Salt. Pepper. Butter. Brown sugar. These are ingredients grill jockeys around the world reach for on a daily basis. Not all are created equal, however, and the type of seasoning, even something as simple as salt, can have a big impact on the results.
Barbecue sauce: Being the Grilling Guru and all, I usually make my own barbecue sauce. But there are many great commercial sauces out there, and if a recipe calls for barbecue sauce and you don’t have time to make your own, it’s fine to use one of these.
Butter: Like dark brown and light brown sugar, salted and unsalted butter are more or less interchangeable when it comes to grilling. Most competition pit masters use salted butter, which has more flavor than unsalted. You can pretty much achieve the same effect by using unsalted butter and adding an extra sprinkle of salt. If a recipe calls for two tablespoons salted butter and all you have is unsalted (or vice versa), it’s not worth making a special trip to the store.
Fruit juices: The difference between fresh and frozen (or reconstituted or commercial) orange, lemon, or lime juice is enormous. I am uncompromising on this point—if a recipe calls for fresh juice, use freshly squeezed. On the other hand, commercial peach and pear nectars or cranberry juice work just fine.
Mustard: Cheap ballpark mustard is the condiment of choice among many American pit masters. But I prefer the refinement of French mustards, particularly smooth Dijon or grainy Meaux.
Oil: It adds richness to marinades, succulence to bastes, and luster to grilled fare of all sorts, not just chicken. It keeps fish and chicken breasts from sticking to the grill grate, and a drizzle applied just before serving can add a whole new dimension of flavor. I’m talking about that lifeblood of barbecue: oil. When choosing an oil, I look for ones that pay a flavor dividend: olive oil for Mediterranean or California-style grilling, sesame oil for Asian recipes. All have the fruity-nutty flavor of the ingredients they’re pressed from and add extra flavor. The olive oil should be extra virgin, that is, an oil with low acidity and a pronounced fruity flavor. Sesame oil should be Asian style—pressed from roasted sesame seeds and very nutty. For a more neutral oil that adds no flavor of its own (when you don’t want the taste of the oil to intrude), use canola or another vegetable oil.
Pepper: It’s hard to imagine barbecue without the aromatic heat of pepper—whatever other seasonings you may add. In the best of all possible worlds, you’d grind whole black or white peppercorns whenever pepper is called for. Freshly ground pepper has a stronger, brighter, and more aromatic flavor than preground. It’s the difference between VHS and DVD. That being said, most of the world’s grill jockeys use preground black pepper with great success. It’s certainly more convenient, and none of the recipes in this book will suffer too terribly if you use it. One good compromise is to grind a quarter cup or so of whole peppercorns in a spice mill or coffee grinder every few weeks. Store the resulting powder in a jar. That way, you get the aromatic burn of freshly ground pepper with a pinch of your fingers—without having to fuss with a pepper mill every time.
Salt: I like coarse salt—either kosher or sea—for grilling. The large crystals dissolve more slowly than table salt, so they give the food little salty bursts of flavor. Sea salt has the added advantage of containing trace elements from the ocean, so it’s particularly good with seafood (it’s also plenty tasty with poultry). Kosher salt also has coarse crystals. It’s very pure and a little more economical than sea salt.
Sugar: Unless otherwise called for in the recipes here, use granulated white sugar. When brown sugar is called for, you can use light or dark brown—whichever you have on hand. Dark brown contains a little more molasses, so it has a richer flavor, but both will work. It’s not worth running out to the grocery store to buy a tablespoon of light brown sugar when you already have dark brown on hand.
