Weber's Ultimate Grilling: A Step-by-Step Guide to Barbecue Genius

CONTENTS

Introduction

The Four T’s

Temperature

Time

Grilling Guides

Techniques

Tools

Chapter 1

Starters

Chapter 2

Beef & Lamb

Chapter 3

Pork

Chapter 4

Poultry

Chapter 5

Seafood

Chapter 6

Vegetables & Sides

Chapter 7

Desserts

The Pantry

Rubs & PASTES

Marinades & Brines

Sauces, Dressings & More

Index

INTRODUCTION

I’ll admit it. In my youth, I approached grilling the same way an unskilled, super-psyched teenager picks up a shiny electric guitar for the first time. Forget lessons! I’ll just fire up the grill, throw some meat on it, and know intuitively how to manage whatever happens next.

In my case, what usually happened involved an eruption of flames, followed by plumes of dark smoke. As I sheepishly served black meteorites of unrecognizable meat, friends either winced or laughed. Back then no one wanted to eat my food. Not friends. Not pets. Not even me.

Eventually, my desire to eat better led me to The Culinary Institute of America for two years of rigorous training in cooking techniques. That raised my grilling game dramatically. Shortly after, I started working with Weber—a phenomenal opportunity to access grilling know-how from experts at the world’s grandest grill company. Within a year, I went from being a guy with halfway decent grilling chops to a cookbook author with a full-blown obsession and a wealth of knowledge about all styles of outdoor cooking.

I mention this to emphasize that none of us is born with grilling skills embedded in our DNA. We all learn along the way. My way was intensive and extreme. Your way will not require professional cooking school or a job with Weber. Your way could be as easy as using this book. What you are holding now is a comprehensive record of nearly everything I’ve learned about grilling—in professional cooking school, in restaurants, at Weber, and in the backyards of skilled grillers all over the world.

This book may look like just a collection of recipes—and, in a way, it is that. But look a little deeper, as it is actually much more. It’s a highly visual exploration of the techniques that will put better food on your plate. I included these particular recipes because I believe they are not only well worth making, but are also prime examples of skills that you can apply to other recipes as well. My mission with this book is to teach you so much about cooking over fire that each time you step up to your grill, whether you are making one of my recipes or one of your own, you will be capable of greatness.

To get started, check out The Four T’s. This front section is meant to organize your thinking. When you grill, there are lots of variables potentially at play: fire and embers, sparks and smoke, searing and charring, rubs and marinades, sun and wind, tough and tender ingredients, friends and family, beer and wine flowing, abundant choices of sauces and side dishes, split-second decisions about when to turn and when to take foods off the grill. This section will set your priorities straight. On any given day, with any given recipe, if you focus on the four T’s, you will be a better griller.

Next, I hope you will try at least a few of the ten BBQ Genius recipes in this book, as you will learn the most from them. I’ve developed a BBQ Genius recipe for each of the most popular (and often most misunderstood) foods: chicken wings, pizza, cheeseburgers, rib-eye steaks, pork chops, baby back ribs, chicken breasts, salmon fillets, shrimp, and asparagus. Each recipe is introduced by essential tips and techniques, as well as a Grill Science column that will deepen your understanding of what is happening to your ingredients on and off the grill. Then comes the recipe itself, presented with detailed step-by-step photography so you can look and cook your way through it. Following each BBQ Genius recipe are Flavor Bomb variations—easy, weeknight-friendly recipes based on the techniques in the BBQ Genius recipe.

You will be surprised at how quickly your confidence and grilling skills improve when you start cooking with greater attention to techniques. Raising your grilling game is not just a matter of knowing what you are doing but also how and why you are doing it. That’s when you approach ultimate grilling. With more and more recipes and techniques in your repertoire, there will come a time when you are sitting around a table with friends, enjoying tremendously what you have made, and you suddenly say to yourself, Wow, this food I made came out great. To me, that’s ultimate grilling. Let’s go there. I’ll show you the way.

THE FOUR T’S

Grilling, at its best and most elemental, is about simplicity: fire, food, and the ease of the outdoors. What calls cooks back to the grill time and again are the stress-free vibes and peerless flavors that open-air cooking creates. To experience that simplicity, you must first master four critical elements of the art: temperature, time, techniques, and tools.

Let’s say you want to grill some steaks. Your first step toward success is to get your grill up to the right temperature and to maintain it there. This is the key to a proper sear and crust. Next, you must keep an eye on the timing so your steak cooks to your desired doneness according to their cut and thickness. Good results rely on solid techniques, too. With steaks, that technique could be sear and slide, a reverse sear, or even coal cooking, in which you set raw steaks directly on burning embers (much easier to master than it sounds). The final element in the quest for great steaks is your use of tools. Tongs are the obvious choice for turning the steaks. Less obvious but also important is an instant-read thermometer to help you know when your steaks are perfectly cooked.

In the pages that follow, you’ll see that if you set up your grill for the right temperature, cook the food for the correct length of time, employ trusted techniques, and use the proper tools, you’ll turn out fantastic food and achieve high marks for what might be called the fifth T: taste.

TEMPERATURE

Temperature is paramount in grilling. If it’s too low, stuff goes wrong: food sticks to the grates, barely browns, or overcooks. If it’s too high, you are headed toward different disappointments: food burns, becomes bitter, and ends up about as tender as a ball of tangled rubber bands. Setting your grill to the right temperature is easy. Here is how to do it.

GAS GRILLS

Lighting a Gas Grill

The convenience and flexibility of a gas grill offers a lot to appreciate. It is easy to light, easy to adjust, and easy to sustain at ideal temperatures for a long time. In most cases, lighting one is as simple as lifting the lid, turning on the gas, and igniting the burners.

1. First, open the lid and make sure all knobs are in the off position. Open the valve on the propane tank all the way (or turn on the natural gas at the source), then wait a minute for the gas to travel through the gas line.

2. With the lid still open, light each burner individually, turning each one to high and making sure it has ignited before turning on the next.

3. Close the lid and preheat the grill to above 500°F; this will take 10 to 15 minutes. Preheating the grill will make the cooking grate easier to clean and ensure a better sear.

Maintaining Temperature

If you can turn a dial, you can operate a gas grill. Turning the knobs left or right will prompt the grill to respond with varying amounts of oxygen and fuel.

Always light the burners on the grill with the lid open. Preheat the grill with the lid closed and all the burners at their maximum setting. When the temperature climbs above 500°F, open the lid, brush the cooking grates clean, and turn the knobs to make any heat adjustments. For example, you may want to turn off one or more burners to create a zone of indirect heat (diagram follows).

Now the grill is hot, but how hot do you want it to stay? Very low? Medium? Medium-high? These differences are critical. To achieve and maintain the correct temperature, you need to know the standard ranges as measured by the thermometer inside the lid.

HERE ARE THE TEMPERATURES TO AIM FOR:

Heat Configurations on a Gas Grill

Two main heat configurations are recommended throughout this book: direct and indirect. Direct heat is used for foods that cook quickly, like steaks and burgers, while indirect heat is used for larger foods or foods that cook more slowly, such as whole chickens or roasts. Setting these up on a gas grill is easy. It’s just a matter of which burners you leave on and which burners you turn off.

DIRECT HEAT

For gas grilling over direct heat, leave all the burners on and adjust them for the desired level of heat. Remember to brush the cooking grates clean before adding any food.

INDIRECT HEAT

For gas grilling over indirect heat, leave some of the burners on and turn one or two of them off. Adjust the burners on each side of the food to the temperature noted in the recipe and turn off the burner(s) directly below where the food will be placed. It’s preferable to turn the center burner(s) off so heat comes from both the right and left sides of the grill.

1. If using a two-burner gas grill, light one side of the grill and do the grilling on the opposite side.

2. If using a three-burner gas grill, light the outside burners (right and left) and cook over the unlit center burner.

3. If using a four- to six-burner gas grill, light the outside burners (right and left) and cook over the unlit burners in the center. If your ingredients are small, like whole russet potatoes, you may need to use only one or two unlit burners in the center. If your food is quite large, like a whole turkey, you might need two to four unlit burners in the center.

Charcoal Grills

Lighting a Charcoal Grill

1. Using a chimney starter, which is an upright metal cylinder with a handle on the outside and a wire rack on the inside (see also Chimney starter), is the easiest way to light a charcoal grill.

2. To light the chimney starter, remove the lid and cooking grate from the grill and open the bottom vents. Place one or two paraffin (wax) lighter cubes on the charcoal grate, then place the chimney over the cube(s). Fill the chimney with charcoal briquettes.

3. Alternatively, fill the space under the wire rack of the chimney with a few sheets of wadded-up newspaper. Fill the space above the rack with charcoal briquettes.

4. Light the cube(s) or newspaper underneath the chimney. If lighting newspaper, you can light it through the holes at the bottom of the chimney. Once the cube(s) or paper have ignited the charcoal, some impressive thermodynamics will begin channeling the heat evenly throughout the charcoal. The briquettes will be ready in 15 to 20 minutes.

5. When the briquettes are lightly covered with white ash, put on a pair of heavy, insulated gloves and grab the two handles on the chimney starter. The swinging handle is there to help you lift the chimney starter and safely aim the coals just where you want them.

Heat Configurations on a Charcoal Grill

Configuring direct and indirect heat on a charcoal grill is more involved than on a gas grill, but once you master them, you are set for a lifetime of grilling success.

DIRECT HEAT

As the term implies, direct heat is the heat directly under your food. If your food is cooking smack dab over hot charcoal, you are cooking with direct heat. As a general rule, the strong radiant energy of direct heat is preferred for foods that cook quickly—burgers, steaks, pork tenderloin, boneless chicken pieces, fish fillets—that is, in less than 20 minutes.

1. If using charcoal baskets, when the coals in the chimney are lightly coated in white ash, wear protective gloves and carefully empty the coals into the baskets. Position the baskets in the center of the grill.

2. Alternatively, using a charcoal rake or long tongs, spread the coals into a tightly packed single layer across one-half to two-thirds of the charcoal grate. This is known as a two-zone fire and is ideal for grilling foods with a lot of surface area, like porterhouse steaks.

3. Put the cooking grate in place. If it has hinged sides, position the hinges over the charcoal. This makes it easier to add more coals later, if needed.

4. Close the lid, making sure all vents are open. Let the cooking grate preheat for 10 to 15 minutes, until the temperature on the lid’s thermometer registers more than 500°F. This makes the grate easier to brush clean.

5. Uncover the grill and brush the cooking grate clean. Wait until the temperature reaches the correct zone for the recipe before placing food on the grate directly over the coals. Continue as directed in the recipe.

INDIRECT HEAT

When you give food a little buffer from the heat, either moving it away from the flame or shielding it in some manner, you are using indirect heat. For example, if the coals are burning on opposite sides of the grill and your food is cooking in the middle, you are using indirect heat. Indirect is the preferred heat for large cuts of meat or other large foods—whole chicken or turkey, pork loin, pork ribs, prime rib—that need to cook for more than 20 minutes.

1. Divide the coals into two equal piles on opposite sides of the charcoal grate, creating two zones for direct heat and one zone between them for indirect heat (known as a three-zone split fire). If using charcoal baskets, add coals to the baskets, then position them on opposite sides of the grate.

2. If you expect the food to drip a lot of fat, place an aluminum-foil drip pan between the coals. Put the cooking grate in place. If it has hinged sides, position the hinges over the charcoal. This makes it easier to add more coals later, if needed.

3. Close the lid, making sure all the vents are open. Let the cooking grate preheat for 10 to 15 minutes, until the temperature on the lid’s thermometer registers more than 500°F. This will make the cooking grate easier to clean.

4. Uncover the grill and brush the cooking grate clean. Wait until the temperature reaches the correct zone for the recipe before placing food on the grate between the piles of coals. Continue as directed in the recipe.

COMBINATION HEAT

Some foods are more high maintenance than others. For example, it’s wise to cook bone-in chicken thighs with both direct and indirect heat. Start them over direct heat to sear and brown the exterior and then finish them over indirect heat until opaque at the center. Cooking them over direct heat only will probably yield a burnt exterior and a raw interior. The combination of two types of heat results in beautifully browned skin and a thoroughly cooked interior.

Maintaining Temperature

Keeping the temperature consistent on a charcoal kettle grill is slightly more involved than on a gas grill. Some kettle grills have a built-in thermometer, but if yours does not, you can purchase a grill thermometer to check the temperature through the vent in the lid. Success in maintaining temperature in your charcoal grill comes down to regulating the flow of oxygen and adding charcoal when needed.

Use the vents to control the oxygen. A charcoal fire gets the oxygen it needs mostly through the vents on the bottom of the bowl. The vent (damper) on the lid allows some hot air to escape through the top, creating a vacuum that is filled by fresh air entering from the bottom. This airflow moves heat and smoke around the food continuously. The bigger the openings in the vents, the greater the airflow and the higher the temperatures.

Once you are in the desired temperature range, keep the lid closed as much as possible and use the vents on the lid to fine-tune the temperature. Remember, more oxygen leads to higher temperatures and less oxygen to lower temperatures.

Temperature drops with time. In a kettle grill, a fully lit chimney of charcoal briquettes will start off with screaming-hot heat (at least 500°F). If that’s too high, just wait, as the temperature will drop gradually. You can leave the lid on and let it drop slowly, or remove the lid to allow more airflow so the fire burns out faster.

Add charcoal to increase heat. If the heat dips too low, you will need to add more charcoal. You can add unlit coals to the pile and wait about 15 minutes for the temperature to rise again, or you can light more charcoal in a chimney starter outside the grill and then add the hot coals to the embers of the existing fire for an almost-instant heat infusion.

Other variables that can affect how food cooks on a charcoal grill include the weather (we can’t do much about that), the type of charcoal used (now we’re talking; see box, below), and the distance between the charcoal and the food (we’ve got this!).

KEEP VENTS CLEAR OF ASH

Charcoal ash can clog or block the intake vents on the bottom of the grill, starving the fire of oxygen. Use the damper blades to sweep those vents clear of ashes about once an hour.

ADD CHARCOAL GENTLY

Hastily dumping hot coals onto the burning embers can send charcoal ash into the air and onto your food. Also, adding too much charcoal at once could smother your well-built fire.

HERE ARE THE TEMPERATURES TO AIM FOR:

TYPES OF CHARCOAL

Briquettes are the most popular form of charcoal in North America for two reasons: they’re inexpensive and available everywhere. Standard briquettes are compressed black pillow-shaped blocks packed with sawdust and coal, along with binders and fillers. Some are presoaked in lighter fluid for easier starting, but those can impart a chemical taste to the food if the lighter fluid isn’t fully burned off before grilling. Pure (or all-natural) hardwood briquettes have the same pillow shape but burn at higher temperatures. Considered the charcoal gold standard by expert grillers, they are usually made of crushed hardwoods bound together with natural starches. Lump charcoal (or charwood) is essentially burnt wood sold in bags. This type of charcoal burns out faster than briquettes, making it more challenging to control, but it does have its uses (see Lump Charcoal). Briquettes produce a predictable, even heat over a long period of time. A chimney starter full of charcoal (80 to 100 briquettes) will last 30 to 60 minutes—starting at high heat and gradually cooling to medium and low heat—which is plenty of time to grill most foods without having to replenish the fire.

CHARCOAL BRIQUETTE QUANTITIES

Using a chimney starter and lighter cubes is the best and fastest way to start your charcoal. See below for how much charcoal you should use to start, and how much you should add during grilling to maintain the correct temperature.

TIME

Step two toward grilling success is to understand the importance of time and its relationship with temperature. With just about anything you grill, the goal is the same: to create tasty browning (or even a crust) on the food’s surface and succulent tenderness inside. How you achieve this balancing act depends largely on the nature of what you are cooking and, of course, timing.

hot & fast

Thin, tender foods like hamburgers call for hot and fast grilling to create the crust quickly, but the interiors change from undercooked to overcooked in a matter of minutes, so be vigilant.

low & slow

Big, tough foods like pork shoulder call for a low and slow approach over the course of hours. It takes that kind of time (at the right temperature) to get both the inside and outside right where you want them to be.

Timing on the Grill

Heat, Energy, and Time

Heat is simply energy. When you are grilling, fast-moving molecules from the fire are colliding with slow-moving molecules in the raw food. As these two sets of molecules swirl around in an increasing frenzy, the food changes color, new flavors are created, the outside dries out, and the structure of the food inside begins to break down.

The heat of a grill is a lot like the heat of the sun. It radiates from a source (gas or charcoal), heats the air, and then the air heats the food. On the grill, the outside of the food is almost always cooking faster than the inside. Your job as the griller is to control the temperature and timing so the outside and inside are done simultaneously.

If you’re working with direct heat, the outside of the food will cook much, much faster than the inside. This is fantastic if you are cooking something small like shrimp. With direct high heat, assuming the timing is right, the outside of the shrimp will develop some good color and flavor before the inside is overcooked and dry.

Now, if you’re grilling something big and tough like pork spareribs, direct high heat would torch them on the outside long before the inside was even close to palatable. That’s why such foods call for indirect heat, sometimes very low indirect heat (about 250°F), sometimes for hours. The outside is still cooking faster than the inside, but not so much faster that it gets too dark.

Our four T’s are team players, especially temperature and time. This is why you should consider them together. Food grilled over strong radiant direct heat will take much less time to cook. For example, a steak grilled over direct heat will take much less time than one grilled over indirect heat, and you’ll get that flavorful sear. If using indirect heat, give the food more time—it’s worth it.

There’s some nuance to this direct-equals-short and indirect-equals-long arithmetic, and the ideal combinations of time and temperature are about as infinite as the number of foods you may want to grill. That’s not meant to scare you. Instead, it’s meant to segue smoothly to the handy Grilling Guides you’ll find Grilling Guides, covering all those time, temp, and food variables.

RESTING

Consider a typical workweek. You have five highly productive days on and then two very necessary, battery-recharging days off. Grilled food operates similarly. It often needs some resting time off the heat before it should be cut. A little science will explain why.

Food is mostly water, but protein and fat are often part of the picture, too. The protein molecules in uncooked food are tightly coiled. These wound-up molecular springs hold onto water, which is why juices don’t run when we cut into raw meat. When you grill a raw steak, however, the proteins denature, or unwind. This process pushes the water molecules around and, in the case of cooked meat cut too soon, right out onto your cutting board. Letting meat rest after cooking allows the proteins to cool and recoil somewhat, thus grabbing back onto the water molecules they had previously displaced.