FOOD NEWS
The Small Spanish Cooking Dishes Bobby Flay Can't Stop Using
By Heidi Chaya
Utilizing multipurpose cookware such as cast iron skillets or ceramic bowls that can be baked in the oven and brought right to the table is a great way to present food that'll stay warm while reducing the number of dishes to clean. TV personality Bobby Flay is a proponent of this type of oven-to-table cooking, and he's especially famous for using a Spanish clay cooking dish — the cazuela.
NPR describes cazuelas as round, shallow, glazed-on-the-inside clay dishes with straight sides that offer superb heat control. Flay displayed his use of this dish with his roasted salmon and herb vinaigrette for a 2003 New York Times article, and he prefers using eight-inch cazuelas for roasting mushrooms, shallots, and garlic or cooking squid in chili oil.
Ancient Cookware writes that cazuelas harden every time you cook with them, making them reliable and long-lasting, and in parts of Spain, cazuelas are still hand-made as they were for millennia. If you plan to use a cazuela for the first time, soak it overnight and avoid subjecting it to radical temperature changes or heating it above 400 degrees during its first few months of use.