Griddles, chargrills and salamanders: picking the right heat

A griddle is a solid, flat metal plate (steel or similar), heated from below by gas or electric elements, on which food is cooked directly. Because the food sits on the flat solid surface, the griddle cooks by conduction - heat transfers directly from the hot plate into the food through their full contact. This is the defining feature: full, even contact between a flat heated surface and the food. It gives even, controllable heat across the whole plate, and a broad flat cooking surface. So a griddle suits foods that benefit from cooking on a flat surface with full even contact: eggs, pancakes and breakfast items (which need a flat surface), burgers, sliced onions and vegetables, and delicate items that need gentle, even heat without the gaps or flare of open grilling. The flat surface also lets you cook a lot at once and control the heat across zones, which suits high-volume flat-food cooking.

The griddle's characteristics - flat, solid, full contact - are what make it right for those jobs and less suited to others (it does not give char marks or the grilled flavour of open grilling, because there is no flame contact or drip-flare). For cleaning, the flat solid plate accumulates cooked-on food, carbon and grease over service, and needs regular cleaning - scraping down the plate during and after service, and periodic thorough cleaning to remove the built-up carbon and grease that a flat cooking surface gathers. Grease also runs off the plate (usually to a trough or tray) and around the equipment, so the surrounding area and any grease-catching parts need cleaning too. A griddle is a workhorse that gets heavy use and builds up soil accordingly, so keeping it clean is a regular task - both for hygiene (it is a food-contact cooking surface) and to keep it working well (a clean plate cooks better than a carbonised one). So the griddle is the flat-plate, conducted-heat option: even full-contact cooking for flat and delicate foods, needing regular cleaning of the plate and its grease.

A salamander is an overhead grill: a heat source mounted above the food, radiating heat downwards onto whatever is placed beneath it. So where the griddle heats from below by contact and the chargrill heats from below by radiation, the salamander heats from above by radiation. This overhead intense heat makes the salamander suited mainly to finishing and top-surface jobs rather than primary cooking: browning the top of a dish, glazing, melting cheese (gratins, topping dishes), toasting, crisping or colouring the surface, and finishing plated items with a burst of top heat. It is the tool you reach for to put colour, crispness or a melt on the top of food, or to finish and reheat, rather than to cook something from raw through (though it can cook some thin items). So its role is often as a finishing station alongside the primary cooking equipment.

Because the salamander is used for these finishing jobs, it is picked when the job is to apply intense heat to the top of food - which the griddle (heat from below by contact) and chargrill (heat from below, and about char not top-finishing) are not designed for. So the three are complementary: griddle for flat full-contact cooking, chargrill for grilled char, salamander for top-finishing. For cleaning, the salamander accumulates grease and carbon on its elements, interior and surfaces from the food cooked and finished beneath it - splashes, drips and vapour from below coat it over time - so it too needs regular cleaning to remove the built-up grease and carbon, for hygiene and to keep it working. It is generally a lighter grease load than a chargrill, but still a piece of hot equipment that gets soiled and needs cleaning. And like the others, what it throws off contributes to the grease in the kitchen and its extraction. So the salamander is the overhead-radiant, finishing option - reached for to brown, glaze and finish from above, and needing its own regular cleaning.

All three of these pieces of equipment generate grease and carbon that must be cleaned, but they differ in how much and where, which is worth understanding for keeping the kitchen clean and safe. The griddle builds up carbon and grease on its flat plate and around its grease trough, needing regular scraping and periodic thorough cleaning. The salamander accumulates grease and carbon on its elements and surfaces from the food beneath, needing regular cleaning. The chargrill is the heaviest: its open-grate, drip-onto-heat design generates a large amount of grease, caking the grates and interior and, importantly, sending a heavy load of grease-laden vapour up into the extraction system. So while all three need cleaning, the chargrill is typically the biggest grease producer, both on the equipment and in the extraction above it.

This matters for two reasons. For hygiene, all three are cooking equipment that get heavily soiled with grease and carbon, and need thorough, regular cleaning (beyond quick wipe-downs) to stay hygienic - the built-up grease and carbon are not removed by light cleaning, so they need proper deep cleaning periodically, which is part of a kitchen deep clean. For fire safety, the grease these produce - especially the heavy load from a chargrill - accumulates in the extraction system, where grease build-up is a well-known fire risk (it is combustible and can catch fire in the ductwork). So the extraction above heavy grease-producing equipment like chargrills needs regular degreasing to control that fire load. This ties the choice and use of these pieces of equipment to the kitchen's cleaning and fire-safety needs: the more heavily you use grease-producing equipment like chargrills, the more grease goes into the kitchen and its extraction, and the more important regular thorough cleaning and extraction degreasing become. So picking the right heat for the job is the cooking decision, and keeping the equipment and the extraction clean - especially where a chargrill loads the extraction with grease - is the essential accompaniment, for both hygiene and fire safety. Deep cleaning of this equipment and degreasing of the extraction it feeds is exactly the kind of thorough cleaning these grease-heavy pieces need.