How to Pick Pans for Grilling

Video Transcript

"Hi my name is Brandon Sarkis on behalf of Expert Village. Today I'm going to show you what to look for when buying yourself a set of pots and pans. Next up is our grill pan. Now this is a pan that is actually growing in popularity right now. Which I think is a great thing, because for a long time they were kind of hard to find. You had to go in specialty store to find them. But, now I'm starting to see them in department stores and things like that, which is great. Typically, they are going to be made out of iron, although I have actually owned one that was made out of aluminum and it worked just fine. The iron ones tend to give a rustically grilled mark kind-of-look, which is why you want to use it. The purpose of the grill pan is to grill stuff indoors on your stove. Maybe you don't have the space. Like you live in an apartment and you can't have the grill outside. Maybe you live in an area where they don't allow bar-b-cues. I know some neighborhoods and even some apartment complexes and condo that won't allow them. Maybe you live in a place where there's just no where for you to bar-b-que, maybe you don't have a patio, and maybe you live in an apartment that just doesn't have one. So, it's a good alternative to the foreman grill in that it's not a device that cooks your food like the foreman grill. The good thing about these is that if you get an iron one and get it 'seasoned up' which means that you've got to use it a few times and you've got to brush it with oil and burn the oil on there and get some carbon on there. Because you can get real deal looking grills marks on your food. You can do grilled chicken on this you can do fish on this and it looks like it came off a regular grill. The only difference is being that it didn't it came out of this pan. The other advantage to the grill pan is that if you're grilling something like chicken for example, when the juice comes out of it, the juice will actually collect in this pan. And you can in turn take that juice and use it in your sauce or use it in whatever that you're making with it to help bolster the flavor so you don't lose the juice to the grill. I really recommend one of these they come in various shapes and sizes. I've seen the ones that take up two burners, I used to have one like that which was really, really nice it was just too big for me. They come in round and they come in square. I went with square just because it tends to make a little more sense and also mine has a little nick over here on the side, so I can pour out the juices and It's a little easier, It's not super easy but it is a little easier than not having one. But all-in-all I hardily recommend going for a grill pan. They are becoming a lot easier to find and usually you can pick on up for little to nothing. Usually something in the..., depending on the kind you are getting, in the thirty to seventy dollar range depending on the size and construction. Typically you're going to find the iron ones. I recommend the iron ones over the aluminum ones. They're just going to last a little longer. Actually they're going to last a whole lot longer. I also recommend knowing what size burner that you're going to put it on. Like I said they make these in all kinds of shapes and sizes. You can see this one fits my burner perfectly. You don't want one that is way too big, because then you're going to have cold spots on it. And you don't want one that's way too small because then you're going to have fire shooting over the edges and then you'll burn yourself. That's all I know about grill pans."