Lasagna on the Egg

Unknown

As our Kitchen Oven can't seem to keep a constant temperature, I volunteered to do this weekend's lasagna on the Egg. Any good reasons that I just can't set an aluminum pan full of lasagna goodies on the plate setter and cook it according to the conventional oven recipe?[p]I figure this should be something easier than the "Good Eats" style turkey I'm doing for Thanksgiving.[p]Thanks,[p]Ron

Mike Oelrich

Ron,[p] My experience has been that if you put a pan of something like that directly on the plate setter, the bottom will burn. I think you'd get a bit better results by turning the plate setter upside-down, putting the grid on it (resting on the upturned legs) and putting the pan on the grid. The trick is to have air circulating around the pan like it would in an oven.[p]Mike

Fairalbion

Ron,
I think that would work. You'd have a pretty big contact area between the pan & the hot plate setter but I don't see how that's worse than exposing it to the fire by setting it directly on a grid. You might make it even more indirect by raising the pan off the plate setter by placing it on 4 small chunks of firebrick or similar material.

Julie

MikeO,
Good idea. That probably would have my made my pizza on the BGE a little less cajun styled when my oven decided not to work and I already had the pizza on the pan.
Julie

Tim M

Fairalbion,[p]I agree with you. I put my turkey drip pan directly on the setter or firebricks and the drippings don't burn. A good friend of mine says he does lasagna in his ceramic cooker all the time - I need to ask him how he does it.[p]Tim

Puj

Ron,[p]No problem with baking lasagna in the Egg. I do this all of the time. Use a pizza stone or inverted plate setter for the indirect. You do want to raise the lasagna pan off the stone though. I use ceramic spacers (kiln posts) to do this. A grid and many other things can do this too. You just want to make sure that you don't burn the lasagna sitting in the bottom of the pan, which it most likely will do sitting directly on a stone.[p]Have fun,
Puj

Stogie

Ron,[p]I use my grill all the time in the same way as the oven. No need for fancy set-ups...just place directly on the grill.[p]Here is an easy tip to prevent burning, I learned this when I made cornbread on my grill....Place a like-size alum. pan underneath your alum pan that the food is in....just set the food pan into the empty pan. There will be a very small air space and that is all that is needed. No burning as long as your grill is around 350º...which is the most common seeting when cooking.[p]Stogie

The Naked Whiz

Tim M,
FWIW, I have a ceramic stone that resides full time in my oven. I always put anything I'm baking on the stone. So, I should think it would be ok in the egg also.[p]TNW

Unknown

Due to some last minute changes, we flip flopped the lasagna and turkey cooks. Lasagna came out great with a very light smoky taste. Using a recipe out of Cook's Illustrated (according to my wife, the best discovery since the Egg), we preheated the Egg to 375 with the plate setter feet up with the grill on top. We set the aluminum pan on top of the grill. Next time we will probably use a sturdier pan. I'm looking forward to our Turkey on Saturday.