Enameled cast iron griddle -- seasonable, or returnable?

Cafe Society
1

For my birthday I asked for and got a cast irongriddle for our gas stove. I had an old one made from aluminum or something, but heating was so uneven thatI finally got rid of it.

So, I got something from Emerilware, made by All-Clad, and it’s enameled cast iron. On the first run, it doesn’t seem to heat anymore evenly then the old one, and as for non-stick…holy crap do the pancakes stick to this thing.

So, my question is can this thing be seasoned, or in some way made more non-stick? And the secondary question is should I be expecting this uneven behavior from cast iron? You put the griddle over the 2 burners on the side of the stove, and I thought that cast iron would spread the heat out fairly evenly so I would not have to keep shuffling the pancakes around, but it doesn’t…I get panckaes that are partially browned on one side and still whiteon the other side.

Is my only option here to buy an electric griddle?

2

You need to let the heat spread through the entire griddle. Cast iron heats evenly but the heat is slow to spread.

Is the cooking surface enameled? If so, there’s nothing to season.

3

Also, you shouldn’t need the fire on too hot. It’ll take a longer to heat then non-cast iron, but it’ll hold on to the heat a lot longer as well.

4

Yes, the cooking surface is enameled…pancakes stuck like a motherf—, I had to lube it after each pancake. This means I use a LOT more oil, which sucks.

I did not have the fire on hot, but I let it warm up for a good long time…and my last batch of pancakes was still coming out the same way…how long would you say I should let it go?

5

Alton Brown uses an infrared thermometer to check the temp.

I never found enameled surfaces to be very non-stick. You might try butter instead of oil but I would return it and get a bare metal cast iron griddle and season it well. Our pans have reached the point that even eggs slide around.