B, being B, loves him some fire. And it's better if the fire cooks stuff, see?
And for the first part of summer, it was all good.
Yummy steaks and chops and potatoes and corn and chicken and ribs and mushrooms and kabobs and grilled zucchini. Lovely stuff.
Now I think I will scream and do the leaping, stomping dance of unhappiness if one more baked potato is slid onto my plate. I can handle the fresh corn (insert mmmmm sound here) and zucchini, heck, even the mushrooms and grilled red pepper sound good.
But PLEASE! No more fire-charred hunks of sauce-smeared meat.
No more! Uncle! Uncle, I say!
It's almost enough to make me want plain chicken.
(So, anyone have any great recipes for new marinade/sauces? 'Cause grilling season is far from over, and I will
Help me.
10 comments:
STOP! STOP! Grilled stuff does not go with BBQ sauce! Oh, the humanity!
What you need is [deep breath] chimichurri and it's good for what ails you, esp. grilled hunks o' cow.
You get a fistful of flat parsley, 2-6 cloves of garlic (something tells me you'll opt for the lowest number of cloves), EVOO and a splash of vinegar. Similar to a pesto, really, only with sharper flavors.
Thank Argentina for this. You can also swap out the parsley for cilantro (do they call it that in Canada? or do they say "coriander?") in whole or in part. If you have an immersion blender ;-) it'd make this a snap.
My other favorite is cebollita and it's basically a salsa made of raw sweet onions, dried chile pepper flakes and distilled vinegar. Dice the onions as finely as your patience allows, put in a jar, put in distilled vinegar to reach level with the onions and add as much chile pepper flakes as you like. Let it sit outside for a day or two.
Then there is balsamic onion "jam" which is nothing more than ridiculously thin onion slices caramelized in a bit of butter, and then cooked down with none-too-pricy balsamic vinegar. If you top a steak with a bit of blue cheese and this, you'll be in Heaven.
I could go on and on. I'll shut up now.
-J.
charred flesh and gobs of sauce are not appealing to me. I like to grill, then remove from the grill (UNcharred, but cooked) and sauce. Sauces trash the grill!
Count your blessings, girl. We've got a cheap ass grill that ensures we never, ever get barbeque. I am praying for a beautiful gas grill to mysteriously show up in the mail one day so I can frigging do it myself.
If you have a grill, you don't GET barbecue. You get grilled whatever. The only way to get barbecue is to SMOKE it. Sheesh. Culinary heathens up there in Canadia.
Have you tried dry rubs, dgb? What about grilling fish? Or doing hobo packets of meat on the grill? Those are good, too.
I like anything "lime" but I do buy ready made marinades most of the time. Two I like (I hope you have these brands) are Drew's Thai Sesame Lime and Lawry's Mesquite w/ lime juice.
Try foodtv-dot-com if you want to make your own. That is my fav source of recipes.
Funny, my DH is the opposite. He thinks the grill is too much trouble (Maybe becasue I do all the indoor cooking??) We've hardly grilled at all this year!
From Australia here are two of my favourity bbq preps:
1. chopped rosemary leaves, crushed garlic, olive oil and balsamic or red wine vinegar at about 2:1 ratio, ground pepper and salt. Mix up enough to cover your meat and leave it for anywhere from an hour to a day or two in the fridge. You can also use thyme or another hardy herb - basil's okay, but cook fast or you'll lose all the flavour.
2. (Don't know how good your ingredients are up there but) crushed and finely chopped lemongrass stalk, half a bunch coriander (I think you say cilantro?), fresh chilli sliced to taste, generous splash of fish sauce, sesame oil and a light oil like canola. This is particularly good with seafood and chicken, but works beautifully with pork and beef too.
There might be some Australians who bbq with thick sauces like you describe but generally we would do lighter marinades or, as Vickee said, cook, then sauce. Our bbqs are always a combination of hotplate and grill plate and most have a hood if you choose to do smoking - we never do but it is handy for getting th plates really hot and for roasting those potatoes!!
Good luck!
ps - I'd back pretty much everything Joke said, too. Sounds like Floridans (Floridians?) take a similar approach to the Australian bbq!
Oh, I've done that rosemary/olive oil/garlic/vinegar thing. It's really good. And easy. Which is also good.
I'm entertaining tomorrow and these posts will come in handy! I'm starting with gazpacho - thought I'd use the French Laundry recipe - we'll see...
Via your (indirect) recommendation, I found the Patak's Chicken Korma stuff at the market and made it for dinner. Yummy! And no comments from the peanut gallery about abnormal chicken!
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