From the Lexicon, Comal, Plancha & Griddles
Flat-metal cooking: dry heat with total contact, no walls, no steam trap. The COMAL (Mexican, carbon steel or clay): tortillas puffed (the recipe wing's flour-tortilla law), chiles and tomatoes charred for salsas (the blister IS the flavor: dry-charring is a technique category), quesadillas sealed. The PLANCHA (Spanish) and TEPPAN (Japanese): restaurant flat-tops delivering full-surface Maillard. Smash burgers' entire physics (maximum crust contact), gambas a la plancha, fried rice at scale. Home translation: a carbon-steel griddle or the cast-iron pan's flat side across two burners; outdoor flat-top grills (the Blackstone era) brought plancha cooking to backyards. The flat-top's professional edge: heat ZONES across one surface, sear left, hold right, the pass's geography in steel.
Read it in the Lexicon →