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Photographs by Jim Stott
I consider myself a liberated woman, one who grew up believing in women’s rights and equality for all. I have been known to chop and stack wood, mow the lawn, and partake in all sorts of other so-called “male” jobs. And I am married to someone who frequently helps with the cooking and cleaning (not to mention that he is a mean ironer)—all chores that have been traditionally considered “women’s work.” Truth be told, we have a pretty balanced relationship. That is, until it comes to grilling.
When I was a kid, the only cooking my father did was to man the grill, with the emphasis on “man.” The backyard barbecue was his domain. May through November, on nearly every weekend, he could be found in the backyard, a white apron wrapped around his thick waist, splashing lighter fluid on charcoal, creating huge fires, and then flipping burgers, hot dogs, and steaks, and on special occasions, a lamb chop or two.
If you want to get Freudian about this, I guess you could say I was brought up in a male-grilling environment. So it really shouldn’t have come as a surprise that, as the years rolled by and my husband and I set up housekeeping and had a family, the barbecue became his domain, and the kitchen mine. I never had much of a problem with this arrangement. During grilling season, I would cook the side dishes and make the salad and send him outdoors to grill the food. It did occur to me on those first glorious summer evenings, when the light turns a pale shade of purple and lingers in the sky until nearly nine, with a cool breeze blowing, that he had the better end of the deal. Why couldn’t I get out of the hot kitchen and be outside with the live fire and all that barbecue action?
It took a book contract to make it happen. Last year, I spent close to a year working on a book with Stonewall Kitchen devoted to the subject of grilling. (Stonewall Kitchen Grilling will be published by Chronicle Press in the spring of 2010.) To say it was a revelation is an understatement. I grilled for nine months straight and learned a very basic truth: there are very few foods that don’t taste better when they are cooked over an open fire.
I experimented with everything from the standard foods one would expect to barbecue—steaks, hot dogs, sausages, burgers, and fish—to unusual ingredients like olives, pizza, bread, cheese, pineapple, bananas, and more. The primal appeal of smoke and sizzle seems to bring out the best in virtually everything.
What I learned through much trial and error is that there are several basic principals of successful grilling. Number one: you need to control the fire and not let the fire control you—which means avoid leaping flames and super hot temperatures.
Here are some more grilling basics I learned this past year.
Whether you use gas, charcoal, or wood fire, there are two ways to grill, direct and indirect. Understanding how these techniques work will change your outdoor cooking.
Direct grilling involves searing your ingredients. You are cooking over a hot, direct flame, sealing in the flavors and cooking the food fast. This is the right technique to use when you are grilling thick cuts of meat, burgers, or a thick filet of fish. It’s also the right choice when you want the food to have those gorgeous golden brown grill marks on the outside. Direct cooking doesn’t work with more delicate, thinner, or “fragile” foods like vegetables, certain types of seafood and pizza, or foods like brisket or a whole turkey that needs to cook slowly over a long period of time.
Indirect grilling is ideal for most seafood, grilled pizzas, vegetables, and slow-cooked foods like barbecued brisket or whole chickens and turkeys. You light the grill—charcoal, gas, or wood—and let it get good and hot. Then you create two zones in your barbecue—a hot one and a cooler one. With a charcoal or wood fire, you get the coals good and hot and then bank them to one side of the grill. The other side is where you put the food. Indirect grilling requires a grill with a cover. The vents of the cover should be over the cool side of the grill where the food is being cooked, so the heat from the coals is pulled across the food before it is released through the vent. With a gas grill, you heat the two outside burners (or the burners on one end of the grill) and leave the other burners unlit. By creating these two zones, you can move the food around from intense heat to moderate heat so that you can control how fast, or slow, your food cooks. Most indirect grilling is about long, slow cooking. For instance, when you cook ribs, you want to keep them over the cooler part of the grill and let them cook for hours. But in other cases, like grilling a whole turkey or chicken, you want to take advantage of the hot part of the grill first (searing the food over the coals) and then let the bulk of the cooking happen over the cooler part of the grill so the food has a chance to get juicy and cook slowly. When you use both sides of the grill—taking advantage of the direct and indirect grilling techniques—you get the good seared flavor you expect from grilling, without overcooking your food or letting it blacken or get burned. The result? Food that is perfectly cooked and fully flavored. Try experimenting with indirect heat grilling and you’ll notice an immediate difference in the flavor, texture, and overall quality of all your grilled foods.
Knowing when the grill is hot is also an important step in having food that is cooked properly and not burned or undercooked. The best way to gauge the heat of your grill is to have a built in thermometer in your grill that gives you the precise temperature. But many grills, particularly older ones, don’t come with this feature. There’s a really simple trick that will help you gauge if your grill is hot enough. Place your hand a few inches from the grill rack. If it feels like “Oh-my-God-my-hand-is-burning-off!” and you can’t keep it there for more than a second or two, then the grill is hot and ready to go. If you can keep your hand steady for about 3 to 4 seconds before it feels too hot, the grill is medium hot. And if you can keep your hand over the grill for more than six seconds, it’s not very hot at all.
The truth about kebobs and skewer cooking
Everyone loves kebobs and foods grilled on skewers, but no one likes it when half the items on the skewer are perfectly cooked, some are raw, and others are overcooked. Here’s a little trick: rather than place all kinds of different foods on one skewer—like a traditional shish kebob where meat is alternated with a variety of vegetables—place only one type of food on each skewer. If, let’s say, you’re grilling a seafood shish kebob with chunks of swordfish, whole shrimp, scallops, red pepper strips, tomatoes, and onions (see recipe below), think about using one skewer for each ingredient—one skewer of swordfish, one of tomatoes, and so on. This way you can control how long each ingredient cooks without compromise, and have perfectly grilled skewers of many ingredients.
Another great trick when grilling food on skewers is to experiment with natural skewers. Use thick, woody stems of rosemary for skewering tender chunks of lamb or seafood. You can also use long pieces of lemongrass (usually found in the Asian food aisle of the supermarket or at Asian food stores) and skewer meat, fish, poultry or vegetables on the lemongrass to infuse it with a subtle lemony flavor. Be sure to soak all sticks—wooden, bamboo, herbal or lemongrass—in cold water for about an hour before skewering and grilling so they won’t burn when they come into contact with the fire.
Rubs, Marinades, and Sauces
Dry rubs are a combination of aromatic spices, sugars, and salts that are pressed onto foods to act as a quick flavoring and marinade before the food is cooked. (See my recipe below) Marinades are a combination of liquids like wine, soy sauce, citrus juice, and spices like garlic or ginger and herbs that are placed on the ingredients before they are grilled and help to tenderize. Sauces can be placed on foods before they are grilled to act as a marinade or brushed onto food while it’s grilling, or served on the side like a condiment—or sometimes all three. Experiment with all three to find your favorites.
The Tools of the Trade
What tools do you really need for good grilling? You’d be surprised how few you really need.
• A long, sturdy wire brush for cleaning your grill. There are many styles and varieties of grilling brushes; ideally you want something with two sides—one that looks like a stiff wire brush and the other that is flat and looks like a big brillo pad—that will clean your grill before you cook anything. Cooking over a clean grill is crucial. Always clean your grill when it’s hot and foods that are stuck to the grill racks will come off quickly and easily.
• A grill rack or tray is simply a flat grill tray with some type of perforation that allows air and heat to have contact with your food but protects ingredients from falling through the regular grates on a grill. These racks are inexpensive and terrific for smaller pieces of food—shrimp, scallops, pepper strips, small cuts of chicken, etc. Be sure to heat the rack up when you heat the grill so that when the food is placed on top it is at the proper temperature. You might also consider a grilling basket for foods that require higher sides and even more protection from falling into the grill.
• Tongs are essential. You’ll want an inexpensive pair to use for flipping foods over, moving them from one side of the grill to the other, and so on. The worse thing you can do it use a fork (or one of those long barbecue forks) to move food around a grill. Every time you “stab” a piece of food with a fork, you lose precious juices. Tongs allow you to move foods without ever losing any moisture or flavor.
• A pizza paddle or a wide metal spatula are great for moving larger foods from one side of the grill to the other. We use the pizza paddle when grilling pizzas or whole birds—chicken or turkey—and found that it’s easier to get a grip on larger foods.
• Chimney starters are really helpful getting charcoal fires started quickly and easily. These inexpensive metal cylinders have a wire grate on the bottom and vent holes. They are designed to heat the charcoal more quickly and efficiently than throwing a handful of charcoal and newspaper into the bottom of a grill and hoping the coals will catch. Simply place the charcoal into the tube, add a few sheets of newspaper into the bottom grate, light the fire and in about 10 to 15 minutes, you’ll have hot coals that can be poured out onto the grill.
• Ovenproof mitts are important for raising and lowering the grill, moving food off the grill quickly, or generally touching anything hot on or near the grill. We like those thin silicone mitts because they can handle really high heat.
• A brush for marinades. Look for a natural bristle, long-handled grilling brush for mopping marinades and sauces onto foods. You want a long handle so you can brush the marinades onto the food while it’s on the grill without getting too close to the fire and heat. Be sure to clean your brush after each use in warm, soapy water.
• A timer that you can keep out by the grill will keep you from constantly running from the grill into the house to check the clock, as we used to do before we realized how simple it is to have a timer that you can keep out by the grill. It’s impossible to keep track of cooking times without one. Be sure to keep the timer covered and out of the weather when you’re not using it.
• Instant read thermometers are helpful for taking the internal temperature on roasts, chops, thick seafood steaks, etc.
• A plant sprayer or water gun is a great tool to have on hand for putting out flare ups and small fires that are created when fat or oil drips from the food onto the fire. Look for a small, inexpensive variety.
Seafood Shish Kebob One at a Time
Serves 4.
In this recipe, I grill each ingredient separately so that each is grilled to perfection. Plan on letting the ingredients marinate for about an hour. Serve with couscous, rice pilaf, pasta, or crusty bread.
You can add or substitute scallops, onions, new potatoes, or any other seafood or vegetables you like.
1 pound swordfish, or any firm-flesh fish, cut into 1-inch cubes
1 pound medium shrimp, deveined with shell on
2 medium-sized zucchini or summer squash, or one of each, cut into 1⁄2-inch slices
12 cherry tomatoes
1 red, green, or yellow pepper, cut into 8 wedges
1⁄4 cup olive oil
1 cup white wine
2 cloves garlic, finely chopped
11⁄2 tablespoons fresh chopped thyme
11⁄2 tablespoons fresh chopped rosemary
1 teaspoon chile paste, Sirachi, or cayenne
1 teaspoon sweet paprika
2 tablespoons lemon juice
Salt and freshly ground black pepper
1 lemon and 1 lime, cut into wedges
Hot pepper sauce
1. Place the swordfish on one or two skewers. Place the shrimp on one or two skewers. Place the zucchini, tomatoes, and peppers (skin side out) on their own skewers. Place the skewers in a broiler pan or a cookie sheet with high sides.
2. In a small bowl mix the oil, wine, garlic, thyme, rosemary, chile paste, paprika, lemon juice and a generous sprinkling of salt and pepper. Pour over the fish and vegetables and let marinate for about 1 hour; do not marinate for more than 2 hours or the lemon juice will begin to “cook” the fish.
3. Preheat the grill for direct cooking until hot, about 425 degrees. Place a grill rack or grill basket on the grill and let them get hot. Remove the skewers from the marinade and place the marinade in a small saucepan and heat over moderate heat for 5 minutes, until bubbling and slightly reduced.
4. Grill the swordfish and the zucchini for 6 to 7 minutes on each side, or until tender. Grill the pepper for 5 minutes per side, or until the skin is slightly blackened and the peppers are tender. Grill the shrimp for 3 minutes on each side, or until pink and firm. Grill the tomatoes for 2 minutes on each side. Serve hot with lemon and lime wedges and hot pepper sauce.
Rosemary-Coriander-Fennel Rub
This rub is particularly good on pork chops, chicken, ribs, steak, or salmon.
2 tablespoons coriander seeds
2 tablespoons fennel seeds
1⁄8 teaspoon sea salt
Generous grinding black pepper
2 tablespoons dried rosemary leaves
1. In a small skillet set over low heat, cook the coriander and fennel seeds for about 2 to 3 minutes, or until they become aromatic. Add the salt and pepper and stir well.
2. Remove from the heat. Add the rosemary. In a mortar and pestle or a spice grinder, grind the spices until coarsely chopped. Makes enough for about two pounds meat, poultry or fish.
Didi Davis’ Grilled Summer Home Fries
Serves 4.
This recipe for home fries combines grilled potatoes, onions, and fresh corn mixed with garlic and herbs. The recipe works well with a charcoal or gas grill, or over a wood fire. It comes from Didi Davis, owner of Salt Traders. (http://www.salttraders.com/StoreFront.bok) and didi davis food, makers of flavored salt and sugar blends in Ipswich, Mass-achusetts. Serve with egg dishes, steak, sausage, or grilled fish.
1 pound medium-size red potatoes of uniform size, unpeeled
Olive oil
2 medium-size red onions, peeled and cut into 1⁄3 inch-thick slices
4 ears sweet corn, husks and silk removed
2 large garlic cloves, minced
2 tablespoons chopped fresh mint or thyme
Sea salt
Freshly ground black pepper
1. Prepare the grill by lighting charcoal, gas or wood fire until hot.
2. Bring the potatoes to a boil in a pot of water and cook 5 to 7 minutes until barely tender. Drain and cool. When cool enough to handle, cut into 1⁄3” thick slices. Brush the slices with olive oil to coat and set aside on a plate.
3. When the coals are ready (there should be no flames, just glowing red coals with a layer of gray ash around them), brush all the onion slices and the ears of corn with olive oil. Grill the potatoes, onions, and corn about 6 inches from the coals until browned, starting with the onion slices, since they take the longest to cook. Grill the onions about 5 minutes per side, or until just slightly resistant when pierced with the tip of a knife. Grill the potatoes 4 to 5 minutes per side, or until soft when pierced with the tip of a knife. Grill the corn for 3 to 5 minutes, turning often.
4. As the onions and potatoes finish cooking, transfer them to a cutting board and cut into large pieces. Place the pieces in a serving bowl. Cut the corn from the cob and add the kernels to the bowl. Add the garlic, herb of choice, and a few tablespoons of olive oil to coat the vegetables. Sprinkle with sea salt and pepper and toss everything together. Taste for seasoning and serve.
Rubs and Sauces: Go Local
In the last few years, many local companies have starting producing award-winning rubs, sauces, and BBQ flavorings. Here’s who they are and where to find them:
• Appledore Cove of North Berwick, Maine, recently won the coveted Silver Finalist Award presented by the National Association for the Specialty Food Trade, for their Seaside Barbecue Sauce. Smokey, sweet, with just a slight tinge of spice, the sauce is delicious smothered on ribs, chicken, pork, or even shrimp. For more information, contact Appledore Cove, 19 Buffum Road, N. Berwick, ME 03906; 888-849-1787; www.appledorecove.com .
• Stonewall Kitchen of York, Maine, makes a wide assortment of fabulous grilling sauces. (As the author of their cookbooks, I am somewhat biased.) I particularly like the Maple Chipotle Grill Sauce (Winner of Outstanding Savory Condiment in 1997), the Roadhouse Steak Sauce, Wasabi-Ginger Sauce (excellent on shrimp and fish), Garlic Teriyaki, and Citrus Teriyaki. For more information, contact Stonewall Kitchen, Stonewall Lane, York, ME; www.stonewallkitchen .com, or call 800-826-1752.
• Denny Mike’s ‘Cue Stuff, made in York, Maine, has a large line of rubs and sauces specifically designed to make your barbecued foods taste even better. At this year’s BBQ Association Conference held in Austin, Texas, Dennis M. Sherman (“DennyMike”) won five awards for his rubs and sauces. I tried rubbing Sublime Swine Rub on some thick pork chops and threw them on the grill and the results were excellent. The chops had a full, spicy flavor with no extra work for the cook. I also like the Hot ‘N Nasty Barbecue Sauce and the vinegar-based Carolina-Style Sauce for ribs and BBQ brisket. For more information, contact DennyMike’s ‘Cue Stuff, 49 Birch Hill Road, York, ME; or www.dennymikes.com ; or call 207-251-0023
Kathy Gunst is a cookbook author, freelance writer, blogger, and
"Resident Chef" of the award-winning radio show, Here and Now, heard on
over 60 public radio stations nationwide. She is author of the upcoming
books, Stonewall Kitchen Breakfast and Stonewall Kitchen Winter Holiday
Entertaining (Chronicle Books, September 2009).
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