Episode 029 continues the What We’re Grilling series, where Taryn discusses recipes she and her family have grilled over the last couple of weeks to give you some meal inspiration. In this episode, Taryn talks about her new Blackstone griddle and the first two recipes she and her family made on it. One was a stir fry with veggies and smoked sausage and the second was a chicken fried rice. Listen in to hear details about both recipes, as well as some tips Taryn learned from cooking on an outdoor griddle!
Listen on iTunes, Stitcher, TuneIn, or your favorite podcast player. Or scroll down to read a full transcript.
RESOURCES MENTIONED
Some of the following are affiliate links. As an Amazon Associate, I earn from qualifying purchases.
- Episode 025: Grilling While Camping with Kara Myers
- Portable Blackstone 22″ griddle
- Episode 026: What We’re Grilling: July 28, 2022
- Cast iron skillet
- Cast iron griddle for stovetops
RECIPES MENTIONED
These are some of the recipes mentioned in the episode, all of which are on Hot Pan Kitchen.
Transcript
Taryn Solie: Hello grillers! Welcome to another What We’re Grilling episode. I am your host, Taryn Solie, and I am here to give you some grilling inspiration. These What We’re Grilling episodes are meant to be short and sweet, coming out about every 2 weeks. I go over some of the foods that my family and I have grilled that we’ve liked – some of what I mention will just be general meal ideas, and for others I’ll go into more detail to give you a sense of how to grill it. The goal is to give you some ideas for what to cook for your family and friends.
Today is going to be focused on grilling on a Blackstone, which is actually a flat top steel griddle. It’s very similar to cooking on a cast iron griddle, except with the Blackstone the surface area is much larger so you can cook larger portions, like if you’re cooking for a big group, or just more things at once.
You may have heard in Episode 25 when I spoke with Kara Myers from Sweetly Splendid, after our interview I ended up buying a Blackstone griddle. I had been debating about it anyway and my husband and I decided to get a portable one that we could take camping with us. We purchased the 22″ size, which I think will be great for us. We won’t take it camping this year since our camping season is winding down, but it will be good to get some practice in beforehand.
Okay, so I want to talk about the meals that we’ve made on the griddle since buying it. The first meal we did was a simple stir fry. I used the smoked sausages from Costco that I talked about in the last What We’re Grilling episode, as well as a bunch of vegetables. What was nice about this meal is that my husband was able to man the griddle while I was prepping the food, and all of the foods didn’t have to cook the same amount of time.
In this meal I had onions, bell peppers, mushrooms, and zucchini. I knew the onions would take a while to cook and the zucchini would take hardly any time at all, so what I did was slice the onions, then give them to my husband to get on the griddle. Then I sliced the bell peppers and handed those off too. I knew those two would take the most time, so at this point I sliced the sausage and had my husband get that on the griddle to cook – the sausage was on one side of the griddle, the veggies on the other.
Next I chopped the mushrooms into quarters and handed them off to my husband, then sliced and halved the zucchini and those went on the griddle. It wasn’t more than 3 or 4 minutes between adding each item onto the griddle, but it really helped with certain veggies not being overcooked.
The only seasoning we used was salt, and that’s partly because the sausages start to cook in their own fat and some of that fat gets onto the veggies, which then flavors them. But it was such a simple meal and we definitely had leftovers. I will say, my kids weren’t a fan of the grilled veggies, so for them we made some rice and just a cooked bag of those frozen peas and carrots you can find at the store and they ate that with the sausages. So we did have some kid allowances there, but my husband and I really enjoyed this meal and will definitely make it again.
The second thing we made on the Blackstone was chicken fried rice. Now I have a bacon fried rice recipe on my site and I make it all the time, but I’ve never made it on a griddle before. It turned out really well and while I will definitely tweak things a little, I’ll fill you in on what we did.
I took a pound of boneless skinless chicken thighs and sliced them into small pieces. Then I let them marinate in 2 tbsp of tamari sauce for 30-45 minutes while I cooked about 2 cups of white rice. You could also use soy sauce to marinate the chicken, I just don’t because soy sauce has wheat in it, but either will work.
When the rice was done cooking I turned on the griddle and oiled it a bit over a lower heat and cooked the chicken. When I put the chicken on I did it in an even layer then didn’t touch it to help get kind of that crust on the chicken. Next time I’ll cook the chicken on a higher heat to get a better crust on it, but I didn’t want to risk that for this first time.
Once the chicken had been on a couple of minutes I put a 12 oz bag of frozen peas and carrots on the griddle with some oil and let that cook for a couple minutes with the lid closed. I then whisked 3 eggs with a little bit of fish sauce and set it aside to go on next.
Now here’s where I would have changed things up. I should have put the rice on and made a little, like well or dam or something to help contain the eggs a bit when they go on the griddle, but instead I just put the eggs kind of in the middle and of course they spread out all over. It was fine because they started cooking quickly, but now I know not to do that! So the eggs went on and I put the rice on quickly too, then added some tamari sauce and fish sauce onto everything and mixed everything together – the chicken had cooked through by this time. The fried rice was on the griddle for another maybe 3 to 5 minutes just kind of getting mixed up over low heat and then it was ready to go!
I did do an extra step for our dinner because I wanted to try cauliflower rice – which I do have a recipe for bacon fried cauliflower rice on my site as well. Often I like to combine the fried rice with cauliflower rice to get some extra veggies in but still have some of the similar flavor and texture as regular fried rice.
So after the fried rice came off, I put on some prepackaged cauliflower rice. The package was a microwavable one that said to microwave for 4 to 5 minutes and I had microwaved it for 3 minutes to kind of give it a start. Then I put it on the griddle over low heat and spread it out into an even layer. I added a little sprinkle of salt and just kind of let it finish cooking, absorbing some of the flavors of the fried rice that had just been cooking on the griddle.
For cauliflower rice you don’t want it to get soggy or mushy so I was kind of waiting for the moisture to cook out of it without it turning to mush. I tasted a little along the way so I could tell when that was happening and the cauliflower rice was on the griddle for no more than 5 minutes. Then what I did was get a bowl and put half of the cauliflower rice in and half of the fried rice and mixed it together. It was really good! Of course my husband and kids just wanted the fried rice, which was fine too.
And that’s it for today! We covered two recipes kind of more in depth, and these are recipes you could easily make on a griddle or cast iron pan if you don’t have a Blackstone. They just might take a little longer since you need the surface area to cook everything at once.
Links to the recipes and products I’ve mentioned will be on the show notes page – I don’t have specific recipes for the stir fry and chicken fried rice, but I do have the bacon fried rice and fried cauliflower rice that I will link to. To get to the show notes page you can either go to my main website at Hot Pan Kitchen dot com and click on podcast in the main menu, or you can click on the link provided in whatever podcast app you’re listening on.
If you enjoyed this episode, I would love it if you would subscribe, then rate and leave a review! As a newer podcast, it helps spread the word and I would really appreciate it.
That’s it for today, thank you so much for listening and until next time, keep grilling like a mother.
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