Today's Tax Day. Not the most auspicious day to bring up one of the most expensive pans we own ... or is it?
See, we recently bought an All-Clad Petite Roti. It was an obsession for a while; a couple of holiday roasts, some roast chickens. But now we admit we're really only using it once, maybe twice a month.
No matter how sexy-shiny our All-Clad roaster it is, in order to justify the purchase, we need to cook with this $159.99 pan more than once a month. Down with expensive, single use kitchen tools!
Is a roasting pan only for roasting and the occasional lasagna? We happened on this Tyler Florence re-run and got our answer ...
Tyler used his roasting pan to make spaghetti and clam sauce. He started the pancetta, clams, and garlic on the stove in the roaster. Then he popped the whole thing in the oven to finish it, waiting for all the clams to open.
Perfect solution, Tyler. Wise way to take advantage of the stove-top cooking properties of high-end roasting pans. Plus, since the roaster is big, the clams have plenty of room to spread out. When we made clam sauce, the pan we picked didn't have enough space to easily open up.
Has anyone used a roaster for this kind of cooking? Who has more smart uses for the roaster? It's not just for Thanksgiving turkeys anymore.
My mother has always used hers to make mussels. My dad and I love scooping the little guys up with a shell FULL of wine sauce, and the roaster is the perfect size and height to accomodate tons of mussels and a panful of sauce. You don't even need to transfer the food to a serving dish. Just plop it in front of an eager crowd to share.
view Laura (murray hill)'s profile
This roaster would probably be good for making scalloped potatoes or cabbage rolls for a crowd too. And Nigella is always tossing a bunch of chicken bits and sausage into pans like that on her TV show.
I think using something like this once or twice a month seems okay. It seems like a pretty versatile pan and I would love to have something like it.
view laura dot's profile
Another good thing to use your roaster for is stock, we've been using ours to roast the chicken/bones in it in the oven and then we take them out deglaze the pan and it all goes into a stockpot. We dirty up two dishes that way, but the stock has so much more flavor to it by roasting the chicken first.
Also around the holidays I use mine to make carmel corn and chex mix, works like a charm for both of those.
view Sarah's profile
i have a very similar roaster but am mainly cooking veggie things these days... am debating whether or not we still need it! does anyone have any more vegetarian suggestions for such a great pan?
view phoebe (silk felt soil)'s profile
Sarah, is your roaster non-stick?
view gochrisgo's profile