The Quest for Fire
In
honour of the impending long summer days with hours of outdoors time
that will be spent and the grills that are just begging to be used I
figured I would start off my second week of this blog with a little something
about outdoor grilling.
I
just first off before I really get into any of the real meat of this
entry I should give you all the caveat that I do NOT ever use a gas
grill, I believe if you want to cook with gas get a gas oven or stove
top but leave the BBQ-ing to real burning wood and charcoal. Thus
everything I write will be under the assumption that you will also be
using a proper BBQ and although some of what I write may be adaptable
to a gas grill I assert that a traditional grill is not only tastier
but more versatile in many cases and just as easy for the most part
to use.
Getting started with
outdoor grilling...
OK
so we have decided we want to do some outdoor grilling now the
question arises what do we need? Well the list of required items is
fairly short but the are basically as follows.
A
BBQ- Now this can be as simple as a hole dug in the ground with a
grate over the top of it to one of the many variety of BBQ grills out
there on the market. But assuming you are going with a store bought
BBQ there are a few things you should look for in choosing what one
you want. The basic things to look for regardless of anything else
are; how heavy is the construction, generally heavier construction =
better product, how is it put together is it mostly welds or nuts and
bolts also if nuts and bolts are they flimsy or heavy nuts and bolts,
and finally is it deep enough to get a decent spacing and allow for
decent heat control when cooking. From there you would look at the
more personalized options like how big a cooking area will you
require and what kinds of cooking are you going to want to be doing,
will you just be grilling or are you going to want to try smoking
food as well. Personally I would always recommend going just a
little bigger that you think you are going to need as you never know
you may decide you want to grill that really big fish or a turkey or
something similar. If you want to do smoking you will want to go
bigger yet again or get yourself an offset smoker which is basically
a 2 chamber BBQ so you can keep you fire in one chamber and cook your
food with the smoke and indirect heat in the second chamber. I will
go more into Grills in a later post
Something
to Burn- Usually when home grilling as it is a bit easier to control
we use charcoal but wood or a combination of the two can be used just
as easily. If using just wood in most commercial grills you have to
use only dense hardwood and the denser the better as it will burn
slower as a general rule. Now on the other hand if you are using
charcoal I would generally recommend going with a 'Natural Lump'
charcoal over a 'Pressed Briquet' style as it generally gives you
better tasting results. I find the 'Pressed Briquet' style of
charcoal sometimes imparts a bit of a “fuel like taste” which you
can also get if you use a petroleum based starter without giving it
ample time to completely burn off, therefore if using a petroleum
based starter you have to give it alt least 25-30 minutes to burn
before cooking to insure you don’t wreck your food even if the
grill is up to heat before then. This can of course be avoided by
using the “Chimney” method and using paper as a starter but this
also requires you to have a chimney starter which you must then
either buy or make yourself.
Cooking
Utensils- I find in general unless using a larger grill that normal
kitchen spatulas and tongs will do the job just fine as long as they
are metal not not really flimsy but in the case that you have either
a very large grill, plastic utensils or flimsy utensils you may want
to go out and pick up a BBQ set. These can be picked up quite
cheaply at a wide variety places like dollar stores, grocery stores
and hardware stores.
Now
that we have acquired the basics it's time to fire up the grill...
From Flame to Plate
Lighting
the grill is very easy but it something many people put way to much
thought and consideration into often getting the job done
sub-optimally. Quite simplay the 2 easiest ways are either the
chimney method or the pyramid method. With the chimney method you
take a 'chimney which can be as simple as an apple juice can with the
top and bottom cut off and a few holes in the sides for air flow to
some reasonably fancy ones you can buy already made. You then
crumple up some paper put in under the charcoal grill (most BBQs will
have two 'grills one deeply recessed in the BBQ that the coals sit on
and one that goes above the coals that you put the food on), put the
chimney above the crumpled paper, fill chimney with charcoal, and
light the paper. It will take about 20 minutes for the coals to
catch completely at which time you use some tongs to remove the
chimney place down the cooking grill and get ready to cook. With the
pyramid method you pile the coals in a pyramid or cone shape and
either try to light from below with paper like the chimney method
(this can be hard) or with a small (note small) amount of petroleum
based fire starter. Once the coal have caught spread them out a bit
put the cooking grill into place and you are basically ready to cook.
Now
all we have to do is wait from the grill to heat up a bit and make
sure out flame is at our more or less desired cooking temperature.
To regulate the flame in a fixed height open pit grill the only
method really is to have a spray bottle of water on hand and if the
flame is too hot them to spray the coals just a little bit. On a
typical closed grill we have more options though. On a typical
closed grill we have a set of vents one at the base of the grill that
regulates the amount of air intake possible to the grill and one on
the lid that regulates air/smoke exhaust. By opening these op you
can increase airflow thus increasing the heat of your flame and by
closing these you can reduce the heat by reducing airflow. The exact
amounts you have to open and close the vents will take some
experimentation and will vary but its fairly simple to get the hang
of.
Everything
is finally ready to put our meat or veggies on the grill,...YAY!!!
Depending
on what you are cooking times will very and if you haven’t done
much cooking you may find having a meat thermometer to be very
helpful in getting your food cooked correctly. You also may or may
not, depending on what you are cooking, want to sauce your food
during the cooking process but really the grilling itself especially
done with wood or wood chips should impart enough flavour on its own
that nothing else should be necessary (not that it can't add to the
experience).
We
have now covered a lot of the BBQ basics and will be ready to discuss
some more techniques and some recipes in our next instalment.
Bleeding
Teddy – The Bachelor Gourmet
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