The most critical success factor in grilling has nothing to do with whether you cook with charcoal or gas, marinate your food in advance, or serve your meat with a special barbecue sauce. What counts the most is an understanding and appreciation of true grill flavor. That alone can qualify someone as a master griller, regardless of their choice of fuels, the state of their grill, or their skills as a saucier. If you don’t have it, you can’t even be sure you’re really grilling when you cook on a grill.
All methods of cooking, from simmering to frying, produce distinctive tastes and textures, generally more pronounced the better you practice the method. The goal in grilling is to intensify the natural flavor of food through the chemical process of high-heat browning (known in scientific circles as the Maillard reaction). With meat, fish, and poultry, the browning and crisping of the exterior requires direct heat at a relatively high temperature. The fire must be hot enough to shrink the muscle fibers on the surface, which concentrates the flavor, but not so hot that it burns or chars the outside before adequately cooking the inside. When you get it right, the result is a robust amplification of the food’s natural flavor along with a scrumptious textural contrast between the crusted surface and the succulent interior. It’s an outcome characteristic of true grilling, unlike anything obtained by other outdoor cooking methods except open-flame rotisserie roasting.
The only way to get that special flavor is to fully cook all surface areas of the meat, fish, or poultry over direct heat. That’s not difficult to do, but it isn’t how many Americans grill. To cook entirely with direct heat requires keeping the grill open rather than covered, just as chefs do in restaurant kitchens. When you cook covered, as many American grill manufacturers recommend, you create an oven effect and do much of the cooking with heat reflecting off the lid. In effect, you are grilling and baking at the same time. The resulting flavor reflects the method, providing a modicum of grilled texture along with a generic baked taste.
Using a cover does simplify the cooking process, particularly for inexperienced cooks, which is one of the main reasons that manufacturers suggest it. You put the food in and leave it there until ready, just like in a standard kitchen oven, and you seldom, if ever, torch your dinner or your eyebrows. With an open grill, you must keep an eye on the food, turn it every few minutes, and move it around as necessary to avoid flare-ups. You must control the intensity of the fire and keep track of time well enough to gauge doneness. Some grill industry promoters say this is just too difficult for the American backyard cook, though it’s how people grill at home everywhere else in the world. Personally, we like to be fully involved in the cooking, but even if we didn’t, the flavor trade-off would make the little bit of extra effort worthwhile.
Covered cooking on a grill does make sense in stormy weather, and in some cases when you want to bake or roast food outside. Just because you’re using a grill in these situations, however, doesn’t mean that you’re grilling. You can bake a cake in any covered grill that will maintain a steady temperature, but it won’t be a grilled cake. We stick with actual grilling in this book except in the chapter on rotisserie roasting, a kindred method of cooking for cuts of meat that are too large to grill.
Interviewers constantly ask us about the most common mistake people make in grilling. Our answer sounds strange perhaps, but it’s true: We forget that we’re cooking. We’re enjoying the outdoors, spending time with family and friends, and imbibing our favorite libation. It’s easy to neglect the basic correlates of all cooking, time and temperature. To cook anything well in any way, you apply a proper level of heat for the right amount of time. Too often when we’re grilling, we don’t regulate the intensity of the fire or adjust it appropriately for different foods, and we judge the cooking time on the basis of how long it takes to drink a beer.
That approach works to some extent with forgiving foods such as hamburgers and hot dogs, the first things that most of us grilled. With other ingredients, it’s usually a recipe for disaster. We all understand this when we’re inside, working in our kitchens. No one would ever try to bake a pie by guessing about a good temperature and then letting it cook until they’re ready for dessert. Outside, we want to play looser, but the same principles apply.
Controlling the temperature of the fire is essential. Every food grills best at a particular heat level. The only effective way to measure and then maintain that temperature on an open grill is the time-honored hand test that people have used for eons in all forms of cooking (see “[>]”).
You seldom grill meat, fish, or poultry at lower temperatures, though some fruits and vegetables thrive at a reduced range.
The hand test may sound a little primitive for our technological age, but it provides a more accurate and universal gauge of heat than any modern gadget made for a grill. The thermometers built into the hood of many grills register only the oven heat when the cover is closed, not the true grilling temperature right above the fire. In open grilling, the gauges don’t measure anything.
Use the hand test on both charcoal and gas fires to establish an appropriate heat level before you begin grilling. Temperature adjustments are simple on gas grills, of course, and not much more difficult on charcoal models. With a charcoal grill, fine-tune the heat level by adding or removing coals, opening or closing vents, or moving the food closer to or farther from the fire, depending on the design of your grill. An adjustable firebox makes the task particularly easy, but even on a standard kettle-style grill, you can rev up or dampen the fire effectively by varying the quantity of charcoal used and the amount of air getting to the coals through the bottom vents.
To test the intensity of your fire, hold your hand a couple of inches above the cooking grate and count the number of seconds it takes until the heat of the fire forces you to pull away.
Thick steaks and a few other foods grill best on a two-level fire, usually starting for a few minutes on high heat and then finishing on medium. On gas grills with three or more burners, you can usually keep a hot fire and a medium fire going simultaneously from the beginning, and on smaller models, you simply turn down the heat at the appropriate point. On charcoal grills, you establish two different cooking areas, one with coals in a single layer for moderate heat and another with coals piled two to three deep for a hot fire.
We grill at home with both gas and charcoal, and find little difference in the results most of the time. Unlike their charcoal counterparts, some open gas grills won’t get hot enough to properly sear steaks, but they generally work fine with foods that prefer a moderate fire, such as chicken and vegetables. Infrared gas grills and the new propane (LP) models with an infrared burner or searing station possess plenty of firepower for any purpose and offer an even greater temperature range than charcoal.
For us, the choice of fuel is mainly a matter of mood. We choose gas for everyday grilling because of its speed and convenience, and change to charcoal or wood for entertaining to create a more casual, relaxed party atmosphere. We particularly like grilling over a fire built from real wood (not briquettes or charcoal) because it imparts more flavor to what you’re cooking. If you don’t want to deal with more than one grill, pick the kind that fits you, your purposes, and your budget.
Cooking with the lid open over direct heat, tending your fire, and watching the food and the time—these are the basics of good grilling. There are other important steps toward success, however, that can make a significant difference in your neighborhood renown.
THINK GRATE. Before you put food on a grill, always make sure that the cooking grate is hot, lightly oiled, and clean. Preheat the grate, with the cover down, for up to 15 minutes to get it hot. Raise the cover and measure the temperature above the grate using the hand test (see “[>]”), adjusting the heat as necessary to the most appropriate level for the food you’re grilling. Then carefully brush the grate with a thin coat of oil, applied with a rag or a kitchen brush; don’t spray oil on the grill or use excessive amounts that will cause flare-ups. When you’re finished cooking, scrape the grate clean with a wire brush before it cools.
READY, SET, GO. Before guests arrive, gather and lay out everything you will need for grilling. Once the cooking starts, you won’t have time to scurry around in search of ingredients, tools, towels, or anything else.
TIME THE GRILLING. Calculate how long you expect to be cooking the food, checking a recipe for the information if needed. Then, once you start grilling, set a timer to alert you to turn the food or check it for doneness. We use a small, inexpensive pocket timer available in most kitchen stores.
CHECK FOR DONENESS. If you’re grilling a sufficiently large cut of meat, fish, or poultry, use an instant-read meat thermometer to check for doneness, taking care that the probe isn’t touching bone. With food that’s too thin for a thermometer to register well, such as a boneless chicken breast, cut into the meat when you think it’s ready to make sure the center is cooked through.
LONG AND STRONG TOOLS. The only tools you need for grilling—other than a timer and instant-read meat thermometer—are long and strong spatulas and tongs for turning food. Everything else is merely a showman’s prop.
CONTROL FLARE-UPS. When dripping fat produces a leaping flame under the food, move your vittles to a different part of the grate, at least temporarily. You don’t want burned surfaces. Reduce the odds on flare-ups in advance by maintaining a clean grate, cutting excess fat from meat, and keeping oil in marinades to the minimum needed.