Great Grilling

GRILLED NEW

By Lorie Beardsley

WORLD

There’s more to cooking outside than burgers and brats

Warmer weather and longer days provide the opportunity to move more of our favorite activities outside. Cooking is no exception, with Michigan summers being the best time to fi re up the grill.

Whether you prefer the convenience and precision of gas grills or the fl avor and the experience of cooking over charcoal, you will fi nd no shortage of recipes with which you can challenge your skills and delight your guests. Though meats remain the most popular items for grilling in the United States, recipes for grilling have expanded to include everything from Caesar salad to pizzas to blueberry cobbler.

Not only has the range of culinary creations expanded when it comes to grilling, but technology has also expanded allowing grilling enthusiasts to further sharpen their craft. Instant read food thermometers are an accurate and easy way to make sure that foods are cooked to the ideal temperature, and remote probe thermometers have even taken temperature tracking up a notch.

America’s Test Kitchen reviewed instant read thermometers in the summer of 2018. Testers emphasized both accuracy and speed with thermometers that they deemed best producing a reading in two to three seconds. They chose the Thermoworks Thermapen Mk4, and Test Kitchen sta has relied on that thermometer almost exclusively.

Given the price of the Thermapen, currently sold for $99 on the Thermoworks website, testers and sta also recommended the Thermoworks Thermopop which is currently priced at $35. In addition to the Thermoworks products, sta and testers also recommended a “midpriced thermometer,” the Lavaworks Javelin Pro available for $55.99 at Amazon.

Test Kitchen testers also tested remote probe thermometers including both pager models and Bluetooth enabled models in their tests. They found some of the Bluetooth enabled thermometers to be glitchy and preferred the pager varieties. They chose the pager style Thermoworks Smoke 2 Channel Alarm, sighting ease of pairing, readability, and an easy to hear alarm. The product sells for about $100.

Our family has used the Easy BBQ Smart Wireless BBQ probe thermometer. We have found it to be neither complicated nor glitchy, at least in the two years we have used this model. It paired easily with the app and translates

to the app consistently, providing timely readings throughout the cooking process.

Whatever your favorite grill tools and toys, and whatever your preference for outdoor cooking, from the classic Weber kettle grill to a new Blackstone griddle, serving up great tasting food is ultimately the objective for the grill master.

To that end, my husband and I went outside and set up the black Weber kettle grill on an 85 degree afternoon. Our grilled meal consisted of St. Louis barbeque pork steaks, grilled vegetable kabobs and grilled vegetable orzo salad.

The St. Louis pork steaks involved two methods of cooking, searing and braising. We seared the steaks for approximately six to seven minutes per side, allowing them to develop the not only impressive but also fl avorful grill marks. We then placed the steaks into barbeque sauce where they braised for approximately 90 minutes. Though the recipe included with this article does not call for including beer in the braising sauce, we added a bottle of beer since it is often part of the braising liquid for St. Louis style barbeque.

The meat had an ideal mix of char-grilled fl avor and tenderness after having been seared directly over the fi re at the beginning of cooking, and after having had time to draw in moisture while it was braising in the liquid over the zone for indirect heat that had been created on the grill.

St. Louis BBQ Pork Steaks

Prep Time: 15 minutes Cook Time: 1 hour 45 minutes Servings: 8 - Calories: 517kcal

Author Kelly ~ the hungry bluebird

Ingredients

• 1½ cups ketchup • 2 cups light-bodied American beer • ¼ cup steak sauce, like A.1. • ¼ cup dark brown sugar, packed • 2 tablespoons apple cider vinegar • 2 tablespoons Worcestershire sauce • 1 teaspoon garlic powder • 1 teaspoon hot sauce, like Frank’s • ½ teaspoon liquid smoke • 6-8 pork steaks (mine were huge, I cut in half for 6) • Freshly ground black pepper

Instructions

Preheat grill. For gas, turn all burners on high for 15 minutes. For charcoal, make sure you to use enough charcoal to cover the circumference of the grill.

Make the sauce. Whisk together the fi rst 9 ingredients in a large bowl. Transfer BBQ sauce to a large, disposable aluminum pan and set aside.

Season the pork steaks to taste with black pepper and grill until well-browned, 6 or 7 minutes a side. Transfer the steaks to the pan with the sauce and turn to coat. Cover the pan with foil and place back on the grill. Turn the burners down to low and cook for about 90 minutes until tender. Check after about an hour to see if the sauce looks too thick or dry; if so, add a little water.

Carefully remove the pan from grill. Remove steaks to serving platter or pan. Skim any excess fat from sauce and spoon over steaks or serve on the side.

The grilled kabobs were colorful and quite simple. We threaded whole grape tomatoes; large chunks of onion;

yellow, orange, and red bell pepper, and rounds of zucchini and summer squash on to skewers. We prefer using the fl at skewers as they prevent produce in particular from spinning or moving too much on the skewer. We then drizzled the veggies with oil and seasoned them with salt and pepper.

I cooked the orzo for the salad to package directions and allowed it time to cool to room temperature. We placed the skewers directly on the grill. We cooked them for approximately fi ve to seven minutes per side, to al dente. You may choose to cook them longer if you’re looking for a nice char.

You could serve the grilled vegetable skewers as a side dish with the pork steaks, in fact the vegetable skewers would make an ideal side with almost anything from a cedar planked grilled salmon to a pulled chicken sandwich.

For our meal though, I removed the veggies from the skewers and tossed them with the orzo. I dressed the orzo with red wine vinegar, olive oil, and the juice of a fresh lemon. We seasoned the salad with salt and pepper, and garnished it with fresh parsley cut from our herb garden. we chose to cook the entire box. We had made enough skewers to accommodate that amount of orzo. We used an entire six-ounce package of feta, and we needed to increase the dressing recipe by approximately four-fold. Making the orzo salad as directed serves four people, but making it as we did, it would certainly serve a crowd!

The St. Louis barbeque pork steaks are fairly simple, particularly if you choose to use a bottled barbeque sauce. Once braised, they can basically be left in the covered aluminum pan for the duration of their cooking time. Do check them

Grilled Summer Vegetable and Orzo Salad

The perfect salad for summer! Prep Time: 10 minutes Cook Time: 20 minutes 4 SERVINGS

Ingredients

• 1 cup orzo pasta • 2 Tbsp olive oil • 1 tsp red wine vinegar • 1 tsp lemon juice • 1 medium zucchini, about pound, sliced • 1 medium yellow squash, about pound, sliced • ½ yellow onion, sliced • 1 pint grape tomatoes • Salt and pepper, to taste • Fresh parsley to garnish

Instructions

Cook the orzo according to the package directions. Drain.

In a medium skillet, add the olive oil, red wine vinegar, and lemon juice. Grill the onion, zucchini, yellow squash, and tomatoes for 4 to 5 minutes, turning occasionally.

Toss the cooked vegetables with the orzo.

Cool before serving.

periodically to be sure that enough liquid remains, and add more sauce if necessary.

The skewers were also simple and can be fun and are certainly versatile. You can make them with family or friends. We have even attended parties where the hosts encouraged people to assemble their own skewers, then the hosts grilled our custom-made skewers for us.

Burgers and hot dogs are summer classic that will likely always have their place on our picnic tables, but grilling also o ers endless possibilities. This summer, why not grill something you have never grilled before?