spoons to high-end joints, and at almost 3 feet wide and 21 inches deep, it is the largest of its kind in the world. The models in this category are usually in the $300 to $450 range. Cuisinart sells a 28-inch, two- burner model of this griddle for $300. In a Popular Science article, Joe Brown used a review of a Home Chef flattop as a vehicle to illustrate the popularity of outdoor griddles, and his story helped turn on the jets for the category.
While a propane-powered outdoor griddle still might be a novelty to many home chefs, the form is familiar: Take a four-burner gas grill and replace the grate with a big rolled-steel plate, remove the lid, and just about everything else will be the same. The two front corners on the Cuisinart have holes that lead to metal grease cups that collect oil and gunk, just like on most grills.
The seasoning process, where you scrub shipping oil off of that giant, heavy cooktop, then hit it with high heat and a slick of canola, could have been simpler with this model. This regreasing took a long time, more than putting everything together. Like my carbon-steel pans that were not seasoned when I bought them, I wish the griddle had come pre-seasoned.
The seasoning process made it clear that the heat is concentrated along the centerline. The temperature on the cooking surface would be ideal if all burners were on at the same time. I was surprised by how quickly I got used to it. Even heat would be easier to work with, but how far are you going to roam when you cook 20 burgers at once? I stood there and moved food from center to back or front as needed.
There are gas problems.
While we are talking about heating, I will mention an issue in which the flame would occasionally start at, or drop to, a low level, no matter where the knobs were set. I thought it was a low-tank problem, but it happened again with a different tank. To fix it, I would detach the tank and put it back together. It seemed that the problem was with the griddle and not the tanks. The problem with the griddle would get really annoying if I owned it.
I wish it had a three-walled back splash to keep the grease splatters from the porch and side of the house. Sorry, Mom and Dad! I wanted a lid to protect the grill when it rained, to keep the cover from coming in contact with the cooking surface, and to make it easier to cook thicker items. The combination of wheels on one end of the griddle and feet on the other didn't make sense when it came to leveling it out. Surprisingly cheap-feeling knobs and wobbly legs didn't help.
grease fires are a thing of the past on outdoor griddles, as you just scrub all the gunk into a grease well. You can push everything away from you into the well on other top-ranked models. I don't understand why the metal grease cups are on the front corners of the Cuisinart, they work fine, but for reasons I don't understand, they are on the front corners. No thanks.
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