The other night, I was cooking something on the stove. I don’t remember what, honestly. And suddenly, beneath the pan, I heard a loud snap. Like a .22 round going off. I investigated, saw nothing, kept on cooking. Night after that, my wife — who is actually aware of things, unlike me, who stumbles blindly through life staring through Vaseline-smeared goggles — noted that, hey, look, there’s a crack in the ceramic glass top of the range. The crack, in fact, had spread wildly, like a vein of aggressive chlamydia.
Advice found online was very clear: “Uhh, stop cooking on that, moron. It could shatter further. It could explode. Might electrocute you. Or maybe it’ll break open and gremlins will spill out.”
I, of course, kept on cooking. Hey, fuck it, dinner wasn’t done yet.
The option exists to replace the glass-top, but it’s an older, cheaper range that came with the house and it doesn’t match the fridge (this apparently matters), and so it is time to replace the hot-box.
You may think I’m soliciting advice on ranges. I am not. I mean, if you care to share, fine, but it’s possible I will have ordered something by now. Further, while I appreciate the calls for “What you need is a gas range,” I have to buy an electric so, y’know, sorry? I apologize if my choice in range disturbs or disappoints. Anyway, what I need are:
GRILL RECIPES.
Now, to be clear, I can grill the expected grill-based products with the best of them. Steak, burgers, chops, what-have-you. I mean, shit, it’s not hard. “Put meat on hot thing until no longer raw.” Done!
No, what I’m saying is, I know that you can make all kinds of stuff on a grill that you wouldn’t normally think. Pizza. Desserts. Dishes fancier than, “CHAR FLESH UNTIL SATISFIED.”
So: what do you make on your grill that goes beyond the norm?
Share, if you please. Because I’m going to be cooking on the grill for the next week(s) to come. Any grill recipes, grill tricks, grill stunts, whatever you got, send it my way. For all to see.
And in advance: my thanks.
(If you need to know the grill I’ve got: Weber propane.)
Dave Turner says:
I really want to help you out, but your domestic situation boggles me. You have an electric stove/range and a gas grill? When you feel the need to urinate, do you instinctively try to sit down? That’s the only way I can explain why you have avoided the correct, manly choices of a gas stove/range and a charcoal grill.
April 14, 2011 — 12:18 AM
terribleminds says:
Dave:
Question not my manliness, sirrah. Don’t you live in NYC? There’s no real men there. They’re all male models and coffee baristas and hipster clones. I live in the woods. I kill things with my many guns. I pee on trees to mark my territory. (Alternate theory: because I am lazy.)
QUESTION NOT MY MANLINESS.
…
Okay, serious answer: the gas grill is plenty manly in that it creates fire. Charcoal is all well and good, but my Weber whups up good. Electric is necessary because, well, getting natural gas up in this hizzy is going to be CUH RAZY expensive, since, as I noted, we live way back in the woods in the Wendig Compound. So, unless you’re footing that bill, I’m gonna have to stay strong with an electric range.
🙂
— c.
April 14, 2011 — 7:22 AM
Gareth says:
I give unto you: Seekh Kebab (one of my favorite Indian dishes)
1lb lamb, chopped into cubes
1 medium onion
4 cloves of garlic
2 inches fresh ginger
3 green chillies (your choice)
1/2 cup fresh chopped coriander
1/2 cup fresh chopped mint leaves
2 slices of bread
Juice of 2 limes
1/2 teaspoon of garam masala
Salt to taste
Place lamb in food processor and mince. Take it out and put it in a bowl.
Place bread in processor, make fresh bread crumbs (which also helps clean the lamb residue). Add to lamb mince.
Place onion, garlic, ginger, chillies, coriander, mint, and lime juice in processor and grind into a paste. Mix with lamb/breadcrumb mince.
Put mince in fridge for an hour.
Divide mixture into a dozen or so lumps.
Wet hands and shape into hot-dog shapes around skewers.
Grill approximately 4 minutes on a side — brush with butter for extra nom.
Serve on homemade grilled flatbread:
1 1/2 cups of wheat flour
1 cup of water
Salt to taste.
Mix, knead, divide into 8 balls, roll out balls into flat rounds 1/4 thick. Throw on grill. When bubbles form on top side, flip and continue to cook until golden on both sides. (not long at all).
Garnish kebabs in flatbread with red pepper, onions, chopped coriander… and Raita:
1/2 cup plain yoghurt (Greek is best — thicker than regular.)
1/2 cup sour cream
1/3rd to 1/2 of a cucumber (depending on how much you like cukes), finely diced.
2 tablespoons of minced fresh mint.
1 1/2 tablespoons minced garlic
1/2 tablespoon lemon juice
1/2 teaspoon of salt
1/2 teaspoon of black pepper.
Mix all ingredients, put in fridge for at least an hour.
Put 1 or 2 kebabs on flatbread, with garnish and raita, and then stuff your face.
Enjoy!
April 14, 2011 — 1:02 AM
terribleminds says:
@Gareth:
Sweet Jeebus that sounds good.
I’m sold. Thank you.
— c.
April 14, 2011 — 7:23 AM
Victoria says:
Compared to the Gareth’s suggestion this is going to smell like donkey, but you can pretty much make any kind of fish on the grill if you loosely wrap it in an aluminum foil pocket. The sturdier-fleshed fish are recommended. And to make this extra worthwhile, because the foil will act as a mini-steamer, you can all sorts of good stuff to the fish to marinate it in while cooking.
So you know, go buy a fish or too. Carve them up a bit, lace them with the good stuff, wrap them loosely in their blanket and on the grill they go. Go experiment, make wonderful fish feeds!
April 14, 2011 — 3:03 AM
Jess Tudor says:
I read a blog of someone who’s remodeling their kitchen, and they say that anything you can put in your oven, you can put on your grill. So, line a baking sheet with foil and “bake” pretty much anything you want on that thing. She does roasted veggies, packet cooking, etc.
April 14, 2011 — 6:13 AM
Bubba Hula Spidle says:
Ok, a couple of ideas:
If you haven’t done any plank grilling, do that. Salmon, tilapia, snapper – all of them are fantastic on planks and super easy.
– Soak plank in water for 1-2 hours
– Place fish on plank
– Add garnish – rings of shallots, lemons, limes, garlic, etc etc etc
– Grill until fish is done
That being said, the best thing I ever had off of a grill was both shocking and expected: Boston Butt.
When I was in Petaluma last year and staying with Grayson (the vegetarian, mind you) for a weekend, he had a Luau party in the making, so he took 2 butts and brined them for like 3 days in a typical brine mixture to which he also added a metric shit-ton of pineapple juice. Saturday morning he applied a light rub of salt, pepper, brown sugar, chili powder, and then he placed those hunks of love on the Weber and smoked them for the next 6-7 hours. I couldn’t tell you what wood he used, but I’m pretty sure it was hickory.
The thing that really did the trick, though, was the mop sauce. He used diluted coconut milk, more sugar, maybe a dollop of Sriracha, and chunked pineapple. That mixture was then subject to a stick blender before being liberally applied to the butts after the first few hours and then until he took them off the grill.
Seriously, the only pork I have tasted that was better came out of a tiny shack in the middle of Jamaica called ‘Border Jerk’ (their secret was a grill whose cooking surface was comprised of soaked cinnamon branches and the jerk seasonings were a fiery blend of love and hate that I will never be able to create myself).
If you really want to see what your grill can do for you, get an old school metal hand-cranked popcorn popper and some unroasted coffee beans. Then, my son, shall you find Salvation.
April 14, 2011 — 7:25 AM
terribleminds says:
@Rob:
Spot on.
This sounds like some smart business, here. And smoking in the Weber; this is my ultimate desire, no doubt. Because smoked meat FTMFW.
Tell me more about how you roast coffee beans.
— c.
April 14, 2011 — 7:36 AM
Spidle says:
Oh, forgot one of my favorites!
I assume you have a dutch oven – if you don’t, go buy one.
Season that bitch WELL, and then purchase a few bags of frozen berries (I like using equal parts strawberries, raspberries, and blueberries with just a touch of brown sugar). Butter your dutch oven by melting 1 stick in there and swirling it around to coat the bottom and at least halfway up the sides. Throw them in the dutch oven with a squirt of lime juice. Pat them down so the pile is level and then turn your attention to a large mixing bowl.
To the bowl add:
2 cups of flour
2 cups of sugar
1 Tbsp baking powder
1 1/2 cup of milk
1 tsp salt
Make a batter, pour over top of the berries, settle the dutch oven in the grill with 10-15 briquettes underneath and 15 or so on the lid. It usually takes about 45 minutes or so.
You can also do a KILLER pineapple upside-down cake in the same vessel…
April 14, 2011 — 7:37 AM
Ali says:
Gah, I wish I could help. Aside from the usual ‘burn the meat’ and ‘don’t light yourself on fire,’ I know nothing about grills.
The foil-packed idea is a good one. You can make fish in it. Veggies by themselves as a side dish. Just make sure you fold them well, so nothing sneaks out.
Also, I totally prefer a gas grill to a characol one. It cooks quicker. AND you can roast marshmallows on it. Win! (Take the grill out, add some napkins, strike with a match. Make s’mores.)
April 14, 2011 — 7:47 AM
Spidle says:
Roasting beans is SUPER effin’ easy.
This is my current roaster:
http://www.amazon.com/Wabash-Valley-Farms-25008-Whirley-Pop/dp/B00004SU35
If you are going to do this over the grill, it’s best to use gas on the side-burner. You want to get a stick/kitchen thermometer than can withstand temps up to 500. The key is to learn the level of gas needed to get the internal temp on the whirly pop up to around 400-425. Once you get it to that level and it holds pretty consistently, then you can start roasting.
Add about 8oz of beans (any more than that and you won’t get an even roast) and cover immediately. Do not open that thing back up until you hear the first crack (we’ll get to that). Start cranking that thing at a medium speed. Steady turning is the key to this. I typically reverse direction every other minute or so.
After about 7-10 minutes you should start hearing what sounds like cracked-out popcorn popping (First Crack). Don’t look, just keep turning until that sound dies away. Open the lid on the whirly pop, but keep turning the crank. You’ll see how the beans have begun to really brown. Keep turning for another 2 minutes and you’ll hear them start to crack again (Second Crack).
This is when it becomes more art than science. You want a solid city roast on the beans (unless you’re shooting for espresso), so you’ll want to pull the beans within about 2-3 minutes from the start of the Second Crack. After a few batches you’ll start to get the nose for it, but expect to have some slightly more roasted beans than you want now and then (and the times change depending on the beans). You really will begin to smell when they get to the doneness you want.
When they are maybe 30 seconds from the perfect roast, pull them off the fire and dump the beans quickly into a wire-mesh colander. Pour the beans from colander to metal mixing bowl for 2-3 minutes to A) cool them down, and B) to get rid of some of the husks. When the beans roast they shed their skin and this creates an annoying husk/dust that you need to blow from the beans as you pour them back and forth. Once they’ve cooled to the touch, pour them out onto a metal cookie sheet and let them be.
As the beans cool down, they outgas – they fart – and they begin to smell like roasted coffee beans rather than somewhat musky BO. This outgassing takes about 4-5 hours, but I usually let mine sit overnight.
Sum it up you need:
1 Whirlypop
1 Grill
8oz Unroasted Beans
1 metal colander
1 metal bowl
1 thermometer
1 cookie sheet
April 14, 2011 — 7:58 AM
Victor Gischler says:
Propane? I thought you said you had a grill.
VG
April 14, 2011 — 8:32 AM
Dave Turner says:
I can appreciate the conveniences of the gas grill and I’d be lying if I said I’ve never owned or cooked on one. But charcoal lends its own unique taste to the animal meats (human meats?) that you can’t get with the propane. It is more convenient though, and you can get back to writing, sexing, or ball-scratching more easily. Converting to a gas stove is also probably low on your list of priorities with the immanent arrival of Lil’ Wendigo.
Further, I don’t deny that I’m routinely asked to participate in fashion shoots, make a mean cup of espresso, and struggle to pick the right pair of skinny jeans in the morning. But even I, in my benighted condition, recognize that you are unmanned out there in the hinterlands. Still, it is my duty as a New Yorker to show compassion towards those Others who don’t live here, so accept my deepest sympathies for your backwards existence. Give my best to your cousin-wife.
April 14, 2011 — 8:34 AM
terribleminds says:
You’re all dead to me. I will cook your flesh on my gas grill, and it shall be delicious. Long pork. Slow roasted.
April 14, 2011 — 8:43 AM
All Purpose Monkey says:
Yeah, yeah, all you people who swear by charcoal are just like people who swear they can tell the difference between premium vodkas. Fact of the matter is when put to the test 9 out of 10 people can’t (if you’re the 1 out of 10, well, bully for you). It’s a perceived difference more than one that can actually be ascertained in a blind taste test.
And Wendig? Now’d be a good time for you to try that Szechuan flank steak recipe I gave ya. 😉
April 14, 2011 — 9:10 AM
terribleminds says:
@APMonkey: Word to that. Plus, the gas grill is more versatile. Charcoal is really good at a small subset of things. My gas grill puts the boot to all kinds of food. And damn! Good call on that flank steak. *runs off, reminded*
@Aiwevanya: You could put a saucepan on there, provided it’s not a cheapy. But we’re okay as we have a sideburner on the grill, which means I can do a lot of range-type cooking on that side burner.
— c.
April 14, 2011 — 9:23 AM
bret says:
We did a pork tenderloin on the grill once. Like somebody said, anything you’d bake you can do on a gas grill, just adjust it for “indirect” heat – which means turn off the burners on the side you’ve got your stuff on, and flame up the other side. Might even work better than an oven if you don’t have a convection oven (we don’t).
April 14, 2011 — 9:14 AM
Kate Haggard says:
I’m not a grill person. Grills and I do not get along. Thus I know of nothing too fancy.
But what you need to do is get yourself some big old , some bacon. Soak your skewers (if they be wood, yar!), and give your scallops a little tip in a mix of orange juice with a touch of soy sauce and sesame oil. Then wrap those bad boys in bacon (!!!) and slap on the grill just until the bacon get to where you like it. Because it’s easy to murder scallops. But if you get it right it should be the most delicious thing ever.
April 14, 2011 — 9:14 AM
Aiwevanya says:
Okay, I’m really, really no chef, so maybe there’s a good reason you can’t do this, but I’m sitting here thinking ‘why don’t you just put the saucepan on the grill?’ surely heat is heat? but then I can’t cook anything more complicated than porridge so maybe it’s not a good idea to listen to me.
April 14, 2011 — 9:15 AM
Liz says:
I am a girl who prefers grilling to cooking on the stove. I grill for my family, which is comprised of my dad and brothers, who love spicy stuff, and my mom and me, who do not (I’m a supertaster; there’s nothing I can do. I have no excuse for my mom). I will give you a couple of my manly spicy recipes (these are the only ones I have written down). If you’d like more, you can let me know, yeah?
Grilled Cheese Stuffed Jalapenos
You will need:
1 cup or 4 ounces of shredded jack cheese
4 tablespoons spicy ranch dressing (I prefer Hidden Valley)
8 jalapeño peppers
4 teaspoons barbecue sauce (I usually go with KC Masterpiece Spicy Original)
1) Mix cheese and ranch dressing together in a small bowl and set it aside.
2) Place the peppers on heated grill; roast for about 4 minutes per side or until peppers begin to blister. Remove them from the grill and allow them to cool for about 10 minutes.
3) Cut the peppers in half lengthwise and remove the core and seeds, then spoon the cheese mixture into the peppers. Arrange stuffed peppers in a small heat-proof skillet or pan. Put the pan back on the grill and heat for 5 minutes or until the cheese is melted.
4) Drizzle with KC Masterpiece® Spicy Original Barbecue Sauce.
Chicken Salad with Barbecue Ranch Dressing
You will need:
1/4 cup Cajun spice mix
2 teaspoons black pepper
8 chicken thighs, bone-in
1 large white onion, peeled and sliced into 3/4-inch thick slices
1 package (about 6 ounces) mixed lettuce
1/2 cup grape or cherry tomatoes, halved
1/2 cup baby carrots, cut in quarters lengthwise
1 can (about 2 1/2 ounces) sliced black olives, drained
1/2 cup shredded cheddar cheese
1/4 cup barbecue sauce (I like KC Masterpiece Original)
1 bag ( about 8-9 ounces) barbecue flavored potato chips
1) Mix the Cajun spices and black pepper in a small bowl. Put half of the mixture aside, and use the other half to season the chicken thighs. After seasoning, refrigerate the thighs for 2 hours.
2) Place chicken on the grill over indirect heat, covered for 25–30 minutes, or until the temperature reaches 175°F–180°F.
3) Rub reserved spice mixture on both sides of the onion rings and place on grill with chicken for the last 15–20 minutes, until tender but still crispy.
3) Remove the chicken and onions from grill. Get rid of the chicken skin and take the meat from the bone, leaving it in large pieces. Put it aside (but close by).
4) In a big bowl, mix the lettuce, tomatoes, carrots, olives and cheese. Add the chicken and onion rings on top. Drizzle with the barbecue sauce and ranch dressing, then line the outside of the bowl with the potato chips.
5) It’s best warm, so serve right away.
I hope these help!
*May substitute with two chicken breasts. Grill chicken breasts over direct heat about 24–30 minutes.
April 14, 2011 — 9:52 AM
Dave Turner says:
@All Purpose Monkey
My guests always know that their food was charcoal-grilled, since I often drop the food into the ashes before serving.
April 14, 2011 — 9:59 AM
Gryvon says:
I’ve always been a fan of grilled veggies. Potatoes are the easiest, and arguably the tastiest but the same method applies to pretty much any veggy, with varying cook time. Cut the potatoes into cubes/wedges/chunks/whatever, partition out onto squares of tin foil, throw some thick slices of butter in there, maybe top with seasonings (cajun, bacon salt, garlic powder, onion salt, whatever), wrap it up into a package and toss on the grill. Potatoes take a bit longer than softer vegetables. I want to say about 10-15 minutes, but it’s been a while since I’ve made it. Could be longer.
April 14, 2011 — 10:29 AM
Natalie says:
This is something I just learned last year. For chicken (any cut, but especially breasts) brine those fleshy bastards for an hour or two before plopping them in some marinade (careful with the salt in the marinate as the brine already took care of that) for 24 hours. It makes a huge difference in both moistness and seasoning.
Also, toss some root veggies with some balsamic vinaigrette and a bit o’ salt and pepper. Throw that in a foil pocket and grill that sucker until done (I use the poke with a stick method to see if they feel squishy). Best roasted veggies ever.
Good luck with the grilling!
April 14, 2011 — 12:03 PM
Anthony Elmore says:
My condo has a community gas grill that I’ve been meaning to exploit like a tax loophole. My Condo Association fees could buy rice for a small Ugandan village for a month, so I intend to use that community paid gas.
Shit you can grill:
– Portobella Mushroom caps – brush with olive oil and add cracked pepper. About 3 mins each side.
– Sweet Potatoes – takes about 20 minutes on the low setting
– Corn on the Cob – shuck em’, soak them in butter and optional cajun seasoning and wrap in aluminum foil. Takes 15 mins on medium heat.
– Asparagus – cover in olive oil. add salt and pepper. grill for 2-3 minutes
– All American Burger – You heard me. A G-D burger. Get fresh, unfrozen ground beef and add some cracked pepper.
– Garlic bread: Like the kind you get in decent Italian bistros, but grilled. Brush bread with butter, rub in crushed garlic then grill on the low setting.
– Can o’ Beans. Obtain your favorite brand of baked beans (I’m partial to Bush’s), open can, put can on grill and wait till it bubbles.
April 14, 2011 — 12:35 PM
Athena Grayson says:
Dude, I’m shocked, shocked Itellya that nobody else has posted this yet.
You got a metal roasting pan that can fit on the grill? Good. Get that bad boy out. Get a roasting chicken. Get a beer (in the can please). Pop the tab and take a long drink, then pour out about 1/4″ of it into the bottom of the pan. After you’ve done that, oil your hands with olive oil and then olive oil that chicken’s skin up good (see now why I said to drink the beer first. It loosens you up and the massage loosens the chicken up for what’s coming next).
After that tender treatment, you’re gonna gently and lovingly shove that half-can of beer up that chicken’s butt and stand it upright in the middle of the pan. Make a slit on either side of the skin to tuck the wingtips in so’s you don’t burn him. Dust him with rosemary, poultry seasoning, sage, cracked pepper, and a bit of thyme and let ‘im rip. Cook to at least 165-170 if not 190 internal temp in a closed grill, check him occasionally.
After that treatment, his skin will be nice and crispy, but he’ll fall apart and melt in your mouth. Skim the drippings and use ’em for gravy, or if you’re adventurous, add about a shot-glass’ worth of the drippings to dijon mustard for ale-mustard chicken-dippin’ sauce.
You can do this in a conventional oven, too. This recipe lends itself better to a gas grill because you can control the heat if the chicken’s getting a little too crispy.
April 14, 2011 — 1:03 PM
Brandy says:
Non-meat grilling has been covered by others, but one that I think is missing is okra. Take, fresh whole okra and brush it ever so lightly with oil, set them lengthwise on the grill grates only until each side gets nice char marks, take off the heat and salt. This also works for fresh slices of pineapple, which I like to pair with things like scallops or shrimp (or even barbequed chicken). I also love grilled sweet corn. Soaking the corn for a bit helps prevent excessive burning. And veggie packets are nice – some sliced onion, yellow squash and whatever else not-too-firm vegetable you may choose loaded into a foil packet with a nice dollop of butter and salt and pepper, and cook over the heat until the veggies are steamed in the melted butter.
April 14, 2011 — 1:25 PM
George says:
Greek thing:
You need:
Piece of feta cheese
Oregano
Olive oil
a tomato
tinfoil.
Put a piece of feta on a piece of tinfoil. Slice of tomato on top of it. Then oil, then oregano. Fold tinfoil around the cheese, put on grill.
It’s done when the cheese has melted to the point where it doesn’t hold together.
April 14, 2011 — 2:33 PM
DeAnna says:
CAKE!
Seriously. Angel food cake. It holds together nicely (all those egg whites), and gains all kinds of weird and wonderful flavors from the grill.
April 14, 2011 — 2:37 PM
Rob W. Hart says:
Take pineapple, slice into chunks, dust with sea or kosher salt, cumin and a little cayenne.
Get the grill ripping hot, cook on both sides until you have handsome grill marks.
Eat and marvel at the spice sweetness.
Whenever I run a grill at a party, I nearly always end with this. It’s a great way to cap off the evening. It’s desserty but not too sweet, not heavy at all, and it’s essentially finger food, so there’s no hassle in plating or portioning.
Plus, since it’s pineapple, and thus a fruit, it cancels out whatever it was you ate earlier in the evening.
April 14, 2011 — 2:43 PM
All Purpose Monkey says:
@Dave
Well now, that would definitely make a noticeable difference. 😉
April 14, 2011 — 3:26 PM
John Murphy says:
You can indeed do pizza on the grill. You’ll want a good thick crust, more like a flatbread, and you’ll want to go super light on the toppings: It winds up done to a crisp on the bottom and less so on the top, so if you do it in layers it comes out better. Slap a rolled-out slab of dough, brushed with oil, on the well-cleaned grill, close it up and let it bake. Then flip it over, give that side some time. You can flip it back to make sure you won’t have a hard time getting the whole thing back off again, or you can just start in on the toppings. Pre-warmed is best (nuke the sauce, let the cheese come to room temp, take a blow dryer to the squirrel, whatever) and a light touch is vital.
Since you mentioned it, you can also do dessert on the griddle. Brush peaches with butter, sprinkle with sugar, then let them caramelize. Serve with vanilla ice cream and a little cinnamon and brandy.
April 14, 2011 — 3:28 PM
Peggy says:
I used to live in a frozen northland where the hydro was pretty well guaranteed to go out 10 minutes after I started cooking on a weekly basis.
Therefore I learned 2 things.
1 – buy a grill with a side burner, or retrofit your existing grill
2 – you can cook anything on the grill by placing that ugly broiler thingy that came with your stove on top of the grill and then placing your pot, pan, casserole or what have you on top of the broiler pan. Close lid, guesstimate heat.
Note: do not at any time place a glass casserole or other thing resembling one of those directly on the grill. Getting spagetti out of the briquettes is a real bitch.
April 14, 2011 — 4:45 PM
amy says:
nobody’s covered fruit? seriously? grill some lemons — softens their bite. grill peaches, get those nice grill lines on the flat sides. soak the fruit in water to help prevent drying out and burning — or hey, soak it in flavored liquid to add kick.
April 14, 2011 — 9:58 PM
AB says:
Grilled fruit is actually really good. Just some hardy fruit (pineapples, tangerines, peaches, etc.), grill for just a couple minutes on each side (just to warm them through), and lightly glaze on some warm honey (or whatever sweet glaze you like) the last minute of heating. Really, really good stuff.
Grilled clams are super easy and good; you can make them right beside the fruit. You have to clean them first, of course, but to cook just place directly on the grill, and let them go. Takes about 5 to 10 minutes, just wait until they’re cracked open and sizzling. Toss the ones that don’t open, take off the heat, and viola! Great with a vinaigrette dipping sauce.
Breakfast pizza is an easy one, too. Take your pizza dough, put it on the grill, once you get grill marks, flip it over (think this part was already covered). Crack eggs on top, cover, cook until eggs look about set (won’t take too long), add cheese(s) of your choice, bacon bits, salt, pepper, let cook a minute more, take off, and you have yummy stuff. If you want to do this with precooked sausage that’s cold, add it with the eggs. Don’t use too much, though, especially if it’s the good stuff, as the grease can be a problem.
If you want to do really, really good meat, get a rotisserie. Best hunks of meat (chicken, ham, roasts) I’ve ever had were always done on the grill rotisserie.
You going to take pictures of the grilled food so the rest of us can salivate and be jealous?
April 15, 2011 — 12:24 AM
angie Arcangioli says:
In Brittany in France they take a thickly cut “côte de boeuf” (giant T-Bone) and smother it completely in mustard, at least 1 cm thick (1/2 inch.) Then coat the entire thing in big grain salt so that the mustard does not show. But the alien looking thing in a clamp-type grill rack so you can easily turn it, and lay it on the fire.
You have to guess the cooking time according to your preference, bloody, well done, “au point, ” charred. Depending on the size of the thing, medium rare in the middle may be about 25 minutes.
Once it is done you need a hammer to remove the meat from the crust that turns rock hard with the fire. The mustard penetrates into the meat and it is awesome.
April 15, 2011 — 2:28 AM
angie Arcangioli says:
Sorry about those awful typos and bad grammar, too early to think clearly in English.
April 15, 2011 — 2:30 AM
Shawn R says:
If you can do the smoking thing, my husband found a recipe for a “fatty”. Coronary on a plate, dude. I laid down the law after the first one … no more than once a month, otherwise we will die. Happy, mind you, but dead is dead.
Ultimately, you take sausage or ground beef and wrap it around lovely things like cheese and onions and mushrooms and whatever else takes your fancy. Then you basketweave a bunch of bacon into a wrapper that you put around your sausage stuffed with other wonderfulness. Then you put that packet in the smoker and cook until it’s fabulous.
You can improv with this … add sauces. Add layers upon layers of meats & bacon & cheese & more meats & more bacon …
Insanity.
Wonderful, fabulous, impending death fabulous.
Here’s a website that gives you pictures and everything. http://www.smoking-meat.com/january-2010-bacon-wrapped-stuffed-sausage-fatty.html
April 15, 2011 — 12:10 PM
AB says:
I totally forgot about Banana Boats! Take a banana, peel, place on aluminum foil, split banana down the middle, place in bits of Hershey bar, then place in mini-marshmallows. Wrap banana up with aluminum foil (the chocolate and marshmallows will be resting in the middle of the banana, hence the “boat”). Place packet on grill if coals are still hot, or, if coals are somewhat cooled, slip directly into coals and let cook for around four to five minutes. Open and eat. We practically lived on these at camp.
April 15, 2011 — 1:30 PM
AB says:
Shawn, this sounds fabulous! I have to agree, any cardiologist would weep and wail, but this sounds so damn good. And, yes, I’m going to have to try it now. Curse you.
April 19, 2011 — 11:54 PM
Shawn R says:
AB – Happy to be of service. Snerk. I cursed the hubster too, as I was going back for my third helping, but I didn’t really mean it. ‘Cause then, he wouldn’t make more …
April 20, 2011 — 10:03 AM
britt says:
These all sound amazing i am going to try the banana boats!
April 13, 2017 — 8:32 AM