Monte Cristo Skillet – and Your Cast Iron Memories
This delicious recipe is at the bottom of the post. Hope you get to try it soon!
Be sure and share your special Cast Iron memories in the comments below!
(more details at bottom of post)
Today I’m thrilled to bring you a guest post from the good folks at Martha White, along with a fun announcement! The National Cornbread Festival is coming up! The cornbread festival is held each year in the neat little town of South Pittsburg, Tennessee, and this year Martha White has asked me to be a judge. So I get to participate in the festival AND taste all of the yummy entries, to boot! The festival is a weekend long family event with all sorts of fun activities taking place, including tours of the Lodge Cast Iron Factory. Click the Cornbread Festival logo at the bottom of this post to visit the official homepage and learn more.
I’m really looking forward to meeting more of the Southern Plate Family! We have a page over on Facebook where folks can RSVP that they are coming so if you plan on coming out for the fun this year so click here to head on over there and let me know so I can look forward to seeing your face and keep you posted on times and location of the Southern Plate Family meet and greet.
I’m also hoping some of you will enter the competition. Wouldn’t it be wonderful if a member of the Southern Plate family won it? I happen to know that y’all are a group of extremely talented cooks – who cook for the love of family and friends – and I can’t imagine a dish tasting better than one made by one of you. For the official rules of the competition, click here. To go ahead and enter, click here.
This Monte Cristo Skillet was the Grand Prize Winner of the 2006 National Cornbread Festival. It caught my eye because I recently had my very first Monte Cristo Sandwich and absolutely loved it. Southern Living sent me to Charleston to do some presentations for the Taste of Charleston Festival. Have you ever been to Charleston? Oh my goodness gracious, is that a beautiful town! With every sight and sound I became more determined to bring my family back there someday so I could experience it with them (It is hard to enjoy a trip without the folks you want to share it with beside you).
As I’ve started traveling from time to time I’ve taken a queue from my adventurous counterparts at SL and started making it a point to try something new in each place if possible. In Charleston, I had my first Monte Cristo Sandwich and it was right up my alley. I ate it in the cafe of a beautiful hotel right downtown. The flavors were a unique combination for me: Ham, cheese, battered and toasted bread drizzled with a sweet fruit preserves and sprinkled with confectioner’s sugar. It was part lunch, part breakfast, part sandwich, part dessert, and all the way good!
So when Martha White offered to guest post I got to nosing around for what recipe I thought would appeal the most to everyone and as soon as this skillet came before my eyes, my heart just settled on it.
This recipe is quick to throw together and feeds six people. I like strawberry preserves with mine but feel free to use whichever you like best. I also omit the turkey and use additional ham in it’s place. Lunchmeat ham works just fine!
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Love Your Cast Iron?
Be sure and pick up this month’s special Cast Iron issue of Taste Of The South. It is filled to the BRIM with delicious recipes for your cast iron skillet, gorgeous food photography,
and those sweet people even put my name on the cover!
I don’t know who is more tickled, me or my mother!
I lost Phyllis’ comment about her cast iron skillet, but I wanted to tell her that there is lots of info online about the company and even a few listed on eBay. Looks like her skillet came from about 1918 or thereabouts.
http://www.answers.com/topic/martin-industries-inc
It was in 1905, just after the turn of the 19th century, that two brothers, W.H. Martin Sr. and Charles Martin, founded King Stove and Range Company, a small cast iron foundry in Sheffield, Alabama. The foundry made coal and wood heaters, cooking stoves and ranges.
The Martins expanded their business in 1918, when they purchased a financially sinking stove foundry in Florence, just across the river from Sheffield. The brothers incorporated the acquired business as Martin Stove and Range Company, a separate business from King Stove and Range. There they made coal and wood stoves as well as gray iron castings. The foundry also turned out cast hollowware, iron skillets, and clothes-pressing irons known as “sad” irons.
a couple more links
http://antiqueshoppefl.com/archives/rnuhn/cast%20iron0709.htm
http://www.cookingissues.com/2010/02/16/heavy-metal-the-science-of-cast-iron-cooking/
Looks so yummy, Christy….and I’ve had cast iron skillets since we first
got married almost 40 years ago. After leaving for the weekend we returned
to find our hgh school aged senior placing the skillet in the dishwasher, and he couldn’t figure out why it turned orange!! But that came off with a good clean and we are still using it.
Love the cake pops ad. I’ve bought those and would love to get that for my
grand-daughters, they love them too!! 🙂
I don’t think we get that version of Martha White’s cornbread mix here in Texas. I’ll look next time I’m at the store.
I have two cast iron skillets that are used a lot. The little one is used to make cornbread for the two of us. I used to have my grandmother’s cornstick pan, but it is missing. Must have been when we moved or something.
My husband didn’t know about washing the skillet with soap and scrubbing the heck out of it. He knows now, bless his heart.
I have cast iron passed down from both my grandmothers. I have skillets in several different sizes (one is square), a griddle, dutch oven, corn stick pan and a muffin pan. They are treasures I would not part with. My husband and I do not share the same preferences for cornbread so when I bake it (usually when having pinto beans) I make one skillet the tried and tested Martha White Recipe and the other skillet with a bit of sugar added to the batter so he can have his sweet. It is always a joy to turn over tha skillet of cornbread and have it drop right out of the skillet.
What fond memories this brings back with my grandmothers. I was raised by my fraternal grandmother. There are several which I use for cornbread, upside down cake, chicken, good fresh fish from the cabin on the lake and of course the dutch oven which has held pot roasts, chili,etc.. My favorite is no longer useable as it had a copper patch in the bottom and finally cracked open. My grandmother Grayson was born in 1893 and this skillet belonged to her mother. Yes I surely have a soft spot for these skillets and the memories that return with every use.
Christy, PLEASE do a post on cast iron skillets!! A true dummy’s version in fact. My mother had one when I was growing up, but we always scrubbed it each time with steal wool to keep it clean. I hated using it because food always stuck so bad to it and it was so hard to clean. It also liked to rust, which is another reason we scrubbed it each time. Years later, I had someone give me a couple cast iron fry pans, which I ended up giving away because I didn’t want to deal with the rust and sticking food like my mother did.
I’ve since heard that you’re suppose to season them, but I have no idea how to do this. Nor do I know how to cook with one or how to care for (clean and store) them. Also, why do people like to keep one only for bread and one only for chicken, etc.?
I would love to learn, but have no idea where to start, (and how long does it take to get it seasoned and cooking correctly?). So like I said, a real dummy’s version would be great. I’m sure I’m not the only one out here who is ignorant on using cast iron.
Here’s my instructions for curing cast iron. I love mine, use it all the time. My set has wooden handles that screw into the pan(s) and can be removed to use the pan(s) in the oven then screwed back in to remove the hot pan.
Never saw another set like it and it’s great.
NOTHING does fried chicken like cast iron!
* Prepare your pan by scrubbing it with hot soapy water, ensuring there is no food residue or rust, and dry it completely.
* Warm the pan up slightly, and apply a coat of melted shortening to the inside and outside. Liquid cooking oils are not recommended.
* Preheat your oven to 350 degrees and put your cookware in upside right, on a foil-covered cooking sheet, to catch any drips. If you use a non-covered baking sheet, it will require a good scrub afterwards – the foil saves on the cleanup.
* Bake for approximately 20 minutes. If it starts to smoke, reduce the temperature by 10-15 degrees until it stops. This may increase the time by a few minutes, but will not hurt the cure.
* Drain off any excess grease, and put the pan back in the oven, this time upside down, for 1 to 3 hours. A re-seasoning may only require half of that time.
* Turn the oven off, and let the pan cool down naturally before removing it.
Thank you LadyJane!! I’m like Vikki & several others. I’ve got 4 cast iron skillet in varying sizes that have been passed down, that just sit in the oven drawer! I just printed out your instructions & will carry them out! Thanks again!
I do have a complete seasoning tutorial on sp If y’all need it!
Im with Vikki— I want a Cast Iron Skillet class for dummies. Don’t assume we know ANYTHING. I am so scared of cast iron skillets for some reason. Someone gave me an iron skillet for a wedding present and it is slick coated on the inside though. Will it still work like a cast iron skillet? I still have to spray it with pam…its not totally non stick. ANway, I digress…just want a cast iron tutorial, please. 🙂
I’ll put that at the top of my list and try to get a complete post done for ya soon as I’m able!
Gratefully
Christy
YES!!! Please, Christy!! vikki’s experience with cast iron mirrors mine exactly and I would really like to take mine out of the closet and use then. They have a soapy smell that gets worse when they get warm, everything sticks and they are probably rusty now too.
Oh Yeah! Thank You Vikki. I am another women that was brought up on the cast iron cooking but I have to idea on seasoning a cast iron and I have wanted to learn the talents of cooking in a dutch oven and cast iron. Its one thing to respect the seasoned cast tion but another to know the proper way to season it correctly. Any help would be appreciated. Love you Christy.
I don’t use much of anything other than cast iron! I have a chicken fryer, all sizes of frying pans, and several dutch ovens. When I pull out the little dutch oven, the kids get excited because they know that I only make cobblers in it! Most of my iron is way older than I am!