Food that sticks to the grill is a thorn in every backyard chef’s side. To avoid this common problem, follow these simple steps:
- Always keep your grill surface clean. This is easily accomplished by preheating your grill for about 15 minutes, then brushing hard with a metal grill brush. Then, at the end of your meal, give the grill a brush while it's still hot.
- Make sure your grill is very hot. If you're cooking protein items like fish, chicken, beef or even tofu, and you have problems flipping it, the food might just need a minute or two more cooking, and then it will be ready for an easy turn.
- Lightly oil the grate to keep food from sticking — pour an inch or two of vegetable oil in a bowl, wad up an old kitchen towel, and using tongs, dip the towel in the oil and lightly coat the grill.
- Always make sure your food is lightly oiled (but use a gentle touch — too much oil will cause flare-ups).
- Have both a metal spatula and tongs available for flipping.
- Grill baskets can be helpful for delicate items like fish. Just make sure you oil the inside of the basket.
Cross-Hatching
It's easy to get a professional-looking cross-hatch on your meat — just follow these six simple steps:
- After lighting the grill, allow 15 minutes for it to get very hot.
- Lightly oil the meat and season generously with salt and pepper.
- Lay the meat down on a 45-degree angle from where you're standing. It should look like it's pointing to 10 o'clock. If cooking more than one piece of meat, line them up neatly.
- When there are visible marks your meat — and it can be easily lifted off the grill without sticking — move it 90 degrees, without flipping it over, so it looks like it's pointing to 2 o'clock. Cook until this new set of grill marks appears (gently lift the meat up and peek underneath). If you're grilling over direct heat, getting cross-hatches on the first side should take about half the total cooking time.
- Flip the meat. The second side doesn't need a perfect cross hatch — you're going to put that side down on the plate. Cook until the meat is done to your liking.
- If grilling with indirect heat, use the hot part of the grill to get marks, then finish cooking over a cooler spot.
Grilling vs. BBQ
Barbecue and grilling are two different things.
- As a verb, 'barbecue' refers to many styles of outdoor cookery. But actual barbecue (as a noun) is a very specific style: it's a slow cooking technique where meat — usually a lot of it — is cooked over coals at a low temperature (somewhere between 212 and 300 degrees F) for a long time. The low temperature makes the meat tender and juicy, and the long hours over burning coals lend a smokiness you just can't get any other way.
- Barbecue isn't really quick, after-work, weeknight cooking. It's an event. It's party food: it's bound to attract every neighbor within smelling distance, which is why it's almost always cooked in large volume.
- Grilling, on the other hand, is fast food in the best possible sense: it's quick cooking over high heat (just enough time to get a good char and an infusion of woodsmoke). You can do it over direct or indirect flame, with the cover on or cover off, but as long as the fire's hot, you're grilling.
- Grilling's versatile — just about everything tastes better on the grill: vegetables, fruit, even desserts, not just meat, fish and fowl.
Pork Buyers Guide
You can now buy cuts like tenderloin, loin and sirloin from the middle section of the pig that rival skinless chicken breast in percentage of fat, but have richer, more delicious flavor.
Look for: Meat that is light red to cherry red, never pale or white. The fat should be white and creamy with no dark spots. Fresh pork should never have any off odors. The best-tasting pork is marbled with flecks of fat interspersed in the lean meat.
Knowing when to turn and when things are cooked is the whole art of grilling. Everything else is recipes and tricks. This art is also the hardest thing to teach, especially in a print format. Ideally, a steak will be turned once. If the steak is very thick (more than about 1 1/2 inches) you might need to do it three times to get it cooked through to the center. The high heat, both direct and indirect is the foundation of grilling. You will want to use this heat to cook food, quickly. But, because foods cook fast on a grill you have to turn them in order to cook them evenly, without burning. However, if you turn things too often you will slow the process of cooking and this can lead to food that is tough and dry. The secret is turning only when necessary. When cooking a steak or a hamburger, get down low, by the edge of the grill, careful not to burn yourself. Gently lift up the corner of the meat. When the lines from the cooking grate start to turn black it's time to turn the food.
