Super easy Delicious first steak on the Grillstone!
First make sure that your Grillstone is heated up – turn on your grill, add the stone and shut the top for about 10 minutes, season the grillstone by covering it with your favorite oil (spread with a spatula or a silicone brush). Continue heating until a drop of water sizzles on it.
Now the fun part – have your steak at room temperature (a 2” filet would be a treat – but you can use another thick tender cut), mix 1 tbsp soft butter with a pinch of salt (Himalayan or Sea salt is best), put a dollop (1 tsp.) of the butter on the hot Grillstone. Immediately put your steak on the butter. Leave it in place until the steak doesn’t stick to the stone (5 Minutes minimum).
Put another dollop of butter on a different empty spot on the Grillstone – take the steak, turn over and place the steak on the ungrilled side on the new dollop of butter.
Leave the steak in place until your desired doneness (5 minutes for rare).
This is a simple, pure, delicious steak –
You can use your Saltstone, don’t season the stone with oil, just heat – and don’t add salt to your butter.
Quails are more unusual in Vermont than Spain, where they are a traditional grill treat – but there are more people raising these healthy & tasty birds now. Ask at your local Co-op – they may know someone who is raising them in addition to chicken & other poultry.
When you get them, they will be cleaned – so just cut them along the breastbone with poultry shears and spread them apart – they will look like little frogs! Don’t let them intimidate you, chop some garlic, rosemary, add a good olive oil, and fresh squeezed lemon juice.
Marinate the quails in this mixture for a bit – if not possible, just make sure they are coated with the oil. Using the Grillstone for these birds is perfect, the indirect heat will not burn them, and the marinade will grill itself into the bird, not drip onto the fire. You will taste the difference! Watch the following video -
chop a bit of parsley and sprinkle over them. There is no other way to eat them – pick them up like ribs and eat them with your fingers!
Serve with a Spanish Verdejo, Albariño, or a Sauvignon Blanc.
Grilling and stones have a history that goes back to Native American Indians, and likely it was and important way of cooking back to prehistoric times. The Native Americans used an open fire, the stones were heated in the coals, and dropped in pots of water, bringing the pot and its contents to a boil.
Although it isn’t documented, I am sure that flat stones were also placed in the coals, or over the coals, and used for grilling of strips of meats and wild vegetables. Natural sedimentary stone such as slate, or large flat river rocks would have been perfect tools.
Grilling on Stone Today:
We have the benefit of manipulating natural stone with stone saws – blocks of solid stone are quarried and sliced like bread into the perfect thickness. Not every stone can withstand the heat of an open fire – it is important to find a stone geologically formed tens of thousands of years ago under intense heat and pressure – so that it can withstand that heat today. Igneous stone is the best choice; among those are granite, basalt, and andesite porphyry. In addition, the stone should be homogenous, and with few inclusions, so that it stays whole as long as possible. Testing many natural stones, we have found Basalt to be the most durable and best suited for grilling.
Grilling on Basalt:
Basalt is a dark, heavy volcanic rock that makes up most of the world’s oceanic crust. Formed as volcanic magma, tiny bubbles of carbon dioxide and water vapor formed in the molten rock as it approached the surface.
The spaces formed by the bubbles in the stone make it perfect for grilling, distributing and intensifying the heat evenly, and capturing fats from the grill surface so that your meat doesn’t sit in fats.
How to grill on flat surface stone?
1. Start your gas grill, charcoal grill or open fire.
2. Unless you are working with a campfire, you don’t have to wait until the fire is really hot, just make sure it is burning well. Lay your Grillstones on top of your grate (for gas or charcoal), with an open fire, wait until you have some glowing coals, then pull them out of the fire into a low pile and lay your Grillstone direct on the coals.
3. Now you have to wait until the Grillstone gets really HOT.
But in the meantime:
If your Grillstone is new, begin pouring a bit of your preferred oil onto the Grillstones (grape seed is great because it withstands high heat without smoking); spread this with a spatula or silicone brush.
If your Grillstone is older, scrape any residue off the stone into the fire, and oil the surface again as above. You can scrape and oil lightly a few times if you like, you will see that moisture will come out of the stone as it heats, and you may want to scrape this away with the residue.
4. When the Grillstone is hot so that drops of water or sauce sizzle, it is ready for your meat or vegetables. Place them on the Stone and let them sizzle in one place for about 5 minutes (you can cover if you wish). When they are evenly browned, they will be easy to flip with a spatula.
5. At this point you can add other vegetables to grill in with your meat if doing a stir fry, or on the side. You can also turn your flame off, if using a gas grill.
6. A few minutes before finishing, pour any marinade or sauce on the Grillstone, this adds flavor to the grill item, and flavor to the marinade or sauce.
7. Remove your grill items, scrape the sauce over them, and cover the grill (this will help burn off any remaining food or sauce on the Stone).
Now you have perfect meat, fish, chicken, or vegetables, and a perfect sauce. Enjoy!
Care and Cleanup:
Do not wash or soap the Grillstone, burning the residue is enough to remove residual flavors and sterilize the Stone. So just scrape and oil after and before each use!
We recommend not putting really cold liquids direct on a hot Stone; let them reach room temperature if possible. Also, if you live in a freezing climate, we recommend that once you start using your Stones, you store them in a temperate place such as your garage.
IF your stone cracks or breaks (this WILL happen eventually), you can decide to push it together and continue using it because it does NOT affect the use of the Stone!
The Last Word:
Healthy Grilling? Grilling is a wonderful, communal, ancient way to cook, eat and socialize – what makes it unhealthy are the fats dripping off the meats and into the fire and combusting – this produces carcinogens. Grilling on a flat surface stone eliminates this effect, as the surface catches the fats – the food doesn’t sit in the fat as on a griddle, but it doesn’t drip through as with a grate.
If you still want grill marks on your food – leave a space open on your grill, and grill the food quickly over the grate when it is done.
The following websites are interested, and were helpful in the above article:
Milk? Steak?! Believe it – that not-so-tender Flank steak changed! No resistance as I cut a delicious piece.
Flank Steak from the Vermont Country Grillstone
When it was first suggested to use milk as a tenderizer, I was skeptical – the image of meat and milk didn’t inspire me.
But, as I have faith -
We put our two flank steaks in a shallow container, covered it with 2% milk, and left it in a cool place overnight.
The next day, after taking the meat out of the milk, and drying it off, I laid the meat in a marinade made from:
2 cloves chopped or diced garlic
2 tbsp Soy sauce
1tbsp honey
3 tbsp Whiskey
½ tsp red pepper flakes
We left the meat in the marinade for the day, but try for at least a few hours.
We heated the Grillstone on high heat on our gas grill, but if you are using charcoal or an open fire, get it as hot as possible. Then pour some oil on the Grillstone (Grapeseed or Coconut oil hold up well in high heat, but any vegetable oil will work) and distribute it with a spatula, scraping any burnt on residue off the Grillstone.
When hot, scraped and oiled, put the Flank Steaks on the grill – save the marinade for later. The Grillstone will sear the total surface of the Steak, not letting any of those meat juices escape and drip into the fire! After 5 minutes (for med. rare), or 7 minutes (for med. well), turn the Steak over, pour a bit of the whiskey marinade over the steak, and turn your grill off (saves gas!) – leave the Steak on the 5 or 7 minutes as you wish. Put the steak on a heated plate and let sit for 5 minutes before cutting across the grain for tasty, perfectly grilled Flank Steak strips.
It was delicious, and tender! We used the extra Whiskey marinade as a dipping sauce for the steak strips.
Grillstone advantage: Sears in the flavor on the COMPLETE surface of the meat – no uneven grilling, no unhealthy burnt spots; and always pour some marinade or sauce on the stone while cooking, it will reduce and thicken – sopp it up with bread or scrape it onto your grilled meat.
