Grilling on the Stove Top with a Himalayan Salt Brick

I bought a Himalayan Salt Brick from Savory Spice Shop to explore something new in my kitchen. Lucky for me, I’m dating a chef, so it turns out he took on the opportunity to try something new and let me drink wine and take photos. Not such a bad arrangement.

A Himalayan salt brick is a large slab of Himalayan crystal salt that you can heat up to high temps to bake, sauté, or grill; chill to serve cold foods; use to cure meats; and present as a serving platter. It’s a gorgeous slab of light pink marbled “stone,” and I’d wanted one ever since they were first for sale at Savory.

Sean and I used our brick once before in the oven, and I never got around to a blog post… been busy guiding food tours, you know.

Baking on the brick was similar to baking on a pizza stone. The stove top, however, was a new frontier.

Sean spent some time researching this one. If you have a gas range you can set the flame in a way that the stone isn’t directly in contact with fire, but heats up. An electric range, however, requires something to be positioned between the stove top and the brick.  We used a tart shell, but a cake ring or wok ring would work also.

After a trip to the Boulder Farmers’ Market, we had carrots, onions, and squash for grilling.

Sean sliced them and threw them on the hot salt brick while marinating some extra firm tofu that had been frozen, pressed, thawed, and marinated in a little peanut oil and Harissa Spice Mix from nowhere other than Savory Spice Shop.

Our meal was simple, yet took quite some time to execute since we spent forty minutes or so heating up the brick, which crackled and poped in ways that concerned us it was going to crack on the stove. The brick did impart a slightly salty taste to the veggies, which were grilled plain, but didn’t give off a flavor that stood up to the Harissa blend. In the end, the food was great and our dinner was fun, but it was a very long process to prepare what could have been a quick meal on the grill outside or the stovetop.  But then, we wouldn’t have been able to say we grilled on a salt brick, now, would we?

Cheers!