Thing To Do Today: griddle.

A nice humble sort of a word, is griddle. 

A griddle is a large bit of metal, either flat or ridged, that you place over a heat source so you can cook things on it.

The use of the ridged sort of griddle isn't very different from grilling, really (except that it's easier to see what you're doing) but a flat griddle cooks all sorts of unexpected things, even pastry (it works remarkably well as long as you're cooking something flat, like a turnover:


photo by user:pschemp

so you can get the pastry into contact with the griddle).

A griddle cooks bread, too. This recipe is for Irish Soda Bread, and as a bonus contains the beautiful word farl.


Photo of a farl by Ben W Bell

250g plain flour (wholemeal is good), 1/2 teaspoon salt, 1 teaspoon bicarbonate of soda, 250ml or so of buttermilk (but ordinary milk works, too).

Heat your griddle. Mix all the ingredients in a bowl. Knead lightly on a floured surface until it all sticks together, and then make into a flattened circle about 1cm thick. Cut it into quarters. Flour the griddle and put each quarter on it. Cook for 6 - 8 minutes on each side. Take the griddle off the heat and allow the farls to cool for 10 minutes or so. Split, butter, and serve with jam.

Too tame for you? Then how about (pause here to listen out for an evil Mwa-ha-ha-ha!)...

...an anti-griddle?

Sadly, an anti-griddle doesn't turn cooked food back to raw again: it's more or less the same as a griddle, but is used very cold to freeze or semi-freeze food.

A pity, really, isn't it.

Thing To Do Today: griddle. This word comes from the Old French gridil, and before that probably from the Latin crātīculum, fine wickerwork.  The anti-griddle seems to have been invented by Grant Achatz and Philip Preston.