The Spanish call it plancha. Argentinians call it chapa.

We call it one of the best ways to marry the searing and crusting capabilities of a cast iron skillet with the intense heat and smoke flavor produced by your grill.

A traditional chapa is simply a big, flat piece of tin set over a fire. It chief virtue is that once you’ve built your fire under it, instead of waiting your coals burn down to ideal temperature, you are ready to cook in few minutes, as soon as your chapa gets hot.

If there is someone in your are, who makes cast-iron doors or fences, you could have make him you a chapa big enough to cook for your friends. We suggest you one 75 cm diameter set 30 cm off the ground.

After you start to cook with yout own chapa, you will start to “read” your cast iron surface. If your heat is too high, surface develops white patina. A uniformly back surface means less hot.

One of the best virtue of the cast iron is its dense and transformative ability. Due to its dense, it maintains heat for a long time. Whether you are cooking indoor or outdoor, we recommend you to give 10 minutes to cast-iron surface for pre-heating in order to heat all the way though.