Food — Chef's Secrets
Hew Monson —Resident Submission
fat, and prepare to be amazed at the difference!
Leveling Up Your BBQ Game Dreading the start of BBQ season? Maybe it’s time to level up your BBQ game with the right gear and techniques to make you the star of your summer cookouts. Here are a few tips to get you there:
• Use a thermometer to monitor the temperature of your grill surface and the internal temp of the cooking food? You should. You must. Just do it. • Salt! People never use enough of it!
You should add salt at around 1.5-2% of the weight of the food. Weigh it out and sprinkle it on. It will look like too much, but when you taste it, you’ll see. You don’t even realize how much flavor you’ve been missing.
• Get a broiler torch. The Iwatani
culinary torch, or the Searzall from Booker & Dax are my favorites. For some foods, even a heat gun from the hardware store can do amazing things.
• Have you been cooking on a gas grill? Try charcoal. The 22-inch Weber Kettle is a good place to start. It’s cheap, • Clean your grill! Dirty grills are well made, easy to use and has endless nasty, and relying on the grill heat to accessories to make it more versatile. sanitize it isn’t enough. Get the grill hot, • Is a grill the only outdoor cooking scrub the grates top and bottom with an oiled wire brush, then wipe it down appliance you with an oiled paper have? Expand towel. And after all your arsenal with that is done, don’t an outdoor fryer, forget to run your griddle, smoker, wire brush through stove, Dutch oven the dishwasher on table, portable pizza a high temp cycle, oven, or broiler. because cleaning • Grind your own a grill with a dirty meat. A #12 meat brush kind of grinder is pretty affordable these days. defeats the purpose. Buy whole cuts of meat, trim them out • Toss fat trimmings directly on the properly, adjust the ratio of lean to
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My Community - Spanish Fork
hot coals to increase the “char grill” flavor.
• Don’t just fill your grill to the brim with charcoal. Think about how you’re going to be cooking, and weigh your charcoal before adding it, based on how hot your grill needs to be. • Use lump charcoal for fast, high heat cooks. Use briquettes for moderate, long-lasting, steady heat. • Push the charcoal to one side to create multiple heat zones so you can sear, then slow cook to perfection. Lastly, get to know your equipment. This means you need to cook out a lot. Use your grill for things you would normally cook on the stove or in the oven. Learn how much charcoal, and which brand, produces the heat that you need for different dishes. Then write down your method and results so you can duplicate them every time. If your grill skills are a bit plebeian, this will get you to a solid journeyman level. But if you want to learn some more advanced tricks, keep an eye on the My Community - Utah Facebook page for more outdoor cooking tips throughout this BBQ season!
@mycommunityutah
