Bests & Worsts Reviews from Amazon

As you can guess this product is a giant block of salt. I got one of these to try some creative things with cooking and there are several things I wish I understood beforehand. Cooking on a salt block requires much more prep time and clean up. There are 3 uses for salt blocks: presentation, cooking, and chilling. Presentation block: Salt blocks look cool. its pink and marbled and when you serve your guests on a salt block people will be impressed. Its a conversation piece. and food you serve on it will pick up a very small amount of the salt from sitting on it. If you plan to use the block as a presentation block, don't cook on it. once you heat the block up you lose much of the pink color, you'll get cracks, and by cooking food on it it will darken he surface. Best just to have a separate presentation/serving block. Chilling block: Pop this block in the fridge for a few hours to let it get nice and cold and you can use it for deserts! Pour chocolate on it and when the chocolate hardens you can break off nicely salted chocolate pieces. Or it works great on fruits and cheeses. It takes about an hour or longer in fridge to get it sufficiently cold. Cooking block: This is what most use the block for. WORD OF CAUTION.... Do not heat these up too fast or they can explode! You want to heat gradually, increasing temperature every 15 minutes until its hot enough. These can withstand temps of over 500 degrees. You can cook on a grill, stove or oven (I wouldn't use in gas oven though, salt absorbing moisture in oven can be a problem). You can cook food on the block or under the block (i.e. chicken on a grill with block on top of chicken. weight of the block presses on the meat infusing salt and flavor). Cleaning: After you cook on these you want to wait until its back to room temperature before cleaning the block. This can take a few hours to get cool again. You don't want to rush this since rapid temperature fluctuations can cause it to crack. Use water and a brush to scrape off food bits. Don't use soap for obvious reasons. Also when your cooking on these, you might make a huge mess! if you cook juicy items or too close to the edge that grease or juices will just run right off the block! I would recommend getting a salt block guide or cookbook to learn all the ways to use these blocks. Mark Bitterman makes a good one, that helped me learn proper way to use the block. Have fun cooking with these!