Even though I have dug a path through the snow to my grills, I am already planning my agenda for spring. So many new foods to try! So many new techniques to test! If you're like me and love cooking outdoors because everything tastes better when cooked over open flame, here is a list of New Year's Resolutions for you. What are your culinary plans for 2011?
1) I resolve to make all my own barbecue sauces, spice rubs, marinades, and salad dressings from now on. I will stop wasting money on sweetened catsup with more preservatives and additives than food. I'm a grownup. I will make my own sauces that taste exactly as I like them and when people ask me for the recipe, I will say "It's a secret." Then I will give them a bottle with my own personal label. I will start by learning about the different kind of sauces and click the links for recipes.
2) I resolve to buy two good digital thermometers, one for my grill/smoker/oven and one for my food. I will outgrow my teenage macho attitudes and wake up to the fact that cooking is all about temperature control, and without good thermometers I have no idea what I am doing and cannot even dream of upping my game. I will understand that the idea that I can measure temp by holding my hand over the grill and counting "onethousandone, onethousandtwo" is like trying to measure how fast my car is going by putting my hand out the window. I will begin by putting duct tape over the worthless thermometer that the grill manufacturer inserted in the lid of my cooker because bimetal dial thermometers are often off as much as 50°F.
Then I resolve to stop poking meat, my hand, or my nose to decide when dinner is done so I will never again have to apologize for serving overcooked food or risk the lives of my guests by serving undercooked food. I will start by reading this Buying Guide to Thermometers.
3) I resolve to master 2-zone setup. I will learn how to set up my grill so there is a hot direct-heat zone and a warm indirect-heat zone. This is probably the single most important technique an outdoor cook can learn. I will start by reading this article on 2-zone cooking.
4) I resolve to skip the custom made Italian suits, the breast implants, and the fancy red sports car. I will either buy a smoker or learn how to make my grill into a smoker because the delicate, whispy, seductive scent of hardwood smoke is a potent pheromone. I'll save a ton of money, and I might just get lucky. Click here for a buying guide to smokers or click here to learn how to set up your gas grill for smoking, or your charcoal grill for smoking. If I have a trusty ol' Weber Kettle, I will buy the amazing and inexpensive Smokenator (shown here).
5) I resolve to master the backyard cook's canon: Ribs, steak, grilled chicken, salmon, burgers, and hot dogs. This means I will learn to place these dishes on the table dishes properly dark brown on the exterior (which means no carbonization), and properly done on the interior (which means tender and juicy).
6) I resolve to overcome my fear of flour and master four simple dough recipes: Pizza dough, a simple crusty rustic bread loaf, an all purpose pie dough for desserts and pot pies, and a cookie dough. I will begin by mastering pizza on the grill knowing full well that once I have, I will never be able to go out for pizza again, and certainly will never be satisfied by carryout or delivery pizza.
7) I resolve to keep my knives sharp. I will never again smush a tomato again by trying to slice it. I will keep an inexpensive knife sharpener and a honing steel around the house, but I will do as professional chefs do, and twice a year at least, I resolve to take my most important kitchen tools to a sharpener for a good true edge. Better still, I'm gonna splurge on a good electric sharpener. If I'm going to whack a finger off, I want it to come off cleanly.
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9) I resolve to grow things I can eat. I will start with fresh herbs on my window sill, even if I live in a condo, and if I have room on my balcony, back yard, or even front yard, I will grow veggies. I will start by reading this article on herbs and spices.
10) I resolve to grill veggies and fruits like carrots and pineapple because everything is better from the grill. I will start with this marinara sauce on the grill recipe.
11) I will love my veggies so much that I will go one day a week without meat. I know that too much of anything is bad, and that goes for veggies, but it just might be healthy and economic for me to cut back a bit on the saturated fats, it might save me a few bucks, and it might force me to learn to cook veggies. I will check out the website of Meatless Monday. This is not a site run by vegan zealots. It is run by the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health and it makes sense, even to a Meathead.
12) Before I go meatless on Monday, I resolve to make Sustainable Sunday a ritual. Every week I will gather friends or family around me for a Sunday feast that I will cook from scratch. For this meal I will seek out fresh, local, sustainable foods, at the farmer's market on Saturday. Here's a database of practically every farmer's market in the US.
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Here's how I smoke meats. I soak the mesquite chips in water for one hour.
I use heavy duty aluminum foil (the large size) and cut a piece approx 10 inches long. I put drained mesquite chips on one side of the foil and seal the edges up to make a flat packet. Poke this packet NUMEROUS times with a fork. Cut a larger piece of foil, the size depending on what kind of meat you are smoking. Put the smoker packet in the center, place your meat on top of this packet and steal the foil into a tent.
Cook on the BBQ on high heat for at least 15 minutes to get the mesquite wood smoking, then you can turn it down.
I never use a thermometor either to test my meat, I just guess at the times. BUT I've been cooking for over 45 years AND not just on the BBQ. Cooking has always been very easy for me.
I try to make ALL my sauces, not to mention broths. But it does mean that the kitchen runs on a fairly constant basis. Sometimes I cheat, though.
I am still AMAZED, in this day and age, that everybody doesn't use a thermometer. I used to meet them all the time when I was cheffing at the local mega-market. GET A THERMOMETER, PEOPLE! And learn to use it.
As a cook, nothing aggravates me more than a dull knife! Buy yourself a proper whetstone to keep them honed, and steel your knives before each use.
We are originally from Tucson so we BBQ year round. We did live in Denver for 31 months and BBQ'd all winter long up there also.
Try it, you might enjoy it. It's kind of serene with the snow falling down.
I have everything covered except the first two but the first is already becoming a habit due to my wife going 100% organic and one of my sons is thinking of going vegan (we now live in Oriegone, you know) and I need a digital thermometer like your recommendations is on the list.
I'm definitely making my own sauces and stuff these days. I need to work on the temp set-up.
Great post!
I'll take that over just about anything else from the grill.
As for me, I will follow number one. It has the most use. Knowing how to make your own condiments is a good idea no matter what kind of diet you follow.
I've come to view grilling largely as I do deep frying. It's a gimmick, it's not substantively tastier and to the extent that it can be is for negative reasons. Most people simply love the taste of carcinogens in grilling, much as they like the fat oily taste from deep frying.
As to taste, it is most definitely NOT a gimick. Oven roasted, grill roasted, and deep fat fried foods taste substantially different, and anyone can tell the difference in blind tastings. They are all methods of cooking, as are broiling, boiling, braising, sous-vide, etc. Each has its purpose and creates unique flavors. You have a LOT to learn about food!
I recently got a good non-electric knife sharpener (not a honer) and love it. If you'd like to know the brand, let me know. It works great.
We love having our smokers. We've done chickens, turkey, fish: you name it. (The chicken recipe is on my humble little blog.) And having a meat thermometer is a must for safety. You don't have one?
We can't easily get carry-out or delivered pizza here, so I make pizza regularly at home. I've got two basic whole-grain pizza doughs you may like, one deep dish and the other thin and crispy/crunchy:
http://ozarkhomesteader.wordpress.com/2010/05/02/deep-dish-whole-grain-pizza-in-a-cast-iron-skillet/
http://ozarkhomesteader.wordpress.com/2010/03/06/crisper-crust-whole-grain-pizza-with-sausage-mushrooms-and-black-olives/
Here's a no-knead rustic bread, adapted for a 2-quart Dutch oven: http://ozarkhomesteader.wordpress.com/2009/06/02/easiest-bread-ever-for-camping-and-home/
Our homemade stone grill was one of the things that bit the dust when we installed a new septic system this summer, so I resolve to (1) rebuild it and (2) make sure it's close enough to the house.