For those that do not know, a company named Blackstone makes griddles. All different sizes. They appear to be made of high quality materials and are well designed. I am a big fan.
I got one last year for my birthday and really like it. I have a Weber traditional grill that I like but you can make some things on a Blackstone that just aren’t possible on a Weber and the cleanup is really easy. But I am typically making steaks or smash burgers for my wife and I. Pretty much all diner stuff.
Anyway, we got a big one for our tailgate group just before the season started. The noon starts require breakfast items I have not been cooking. Did pancakes for the GT game. Gotta cook those near the lowest temperature setting. And keep the griddle greased. I think we were using a vegetable oil.
On Saturday, our lead Blackstone guy
Walshjfii showed me how to make bacon and scrambled eggs in mass quantities. Bacon needs to be cooked at or near the lowest temperature setting as well. You want to cut the strips in half before cooking to minimize strips sticking together. We had a ton of bacon cooking at once. John already had that set up but it had to be like 8 or 10 packages of bacon. Maybe more. If you make a lot of bacon, you better have your grease collector connected to a tube because there is going to be a ton of grease and it needs to go somewhere. We have one but it was missing and Craig and Nell had to do superhero stuff with a big metal serving spoon to get that grease out so we could finish cooking.
We probably should have put some water down to discourage the bacon from splattering all over but the temperature was low enough there wasn’t a lot of this going on.
Making mass quantities of scrambled eggs requires some good spatula skills. Somebody has to pour the eggs from the bucket, preferably slowly. We were grilling on a hill, so the eggs wanted to flow into the trap and be lost forever. So you had to spatula those eggs quickly back to the middle of the grill. Oh both sides. With both hands. Double spatula action.
And then you have to keep those eggs moving around so they cook evenly. After 2 or 3 minutes, the eggs should be ready to eat and need to be loaded into a big serving tray. That requires using 2 spatulas to scoop and dump them. Eggs are kind of hard to move around like this. It takes a bit of skill and work. You do this for 20 minutes or so and you can feel a strong burning in your hands and wrists. The pro move is to have two people man the Blackstone on breakfast days, so no one gets burned out or has to be placed on the IL.
Anyway, I think you need to also do the eggs on low. And for every batch of them, you have to scrape down the griddle, get it clean and regrease it. Keep it clean. Eggs are tough on a griddle and you don;t want to start building up egg residue on it.
John and I are pining for a later kickoff for the last 2 home games as we can do smash burgers and other good stuff. Maybe some fried rice, some Philly cheese steaks….stuff like that.
