La Cotta Steak Maker ~ Review & Demo

After having a question posted in the Kitchen Gadgets and Appliances forum on Food.com inquiring about recipes for the La Cotta pan I was intrigued.  It was a pan I'd never heard of before, and finding information about it online was difficult.
Probably because it was such a unique item, I got sucked into buying one off of Ebay. 

I was so excited to receive it, but life got in the way of trying it out until several months later.  I've now had a chance to use it twice, and hopefully my experience will help others looking to buy or trying to make use of the La Cotta pan.

I was able to dig up several years worth of advertisements for the pan; all from various magazines ranging from 1971 to 1977.  I found it interesting that the price of the pan never went above $9.95, and in particular that in the 1976 Popular Science magazine add, we were only asked to pay $1 per order to partially cover postage and handling.

After reading through the ads I started thinking that this pan was kinda like the original "As Seen On TV" product.  LOL

So what makes it so special?  The ads claim that it is made from volcanic rock found only in Northern Italy; that it is 5 different types of "lead-free" stones ground fine, and then formed into this revolutionary pan.  The porous nature of volcanic rock pulls out acidity, bitterness and fat from your meat, leaving you with nothing but the meat's natural flavor.

Ad from a 1971 issue of The Rotarian Magazine:

Ad from the September 1974 issue of Women's Weekly Magazine:

Ad from a 1976 issue of Popular Science Magazine:

Well, it's time for my official review of the product.
It's approximately 40 years old, and arrived with a rope tied around it to hang the pan on the wall.  It looked like it had never been used, based on my experience with other stoneware baking pans and pizza stones.

This is what mine looked like when I received it:

The online instructions I found at The Healthy from 25 to 100 Blog were the original instructions for the pan, but I quickly found that they weren't very specific on a very important step in preparing the pan for use. 

My first attempt at cooking a thick piece of flat-iron steak was somewhat of a disaster.  Since the pan is rather small, I cut my one large piece of meat into 4 equal pieces; cooked two the first night, and the rest two days later.
Sophie and I had created a basic marinade for the steak, but the pan's instructions say no seasoning other than salt and pepper are necessary, and not to use any oils or butter.  Just before putting a piece of steak into the pan, I blotted the marinade off with a paper towel.
To prepare for cooking the instructions tell you to rinse the pan, inside and out, in lukewarm water.  We did this, then sprinkled coarse sea salt into the bottom of the pan, put my steak in, and then closed the top, leaving a fork turned on its side hanging out of the pan to allow the steam to escape.

The house began to smell immediately.  Not a cooking meat smell, or even something burning in the oven smell, but one that can only be described by admitting to the world that I have forgotten laundry in the washer for more than a day, and then been assaulted with that mildewy smell when I next open the washer.
In the words of the immortal Cat in the Hat, "But that is not all, oh no, that is not all!"
Imagine taking those moldy clothes and stuffing them in the oven to dry them out.
Yep.  I'm quite sure my neighbors thought I was roasting sweaty gym socks. 
The steak was perfectly cooked in about 14 minutes, but the smell had pretty much knocked out any hunger pangs by then.  I ate a few bites and then stuffed it in the fridge.

I allowed the pan to cool before cleaning it, and then I tried the no soap, scraping only, method that the La Cotta ads suggest, and that Pampered Chef recommends for their pizza stone and baking dishes;  no good.  I tried the liquid dish soap, then I tried soaking it overnight in a heavy duty, all natural cleaner, and still nothing.  The next day I tried my favorite homemade cleaner recipe; still no luck, so then I made a simple paste of baking soda and vinegar to soak and scrub it with twice.  I scrubbed and soaked and nothing got the blackened stone to look clean again.  Even the bottom of the pan was blackened, and I have an electric stove. 

I'm not having a good experience, but I don't give up quite that easily.  The following day I start again.  This time I've done even more online digging, and found one mention of having to soak the pan in water, not just rinsing it, before using it.  So this time I soaked the pan for about 15 minutes and then I reduced the heat from medium high down to medium.  Hoping that the soaking and less heat would keep the pan from turning black; It didn't.  And I'm not sure how I'd tell anyway, considering how blackened it still was from the first use.  During the first steak the pan began to boil completely dry, so I started adding Tablespoons of water during cooking.  I've already lost one pan from letting it boil dry while making dulce de leche; I wasn't about to risk this new one!  I know the lower heat was a good idea.  I don't think this pan should be over any more than a medium fire, and definitely soaked for a good 20-30 minutes before use.  In the photo above you can actually see how the pan starts to dry out during cooking, and how the area along the crack soaked up more water originally, so it's staying wet longer.

Again, the end result was a very tender piece of meat... but the smell was just as bad as it was the first time.  Maybe it'll get better over time?  I don't know, but I do know that I can't think of steak without smelling that moldy laundry smell, and it was so bad it permeated the garage and into my sealed car, so now I get to enjoy it even when I'm away from home.
I may or may not try doing battle with this pan again... I haven't decided what kind of meat I want to ruin next.