How I Restore and Maintain Cast Iron Skillets for Use On The Grill

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When I post pictures of my cast iron collection, I often get comments and questions about how I season and maintain them. As promised (ahem...months ago), here is what I do to keep my cast iron looking black, shiny, and beautiful. 

I'll start by saying this. Maintaining cast iron isn't about a magic product or special oil. Maintaining cast-iron skillets is a behavior. If you clean and spend 10 minutes reseasoning your skillets each time you use them, they will stay immaculate, non-stick, and last a lifetime. 

A second important point. Cast-iron is meant for use day-in, day-out. The best thing you can do to maintain your cast-iron cookware is to use it often.

Restoration

A good story starts at the beginning so let's start with the 1930's era Griswold #8 skillet that I restored earlier this year. 

When Do I Need To Restore A Skillet?

Typically, when a skillet loses its seasoning or gets a little flaky, the cast-iron just needs a thorough cleaning, reseasoning, and frequent use. But when a piece of cast-iron cookware has been abused and has built-up carbon or large sections of rust, the restoration will make it as good as new. Restoration is time-consuming, but you should never have to do it again if you maintain your cast-iron in the first place. Restoring cast-iron includes: 

• stripping/cleaning, 
• establishing a base coat, and then 
• repeated use to build up the seasoning.

This skillet definitely needed restoration. It was made over 80 years ago and had definitely seen better days. 

Midway Sausage, Pepper, and Onion Hoagies

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The Tennessee Valley Fair has been running in Knoxville.  As a kid, I loved the local fair with its bright lights, blaring sounds, and whirring "one loose bolt away from a catastrophe" rides.  Then there was the food - eating brilliant red candy apples, clouds of cotton candy, and fried funnel cakes until you might explode.  

One of my favorite memories of the fair is the smell of peppers, onions, and sausage wafting across the midway.  Here's how I make the best fair sausage hoagie at home on my Big Green Egg.  These are quick and they are also fantastic for gameday food.

So, this isn't as much a recipe, I mean, it's just sausage, peppers and onions, right?  But there are a few key steps in my process that make it better.

1. Toasting the bun
2. Using a griddle or cast-iron skillet 
3. Seasoning the peppers and onions
4. Splitting the sausage
5. Using ultra-thin provolone on the veggies and meat

I like to run the grill about 400°f for sausage hoagies.

I toast the hoagie rolls cut side down without butter or anything.  I skip brushing them with butter or anything because there is enough rendered fat clinging to the sausage and veggies.  

Grilled Steak and Shrimp

[FTC Standard Disclosure]  I have taken the year off from sponsorships; however, I have accepted two educational trips to the Certified Angus Beef® Brand Culinary Center this year.

When you go to the store to pick something up for dinner, do you tend to:

1. Go to buy a specific protein and have a recipe idea in mind, OR
2. Go to see what protein looks so good that you can't pass it up and build the meal around that?

If we are just cooking for ourselves, we generally go with the latter.  Alexis and I went to Food City earlier this week and found a package of thin-sliced, USDA Prime, Certified Angus Beef® Brand NY strip steaks.  They also had 26/30 count shrimp for sale, so we decided to make a quick grilled steak and shrimp. 

These steaks were thin, weighing in at 6 ounces each.  That's what I call "breakfast steaks" because they are perfect for a quick sear in a skillet and serve along with some fried eggs.  Or in this case, a quick grill and served with buttery, garlicky shrimp.

Skillet Porterhouse Steak Basted with Compound Butter and Tallow

[FTC Standard Disclaimer] This is not a sponsored post, as I have taken a break from sponsorships this year.  However, in the spirit of transparency, we still have a close working relationship with the folks at Certified Angus Beef® Brand.

Many of my friends scoff at the notion of "grilling season" because most of us grill and barbecue throughout the year.  But I still think that there is a "grilling season" that starts for me with Daylight Savings Time.  "Grilling season" to me means that it is the optimum conditions for grilling:

• Lighting - The sun starts setting later in the evening, and for our deck, that means beautiful rays of golden sunlight boldly shine through the trees in our backyard.
• Warmth - It feels good to be outside, with warm breezes and pleasant temperatures.  
• Wildlife - Birds, frogs, rabbits, squirrels, and other critters are out and about, and their chorus of animal Tinder ads fill the air.
• Greenery - Winter's fifty shades of grey is over.  The grass is vibrantly green, flowers are bursting open like fireworks, and trees have leaves, once again.

To celebrate the first day of Daylight Savings Time this year, I went to Food City and picked up the prettiest Certified Angus Beef® Brand porterhouse steak they had.  I cooked it in a skillet over hardwood coals and basted it with a mix of compound butter and beef tallow.

When I was posting about this while cooking, one of my followers asked a good question:

@nibblemethis , this may be a dumb question, but what’s the advantage of searing a steak in a cast iron skillet over coals vs. a hot gas or electric stove? Does the meat acquire extra smoke flavor? Gas seems so easy compared to coals. Thanks

The answer is that I did it solely to enjoy the experience.  With an open grill like this, you aren't going to get any smoke flavor.  If I used the skillet as the sear part of the reverse sear technique, then yes, I would get that smoky taste. 

Gear and Set Up

I decided to use a skillet for this cook.  I love uniform cross-hatch marks, but it is hard to beat a cast iron skillet seared steak.  But more importantly, I wanted to butter-baste our steak.  My weapon of choice was a PK Grill, a simple clam-shell type grill and I used Tennessee hardwood lump charcoal.  Notice two things.  

• First, the skillet is empty.  Don't add food, oil, or anything until it is preheated - when you start to see slight wisps of smoke come off the surface.  
• Second, notice the gap with no charcoals, that is my escape area if the skillet gets too hot.  

Fire Roasted King Ranch Chicken Casserole

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Alexis and I have been on a leftovers purge for the week because our freezers have gotten too full.  Last night, our freezer dive resulted in enough treasures to make Eating Well's Quick King Ranch Chicken Casserole. 

Of course, we changed it up a little bit, mainly because of what we had on hand or what we didn't.  And of course, we did ours on a kamado grill - a large Big Green Egg.  I think the fire roasting absolutely adds to the dish.

Fire Roasted Buffalo Chicken Sausage Mac and Cheese

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We were shopping for supplies for a project and found some Buffalo Chicken Sausages at Fresh Market.  We didn't need the sausages for the project, but I couldn't just pass them up once I saw them, right?  

When we were brainstorming how to use the sausage, I thought of the Buffalo Mac and Cheese that we used to get at Rafferty's (before they closed our local one....boooo).   So we made mac and cheese with the Buffalo chicken sausage instead of fried Buffalo chicken.

Of course, we made ours over live fire on a kamado grill - a Big Green Egg to be specific.  But you could do this inside as well.  Make the sausage and sauce on the stove top and then roast the mac and cheese in the oven. 

I love this small Lodge cast iron skillet because it is grill safe and the wok-like sloped walls make it easy to toss and flip food while cooking.  I bought one for my mom a few Christmases ago and was so envious I purchased one for myself!