Yummy, yumnmy. Good advise.
Until the next time, cheers.
Top tip: leave the meat well alone ... barbecue beef ribs.
It's that glorious time of year when the roar of the footy
crowd gives way to the smell of smoke from a million backyards as
barbies - scrubbed, fuelled and readied for serious griller warfare -
are fired up for the first of the summer campaigns.
Barbecuing, we like to think, is a national pursuit: a curious ritual that drives man (and, yes, often men - some of whom would struggle to find their way around their own kitchens in broad daylight) to take charge of ferocious, gas- or charcoal-powered backyard cooking devices with, it has to be said, mixed results.
There are a few local masters of the dark art of cooking outdoors over a flame, but there are many more who struggle to do justice even to the humble snag and who seem, dangerously, to confuse the word ''barbecue'' with the less-pleasing word ''cremation''.
Slow burn ... kettle barbecues provide smoke but less heat than gas-powered grills.
But help is at hand. Barbecue mastery of sorts is available
to anyone prepared to give the matter a bit of thought and digest the
following. You have nothing to lose, after all, but that layer of
charcoal on your chops.
Fact
Barbecued food cannot be expertly prepared by anyone who cooks with the lid of his barbecue open so he can constantly poke and prod the meat, or who cooks - horror of horrors - on a metal hotplate rather than on a cast iron or stainless steel grill that exposes the meat to the kiss of the flames and the swirl of the smoke. Ridiculous novelty aprons are also to be frowned upon.
Fact
Mastering the dark art of barbecue is not something that requires advanced culinary skills. Learn the tricks, follow the rules and you will dazzle your friends and confound your enemies, while quite possibly infuriating and/or tantalising your neighbours.
To grill or roast things over smoke, the kettle barbecue is the answer. But to grill things at high temperatures - cleanly, quickly and efficiently - the gas grill is the superior option. But just as it takes a supreme effort to achieve stratospheric temperatures with a kettle, it is impossible to achieve real smoke flavour with a grill. So the choice is yours.
A few rules
● Don't use firelighters to light your charcoal because, despite claims to the contrary, you will taste them in your food. Use a chimney charcoal lighter (Heat Beads are an excellent choice) and fire up the charcoal with three or four sheets of newspaper or, if you have one, a gas flame or blowtorch.
● If using a kettle, place a few unlit briquettes or chunks of charcoal in each of the side baskets and top them with the lit charcoal. Ensure you have positioned a large foil tray of water between the charcoal baskets. Replace the lid and let the fire settle and the temperature rise.
● Always use wet hickory chips or chunks when you cook over charcoal: add them (just before the food) to your fire or fire baskets . Let the smoke begin to rise before placing the food on the grill.
● And finally, whether you settle on a gas grill or a retro charcoal-powered device, remember, ''Barbecue is the enlightened application of heat, smoke, spices and ingenuity to protein, fruit and vegetables … outdoors'' - or so someone once said. Hang on: I think it was me.
To barbecue expertly, whether over gas or charcoal, there are few essential tools required. Just these:
● A couple of barbecue mitts or leather gauntlets are vital, as there are one or two barbecue tasks that, frankly, should not be addressed bare-handed. These can include handling a chimney charcoal lighter or moving or adjusting a hot barbecue (inadvisable, actually). And one mitt or gauntlet is essential for working over a hot grill. Also - and do not underestimate the importance of this - a black leather gauntlet looks unspeakably cool.
● Equally essential is at least one pair of tongs, and preferably half a dozen. But do not buy flash tongs: the best ones - the easiest and lightest to use, and the only ones that lock tight, which is important - are the cheapest varieties that cost about $5 for a couple of pairs in any supermarket, or even less in Asian markets. Forget about stainless-steel or rubber-covered tongs, or any that look in the least bit flash. Quite simply, the cheap ones work best. And a long pair of these, also, is ideal for manipulating burning charcoal (while wearing a gauntlet, of course).
● When it comes to cleaning your barbecue, you will also need another barbecue essential - a good, clean, wire brush. Weber makes triangular ones that last longer than most, but there are several varieties on the market that work just as well. Ensure you have one to hand at all times. And use them - before and after cooking.
● Clearly essential, and undeniably cool, also, is an instant-read digital meat thermometer. You will use one of these constantly when you cook larger cuts of meat, so buy a decent one.
● Instead of a spatula, buy a paint scraper with a large blade. But remember to keep it purely for barbecue duties - lifting and turning food and occasionally for scraping the grill.
● To do this, fold a paper kitchen towel into a small square - by folding it four times. Clamp this square in your (cheap, lockable!) tongs, dip it into a bowl of oil - I always use extra virgin olive oil but please yourself about this - which you should keep, covered, by your grill at all times. Brush this lightly over the grill to coat it and you may see flames rise from the heat bars or charcoal as some of the oil drops through. Which will tell you, if you didn't know already, that you are ready to rock. And possibly roll. But certainly to grill.
● And while this is all you have to know about preparing your grill before cooking on it, there is something else: never, ever wash a cast-iron grill in detergent. It will destroy the pristine cooking surface you have worked so hard to develop and food will be more likely to stick.
● This is less of an issue with stainless steel, obviously. But while I will happily use a steel pad on a stainless-steel grill, I never apply detergent. Don't ask me why, because I don't really know: I just don't do it.
● So now, let's fire up a grill, send up smoke, annoy the neighbours and cook stuff, shall we?
To understand the reason for this, realise that cooking on a gas barbecue is the equivalent of fiercely grilling something in a hot oven. This is why the cooking times are unique to these devices, and shorter than you might expect.
To demonstrate this point, fire up and prepare your gas grill, drop the top, allow it to reach blistering heat, and prepare your favourite cut of steak - a thick porterhouse of, say, 350 grams.
Oil and season the steak you have had out of the fridge long enough for it to reach room temperature. Place it at a 45-degree angle to the grill bars, drop the hood and grill for precisely two minutes. Raise the lid, move the steak through 90 degrees without flipping it, and drop the lid for slightly less than two minutes. Raise the lid, turn the steak and repeat the exercise with the second side of the steak, cooking each sector for less than two minutes. Then raise the lid and place the steak somewhere warm (but not hot) for exactly six minutes, tented loosely in foil. Now, eat. It will be a perfect medium rare.
The one dish that will establish, once and for all, that you are an urban griller of distinction. Seek out rib-eyes on the bone - one between two - of close to 600 grams each. Note this is the only occasion on which you should use a dry rub other than the all-purpose one (see right) and you need to make it just before cooking the steak. In a mortar and pestle, pound together 50 grams coarse sea salt, two tablespoons black peppercorns, one tablespoon chilli flakes and one tablespoon fresh rosemary needles. Pound to a powder.
Oil the steaks, which you have returned to room temperature, and sprinkle generously with the rub. Cook these steaks, using the four-sector method discussed earlier, on a fiercely hot gas grill, for three minutes per sector, or 12 minutes in all. The heat will caramelise the rub and the bars will impart grill marks. Rest the steaks, tented loosely in foil, for six minutes, and then carve, thickly, parallel to the bone. Serve on a mash of sweet potato - roasted, perhaps, at the back of the grill and then scooped out and mashed with unsalted butter and a splash of maple syrup.
But remember, once you have achieved perfection by following these rules, there is no going back. No more cooking with the lid open, poking and prodding and cremating blameless beef.
2 tbsp dry mustard
2 tbsp sweet paprika
2 tbsp dark-brown sugar
3 tsp garlic powder
3 tsp onion powder
3 tsp celery salt
2 tsp cayenne pepper
1 tsp ground allspice
For the rub, mix all ingredients. And that's it. Except, of course, that you should start with at least a double quantity.
1/2 cup molasses
1/2 cup cider vinegar
1/2 cup water
Splash of liquid smoke
4 tbsp of the DIY spice rub mixture
For the barbecue sauce, mix three cups of tomato ketchup with the molasses, cider vinegar, water and a splash of liquid smoke, available online through USA Foods (usafoods.com.au), or through most barbecue shops. Then, mix in four tablespoons of the rub mixture. Finally, make this sauce your own with one final ''secret'' ingredient. (I use bourbon, but if you prefer rum, grappa or, for all I care, Milo, go right ahead. It's your sauce.)
Heat and Smoke, by Bob Hart, Hartbeat Media, $24.95, is available in most good bookshops and barbecue shops, and online through heatandsmoke.com.
Until the next time, cheers.
Playing with fire
Top tip: leave the meat well alone ... barbecue beef ribs. Barbecuing, we like to think, is a national pursuit: a curious ritual that drives man (and, yes, often men - some of whom would struggle to find their way around their own kitchens in broad daylight) to take charge of ferocious, gas- or charcoal-powered backyard cooking devices with, it has to be said, mixed results.
There are a few local masters of the dark art of cooking outdoors over a flame, but there are many more who struggle to do justice even to the humble snag and who seem, dangerously, to confuse the word ''barbecue'' with the less-pleasing word ''cremation''.
Slow burn ... kettle barbecues provide smoke but less heat than gas-powered grills. Barbecued food cannot be expertly prepared by anyone who cooks with the lid of his barbecue open so he can constantly poke and prod the meat, or who cooks - horror of horrors - on a metal hotplate rather than on a cast iron or stainless steel grill that exposes the meat to the kiss of the flames and the swirl of the smoke. Ridiculous novelty aprons are also to be frowned upon.
Fact
Mastering the dark art of barbecue is not something that requires advanced culinary skills. Learn the tricks, follow the rules and you will dazzle your friends and confound your enemies, while quite possibly infuriating and/or tantalising your neighbours.
To grill or roast things over smoke, the kettle barbecue is the answer. But to grill things at high temperatures - cleanly, quickly and efficiently - the gas grill is the superior option. But just as it takes a supreme effort to achieve stratospheric temperatures with a kettle, it is impossible to achieve real smoke flavour with a grill. So the choice is yours.
A few rules
● Don't use firelighters to light your charcoal because, despite claims to the contrary, you will taste them in your food. Use a chimney charcoal lighter (Heat Beads are an excellent choice) and fire up the charcoal with three or four sheets of newspaper or, if you have one, a gas flame or blowtorch.
● If using a kettle, place a few unlit briquettes or chunks of charcoal in each of the side baskets and top them with the lit charcoal. Ensure you have positioned a large foil tray of water between the charcoal baskets. Replace the lid and let the fire settle and the temperature rise.
● Always use wet hickory chips or chunks when you cook over charcoal: add them (just before the food) to your fire or fire baskets . Let the smoke begin to rise before placing the food on the grill.
● And finally, whether you settle on a gas grill or a retro charcoal-powered device, remember, ''Barbecue is the enlightened application of heat, smoke, spices and ingenuity to protein, fruit and vegetables … outdoors'' - or so someone once said. Hang on: I think it was me.
Equipment essentials
Barbecue paraphernalia is, annoyingly, one of the most obvious gift categories mined by family members responding to another family member's sudden interest in the dark art.To barbecue expertly, whether over gas or charcoal, there are few essential tools required. Just these:
● A couple of barbecue mitts or leather gauntlets are vital, as there are one or two barbecue tasks that, frankly, should not be addressed bare-handed. These can include handling a chimney charcoal lighter or moving or adjusting a hot barbecue (inadvisable, actually). And one mitt or gauntlet is essential for working over a hot grill. Also - and do not underestimate the importance of this - a black leather gauntlet looks unspeakably cool.
● Equally essential is at least one pair of tongs, and preferably half a dozen. But do not buy flash tongs: the best ones - the easiest and lightest to use, and the only ones that lock tight, which is important - are the cheapest varieties that cost about $5 for a couple of pairs in any supermarket, or even less in Asian markets. Forget about stainless-steel or rubber-covered tongs, or any that look in the least bit flash. Quite simply, the cheap ones work best. And a long pair of these, also, is ideal for manipulating burning charcoal (while wearing a gauntlet, of course).
● When it comes to cleaning your barbecue, you will also need another barbecue essential - a good, clean, wire brush. Weber makes triangular ones that last longer than most, but there are several varieties on the market that work just as well. Ensure you have one to hand at all times. And use them - before and after cooking.
● Clearly essential, and undeniably cool, also, is an instant-read digital meat thermometer. You will use one of these constantly when you cook larger cuts of meat, so buy a decent one.
● Instead of a spatula, buy a paint scraper with a large blade. But remember to keep it purely for barbecue duties - lifting and turning food and occasionally for scraping the grill.
Grill drill
● Ensure your grill is clean, hot and oiled at all times. Make that your mantra. First, clean your grill thoroughly with a wire brush, then light the gas and drop the hood for about 10 minutes if you are cooking over gas, or allow your charcoal to become evenly white and very hot before covering the kettle for a few minutes, and then oil the grill.● To do this, fold a paper kitchen towel into a small square - by folding it four times. Clamp this square in your (cheap, lockable!) tongs, dip it into a bowl of oil - I always use extra virgin olive oil but please yourself about this - which you should keep, covered, by your grill at all times. Brush this lightly over the grill to coat it and you may see flames rise from the heat bars or charcoal as some of the oil drops through. Which will tell you, if you didn't know already, that you are ready to rock. And possibly roll. But certainly to grill.
● And while this is all you have to know about preparing your grill before cooking on it, there is something else: never, ever wash a cast-iron grill in detergent. It will destroy the pristine cooking surface you have worked so hard to develop and food will be more likely to stick.
● This is less of an issue with stainless steel, obviously. But while I will happily use a steel pad on a stainless-steel grill, I never apply detergent. Don't ask me why, because I don't really know: I just don't do it.
● So now, let's fire up a grill, send up smoke, annoy the neighbours and cook stuff, shall we?
How to cook the perfect steak
If you have a gas grill, remember to apply a wire brush and a thin smear of oil before and after you grill on it. Light it with the top open, drop the top to allow it to achieve maximum temperature, and then cook on it with the lid down. Always.To understand the reason for this, realise that cooking on a gas barbecue is the equivalent of fiercely grilling something in a hot oven. This is why the cooking times are unique to these devices, and shorter than you might expect.
To demonstrate this point, fire up and prepare your gas grill, drop the top, allow it to reach blistering heat, and prepare your favourite cut of steak - a thick porterhouse of, say, 350 grams.
Oil and season the steak you have had out of the fridge long enough for it to reach room temperature. Place it at a 45-degree angle to the grill bars, drop the hood and grill for precisely two minutes. Raise the lid, move the steak through 90 degrees without flipping it, and drop the lid for slightly less than two minutes. Raise the lid, turn the steak and repeat the exercise with the second side of the steak, cooking each sector for less than two minutes. Then raise the lid and place the steak somewhere warm (but not hot) for exactly six minutes, tented loosely in foil. Now, eat. It will be a perfect medium rare.
The one dish that will establish, once and for all, that you are an urban griller of distinction. Seek out rib-eyes on the bone - one between two - of close to 600 grams each. Note this is the only occasion on which you should use a dry rub other than the all-purpose one (see right) and you need to make it just before cooking the steak. In a mortar and pestle, pound together 50 grams coarse sea salt, two tablespoons black peppercorns, one tablespoon chilli flakes and one tablespoon fresh rosemary needles. Pound to a powder.
Oil the steaks, which you have returned to room temperature, and sprinkle generously with the rub. Cook these steaks, using the four-sector method discussed earlier, on a fiercely hot gas grill, for three minutes per sector, or 12 minutes in all. The heat will caramelise the rub and the bars will impart grill marks. Rest the steaks, tented loosely in foil, for six minutes, and then carve, thickly, parallel to the bone. Serve on a mash of sweet potato - roasted, perhaps, at the back of the grill and then scooped out and mashed with unsalted butter and a splash of maple syrup.
But remember, once you have achieved perfection by following these rules, there is no going back. No more cooking with the lid open, poking and prodding and cremating blameless beef.
DIY spice rub
You need only one barbecue rub, a dry one, and you should make it yourself. It will work on all meats and it also links to the only barbecue sauce you will ever need – your own.2 tbsp dry mustard
2 tbsp sweet paprika
2 tbsp dark-brown sugar
3 tsp garlic powder
3 tsp onion powder
3 tsp celery salt
2 tsp cayenne pepper
1 tsp ground allspice
For the rub, mix all ingredients. And that's it. Except, of course, that you should start with at least a double quantity.
Bob's BBQ sauce
3 cups of tomato ketchup1/2 cup molasses
1/2 cup cider vinegar
1/2 cup water
Splash of liquid smoke
4 tbsp of the DIY spice rub mixture
For the barbecue sauce, mix three cups of tomato ketchup with the molasses, cider vinegar, water and a splash of liquid smoke, available online through USA Foods (usafoods.com.au), or through most barbecue shops. Then, mix in four tablespoons of the rub mixture. Finally, make this sauce your own with one final ''secret'' ingredient. (I use bourbon, but if you prefer rum, grappa or, for all I care, Milo, go right ahead. It's your sauce.)
Chipotle mayo
A brilliant dip for grilled vegies or spreading on burger buns, it's made by chopping four whole chipotle peppers from a tin of chipotle peppers in adobo — widely available these days, or easily bought online from Monterey Mexican Foods (montereyfoods.com.au). Stir these, along with a spoonful or two of the adobo sauce, into eight to 10 tablespoons of bottled mayo, such as Best Foods or Hellman's. Add two tablespoons sour cream (optional, and best added when you are about to use the mayo), combine well and store in the fridge.Heat and Smoke, by Bob Hart, Hartbeat Media, $24.95, is available in most good bookshops and barbecue shops, and online through heatandsmoke.com.
Source: Good Living
No comments:
Post a Comment