The beauty lies in its simplicity. It is a heavy, flat piece of metal that is surprisingly versatile. Put it on your barbecue or hob as a flat top cooking steel or in your oven as a pizza steel.
We made this principally for cooking smash burgers with our heirloom burger press but as we tested different thicknesses, we kept finding more uses for it.
If there is one thing we hate at Axel Perkins HQ, its single use cooking gadgets. If people are willing to spend extra money on rare, products that are handmade in the UK, I want them to get as much value as possible out of them. Hopefully for a lifetime.
The Plancha is 30 cm x 30 cm and weighs in at 4.1 kg.
Things we’re found this to be excellent for so far:
- Smash burgers. Cooking smash burgers indoors creates a smokey, greasy, fire alarm soundtracked hellscape. Do it outside. The AP Plancha has the thermal mass needed to prevent hot-spots and crucially stays hot enough so you don’t have to re-heat it between smashes. You can comfortably cook four patties at once on this baby.
- Stir-fry. See above. Searing your meat and veggies on an extremely hot pre-heated plancha gives that Wok hei flavour you’ll know from expertly cooked Chinese food that is almost impossible to achieve with home hobs. Once browned to your liking, toss it in a wok with your chosen sauce and jobs a good’n.
- Fajitas. Aside from cooking thinly sliced peppers and onions without the fear of them falling through the grates, this plancha gives you enough space to cook whatever protein you’re having over the coals/gas at the same time.
- Pizza. The thermal conductivity for steel is around 4 x higher than that of ceramics meaning when you peel your pizza onto it, the metal is transfers its heat much much faster than a pizza stone, giving your that leopard spot effect on the pizza dough. Also, most pizza stones have a tendency to crack at optimal pizza temperature. Before you splash out on a £350 pizza oven, give this a try.
- Wagyu. Cooking extremely well marbled steaks on a flat surface prevents the fat from running through the grates and flaring up. In testing we achieved an excellent crust without any sooty flavour. Just the right amount of fat made its way to the fire giving a lovely smokey perfumed dimension to the meat without taking away from the flavour of the beef.
This is the perfect barbecue present for the grill master in your life.
I use as much recycled material as possible when posting our items so please forgive me if your packaging looks somewhat unsophisticated. If you are buying this as a gift, please let us know.