Fire It Up

The Raw and The Charred

Bonus Audio: What's So Sexy About Rawness

It's grey today. Sort of cloudy, muggy, getting cooler - the kind of day that calls out for a strong beer and a rare steak to give it shape. As usual we're trying to figure out what to grill. 

D: What is it about a great grilled steak or even a perfectly seared piece of fish that makes everything better?

A: It's about contrast, Dave. One of the amazing things about grilling food, as opposed to any other cooking technique, is that when you take a raw ingredient and put it over fire you get this intense heat at the surface but the heat doesn’t go completely to the center, which gives you an incredible crunchy crust and totally virgin flesh inside.  That’s what happens when you grill a steak rare.  But the real high point is when you char the bejesus out of the surface and keep the interior absolutely raw – what we call “charring.”

D:  And when you’re charring, regardless of the fuel source you’re using – gas, charcoal, or wood – you want to get the hottest and driest fire that you can because that will give you maximum heat on the surface and minimum heat transference into the center.

A: The best fuel choice for that is wood, but most people don’t grill over wood.

D: Right, so let’s take gas.  If you’re working with gas you definitely want to preheat your grill with the lid down and the grate in place for at least 15 minutes to get the grill grate really really hot, because your cooking surface is the grill grate.

A: And since gas flames don’t get that hot, the metal of the grill grate is going to be the only thing that can give you the intensity of heat you need to char over gas.

D: Or if you have a sear burner or "infra-red" burner on your gas grill, you’re set. Sear burners have a ceramic brick over the gas jet that heats up like hell. Actually it’s too hot to cook most foods through without burning, but it's ideal for the kind of charring that we’re talking about now – getting a thick crusty brown surface and naked raw interior - which we could argue is the ultimate expression of grilling.

A: But let's say you're a charcoal griller. A raging charcoal fire gives you almost the same intensity as a sear burner.  When I char over charcoal, I pump up the heat by doubling the amount of coals that I would normally use, and rather than letting the coals burn down, I pile them up into a bed just big enough to span the ingredient, and start grilling as soon as the grill grate smokes.

D: Even better would be to add some wood chunks to your coals.  Since wood is denser than charcoal it will heat up even hotter.

A: Absolutely.

D: Because wood hasn’t been preburned, like charcoal, its potential energy is about 60% higher so when it ignites it burns that much hotter.

A: And it gives you some smokiness.

D: So making a fire with completely dry seasoned wood would be the best because it burns the hottest, and it burns so much drier than gas.  Like we've said before, gas contains water in the form of hydrogen, which steams when it burns. And when there's moisture in a grill, less browning can happen, and if you can’t brown well, you certainly can’t char well.  

A: As with charcoal, you shouldn’t let the wood fire burn down much.  You actually want to be charring over flames rather than glowing embers.

D: Or you could just ditch the grill grate and char your food right in the wood fire. In which case you want to let the wood burn down to glowing embers, rake them into a lumpy bed and throw your steak right in there.  So what food can’t you do this way?  What food just doesn’t work charred on the outside and raw in the center?

A:  Well chicken, for one, would not be safe.  But beef would be safe, unless its ground. In fact this is a great place to talk about rawness and safety. Almost all of the bacteria on a piece of beef are on the surface, so if you’re charring the surface, you’re killing any bacteria that are on the steak or roast. But when you grind beef, the surface and interior get mixed together, which is why there is a question about the safety of eating rare burgers.  

D: And there are some meats that are safe but just not pleasant eaten too rare, like pork and veal.  But tuna loin is great charred, as are scallops, and haddock.  Beef is one of my favorites. In our new book we have a recipe for charred beef carpaccio, and we use a relatively new cut of beef that’s sort of cool. It’s the shoulder tender, also called a petite tender. It's a small muscle, about the size of a pork tenderloin, that runs through the center of a beef chuck. You need a petite tender that’s at least 2-inches thick so it doesn’t cook through before the surface is well-charred.  You could also use a beef tenderloin in that recipe. But it’s a lot more expensive.

A: What you said about thickness is really important.  When you’re charring a tuna steak it's almost impossible to get a good crust and keep it raw in the center (which is the way it tastes best) if the steak is less than 2 inches thick.  One way to ensure rawness is to char the whole tuna loin before it is cut into steaks.  That way you're working with a tuna roast, a good 6 inches across, which allows you to char the hell out of the outside and the center stays completely untouched. 

D: Other things that help is to make sure the meat is well chilled before grilling it and to put a dry rub on the outside to soak up moisture and help you get a thick browned crust. But I keep wondering...who would want to do this?  I know we would because we're crazy like that. But most people don't think of keeping things raw when grilling.

A: But you're still getting the taste of grilling, the taste of fire.  It’s just all on the edge.  The part that hits your mouth first is crusty, a little sweet, and a little spicy, followed by incredibly moist, slight warm, untouched succulent flesh on the inside. It’s completely sexy.

Grilled Carpaccio of Shoulder Tender

Makes 4 to 6 servings

 

1 beef shoulder tender (petite tender) roast, about 1 pound

1/2 teaspoon kosher salt

1/4 teaspoon freshly ground black pepper

1 tablespoon extra-virgin olive oil

3/4 cup baby arugula or micro-greens

1/2 teaspoon minced shallots

1/2 teaspoon fresh lemon juice

1/4 cup Pourable Herbed Mayonnaise (recipe below)

1 1/2 tablespoons drained small capers

 

Light a grill for direct, high heat, about 475ºF. Keep the roast cold until just before grilling then coat the cold roast with about 1 teaspoon of the olive oil and season with the salt and pepper. Brush the grill grate and coat with oil. Grill the roast directly over the heat just until grill-marked on all sides, 4 to 5 minutes total. The center should remain raw.

Quickly chill the roast in the refrigerator, then wrap tightly in plastic and freeze until partially frozen, about1 hour. Slice paper-thin on a meat slicer or slice thinly by hand then sandwich each slice between plastic wrap and pound until paper-thin.

Arrange the slices on chilled plates. Toss the arugula or micro-greens with the shallots, lemon juice, and remaining 2 teaspoons olive oil. Mound a small portion of the greens in the center of each plate. Drizzle lightly with the thinned mayonnaise and garnish with the capers.

Pourable Herbed Mayonnaise

Makes about 1 1/4 cups

1 large fresh egg

2 tablespoons fresh lemon juice

1 teaspoon Dijon mustard

1/4 teaspoon salt

Pinch of ground white or black pepper

1 cup extra-virgin olive oil

2 to 4 tablespoons whole milk

2 teaspoons finely chopped fresh parsley

1 teaspoon finely chopped fresh tarragon

    Combine the fresh egg, lemon juice, mustard, salt, pepper and 1/4 cup of the oil in a food processor. Process for a few seconds then, with the machine running, gradually add the oil in a thin, steady steam. Scrape down the sides and process until thickened and smooth, 10 to 15 seconds.
   

    Scrape into a bowl and stir in the parsley, tarragon, and just enough milk to make the sauce pourable. Cover and refrigerate for up to 1 week.

Clambake on the Grill with Seaweed

Bonus Audio: The magical effect of the ocean on plants

As August comes to a close, we can't help but enjoy summer seafood while we have the chance. What about seaweed? Can you grill it? And if so, why would you want to?

D: It’s the height of summer—high time to enjoy the fruits of the sea. Soon our attention will turn to meat, grilled squash and sweet potatoes. This is our last chance to take advantage of sea foods at their peak. One sea food we definitely don’t take advantage of enough is seaweed.
A. Most Americans don’t even think of sea vegetables as food.
D: Right, think about it. We call them “weeds.” Weeds are plants we have no use for.
A: The cultures that value sea vegetables, like Japanese culture, value them because they have a unique flavor and texture that land vegetables never get.
D: And when you use those flavors and textures in grilling, you get a depth of flavor that enhances the meatiness of grilled food exponentially. Sea vegetables are naturally high in glutamic acid, a protein, which is the main source of umami flavor. Umami is that delicious savory flavor that you get from roasted meat or sautéed mushrooms. It’s one of the flavors that we often associate with grilled food. So if you can reinforce the natural umami in grilled meat with some seaweed it gives you a double hit of savoriness.
A: Sea weeds are also naturally briny. And they don’t only give us the flavor of salt or sodium chloride. Sea water is loaded with all kinds of minerals like potassium, magnesium, and iodine. When salt is crystallized from sea water it usually only has one or two minerals. So if you make salt water by dissolving kosher salt in water it just tastes of sodium – salty. But seaweeds offer a full array of sea minerals so you get salt-water flavor that is very close to ocean water.
D: So you get the flavors of salt, other minerals, and umami, but you also get moisture. Wet seaweed is loaded with brine that steams when you grill it, infusing anything it touches with flavor and keeping some ingredients moist. Delicate fish tends to dry out on the grill, but wrapping it in seaweed or stuffing the cavity of whole fish with seaweed helps it stay moist.
A: By “wet” seaweed, you mean rehydrated, right? Most people will have a hard time finding fresh wet seaweed. Most often, you buy it dried then soak it water to rehydrate it.
D: Right. And that’s exactly what we did in our recipe for a clambake on the grill. Traditionally, you do a clambake on the beach. You dig a pit in the sand, line it with rocks, build a wood fire to heat the stone, and when the fire burns down, you scrape away the ashes. Then you use the hot stones for cooking, layering the pit with wet sea vegetables, clams, mussels, and lobster, and some potatoes and corn, maybe sausages. Then you cover it the whole she-bang with more seaweed and sea-soaked burlap, and the whole thing steams with briny ocean mist. In our recipe, we do the same thing but in a big roasting pan on the grill instead of a pit. We used soaked sheets of kombu for the seaweed.
A: You can get even more natural ocean flavor by taking some ground seaweed that’s easily made by grinding dried seaweed in a mini-chopper, or you can just buy powdered dulce or kelp and sprinkle it right on to the seafood and vegetables in your clam bake.
D: Exactly. You know what would be cool? What if you season sushi rice with seaweed and make nori rolls and then smoke them over seaweed. Seaweed smoke is much more subtle than wood smoke and would be delicious with rice.
A: I love that idea. It’s sort of a smoked nori stogie.
D: Nori Stogie. That’ll be the next blog.

Clam Bake on the Grill

(from Mastering the Grill)

Seaside clambakes are a New England tradition. Native Americans are said to have taught pilgrims the technique, which is an all-day undertaking. For an authentic clambake on the beach, you dig a big pit in the sand about 2 to 3 feet deep and line the pit with rocks. Then you burn plenty of wood over the rocks for 2 to 3 hours until the rocks are smoking hot (about 400ºF). After raking away the coals, layers of seaweed, potatoes, corn, small clams, mussels—and sometimes sausages or other ingredients—go directly over the hot rocks. Add some more seaweed, top with a huge sea-soaked burlap tarp and more hot rocks, and the whole she-bang steams until the food is cooked through and infused with the briny aroma of the sea. If you don’t have a beach nearby (or enough wood to burn for 3 hours), here’s the backyard method. We use a covered kettle grill as the pit and rehydrated store-bought seaweed in place of fresh seaweed. The ingredients are layered in a large roasting pan and the pan is put directly on the coals on the bottom of the grill. You could also do this on a gas grill with medium heat under the roasting pan, but we like the charcoal kettle grill because it’s closer to the original method.

The Grill       
Gas:     Preheated on medium, for indirect grilling (350°F)

            3 or 4 burner grill – middle burner(s) on medium-low
            Clean oiled grate

Charcoal: Indirect heat – medium ash
    Split charcoal bed (about 2 dozen coals per side), single layer of coals in center
     20 replacement coals
     
Tools & Equipment
• Large roasting pan such as a turkey roaster (heavy-duty if disposable)
• Heat-resistant grill mitts (preferably heat-proof silicone)
• Long-handled tongs
• Metal nutcrackers and lobster forks
• 40” x 15” piece of burlap (See Tip)
• 2 cups wood chunks or chips (preferably oak), soaked in water for 1 hour

Timing (Box)
Prep: 30 minutes
Grill: 1 to 1 1/2 hours

Makes 10 to 12 servings

Ingredients
3 pounds small red-skinned or white potatoes, scrubbed
2 onions, peeled and cut lengthwise into eighths, leaving the root end intact
8 ears fresh corn, shucked and halved crosswise
12 ounces cured Portuguese linguiça or Spanish chorizo, sliced 1/2-inch thick
3 dozen littleneck or small cherrystone clams
3 dozen mussels, scrubbed and debearded (see Tip)
1 tablespoon crab boil seasoning (such as Old Bay) or sea salt
1 small bunch parsley
6 live lobsters (1 to 1 1/2 pounds each)
2 sticks butter, melted
2 lemons, cut into wedges
3 ounces dried kombu (kelp) seaweed


Directions

1. Heat the grill as directed above.
2. Bring a large pot of water to boil. Remove from the heat and add the kombu, letting it soak until softened, about 5 minutes.
3. Put a thick layer of seaweed over the bottom of a large roasting pan such as a turkey roaster (heavy-duty if disposable). Put the potatoes in a single layer over the seaweed. Sprinkle the potatoes with crab boil seasoning then add layers of onions, corn, sausage, clams, and mussels in that order, sprinkling some crab oil seasoning and a few parsley sprigs between each layer. Pour about 1 cup of the seaweed soaking liquid over all of the ingredients. Arrange the remaining seaweed over the top. Soak the burlap in the remaining soaking liquid until saturated, 5 minutes. Fold the burlap to make a double thickness then drape it over the seaweed, tucking the edges inside the roasting pan to cover the ingredients.
4. Rake a single layer of hot coals over the center of the grill, leaving the remaining hot coals banked on opposite sides. Put half of the soaked wood chunks or chips over the coals on the sides. When the wood begins to smolder, put the roasting pan over the coals in the middle of the grill, cover the grill and let cook with the vents open until the potatoes are tender and the clams and mussels have opened, 1 to 1 1/2 hours. Test the potatoes by lifting the cover off a cover, digging down with tongs, and poking the potatoes with a knife or fork. Add the replacement coals and remaining wood to both sides of the grill when the old ones begin to die out. If your grill has a temperature gauge it should stay around 350°F.
5. About 30 minutes before serving, bring two large pots of salted water to a boil. Add two lobsters at a time to each pot. Cover and cook until the shells are bright red, 8 to 12 minutes per batch. Remove and cover loosely with foil to keep warm.
6. Remove the roasting pan from the grill and transfer to a large trivet for serving. Or transfer the ingredients to a large serving platter. Discard the seaweed, parsley, and any clams or mussels that do not open. Pour any juices from the bottom of the pan over the clam bake. Sprinkle with a bit more crab boil seasoning. Cut the cooked lobsters in half lengthwise and arrange on top. Or allow guests to share the lobsters. Serve with the melted butter for drizzling or dipping, and lemon wedges for squeezing.

Tips
• Look for dried kombu seaweed in an Asian grocery store or large supermarket.
• Soaking mussels in salt water helps to rid them of any lingering sand. Mix 1/2 cup of salt in about a gallon of water in a large bowl. Add the mussels and let soak for 1 hour. Then scrub the mussels with a stiff brush under running water and yank off the moss-like “beard,” using pliers if necessary.
• For the burlap, an old coffee sack works well. Ask for one at your local coffee shop. Some hardware stores also carry burlap.

Grilled Watermelon Steak

Bonus Audio: Why Grill Fruit?

It’s another sweltering sultry east coast August. The good news: local melons are just coming into the farmers market. We’re definitely grilling some. But they have their challenges.

 

D: The local cantaloupes are incredible this year! I haven’t hit a bad one yet. I usually just eat them raw, but I’m thinking of tossing some ground coriander and brown sugar on a few slices and searing them over a hot fire.

A: Awesome. Palm sugar would be even better. Either way, the spice rub would help solve the problem with grilling fruit. Most fruit is so high in moisture and low in fiber that it collapses before it browns. You either have to grill it long enough to evaporate the moisture, or put something on the surface that browns quickly so that the fruit never gets a chance to heat through.

D: Yeah, like peaches with honey butter, one of my favorites.

A: Two things are happening there: the fat from the butter is acting as a moisture barrier and the sugar in the honey is caramelizing on the surface of the fruit. That’s probably the most effective thing you can do to get really wet fruits to brown.

D: Glazes also let fruits brown before they have a chance to cook through and get too soft. Without a glaze, ripe fruits like peaches, apricots, and plums just turn to mush on the grill. You want these fruits to be ripe, but if they’re too soft they collapse over the hot fire.

A. All you really want to do for ripe fruit is develop some good grill marks on the surface.

D. Exactly. You can also put a rub on the surface to absorb juices and add flavor—like the coriander and sugar on the cantaloupe. Fruit can also handle savory rubs. We usually think of fruit in sweet recipes, but fruit pairs great with grilled  meat. Think pork and applesauce. Or beef and oranges. You can spice a peach with cumin or chile peppers...

A: ...or a curry rub. A little habanero chile is great on peaches, too.

D: It helps to think of fruit like a vegetable. Think about what you’re pairing it with: grilled herbed pears with turkey; grilled apricots with salmon; grilled grapes and gorgonzola with beef…. Have you ever stuck fruit right in the coals?

A: Yeah, we’ve done that with mango, where we char the skin and peel it like a grilled pepper. Or you could do it with a banana, anything with a protecting peel. Are there fruits you can’t grill? Berries would be difficult.

D: Watermelon seems like it would never work on a grill. The fruit is 92% water, which makes it seems like it would just steam instead of grill. But you can glaze a thick slice of watermelon, sear it quickly over high heat then move it over low heat to let the slices dry out. It takes about 20 minutes. They shrink a little and the flavor gets more concentrated. The texture changes, too. It gets denser and meatier, and it looks sort of like a grilled tuna steak.

A: Mmmm. One of the great things about raw watermelon is that it’s thirst quenching. But that’s also what waters down the flavor. If you cook the fruit like you described, some of that water evaporates, and the flavor skyrockets, smacking your taste buds around - pretty incredible.

 

Grilled Watermelon Steak with Pink Peppercorn Rub

Makes 4 servings

 

1 crosswise center-cut slice of a large watermelon, about 1 1/2-inches thick

1/2 cup vodka

1/4 cup water

The finely grated zest and juice of 2 large lemons

4 tablespoons butter, melted

1 tablespoon chopped fresh mint

Pinch of kosher salt + 1/4 teaspoon

2 tablespoons pink peppercorns, crushed

2 teaspoons sugar

2 tablespoons honey

 

            Remove the green and white rind from the watermelon then cut crosswise into quarters to make 4 wedge-shaped steaks.

            Combine the vodka, water, lemon zest, lemon juice, butter, and mint in a large zipper-lock bag. Add a pinch of salt and the watermelon steaks. Press out the air, seal and let stand at warm room temperature (at least 72ºF) for 1 to 2 hours.

Light a grill for indirect medium heat, about 350ºF (page 000).

            Combine the crushed pink peppercorns, sugar, and remaining 1/4 teaspoon salt. Remove the watermelon from the marinade and pat dry with paper towels; reserve the marinade. Scatter the rub all over the steaks and pat into surface.

Brush the grill grate and coat with oil. Grill the watermelon directly over the heat until nicely grill-marked, 3 to 4 minutes per side. Move the watermelon away from the heat, close the lid, and cook until very tender and slightly shrunken, 30 to 40 minutes.

Boil the marinade in a small saucepan until reduced to 1/3 cup, about 10 minutes. Stir in the honey and drizzle over the steaks.

Campfire S'mores

Bonus Audio: What is it about a campfire?

Its high noon and a beautiful sunny summer day and we both must be hankering to be out in the woods camping because all we can think about is the magic of cooking over a live wood fire.  Cooking in the wild poses challenges, for sure, but if you’re willing to carry a bunch of cooking equipment with you there’s probably no limit to what can be cooked on a campfire.

D: Is there anything that you can’t cook over a campfire?

A: I don’t know. You probably can cook anything if you’re willing to manipulate the fire enough.

D: Right, every cooking technique evolved from a live fire.  A grill grate suspended over a fire, like a Tuscan grill, is probably the simplest. It still lets the fire get to the food but allows the cook to control the heat by raising and lowering the grate.

A: Put a pot on the grate and you can sauté, or braise, or boil.

D: Hell, you could throw a filing cabinet over a campfire and create an oven.

A: Or a burnt office.

D: It actually would work! You’ve got everything you need - stacked boxes to hold the food away from the flame and a casing to conduct heat around the boxes. You could stick a cake in the top drawer and a pie in the bottom.   

A: True.  But is baking in a filing cabinet the best way possible to cook on a campfire?  A makeshift campfire oven is never going bake as evenly as a well insulated electric oven. The history of cooking is the story of getting away from fire, of putting distance or cookware between the food and the fire.  But the cool thing about cooking on a campfire is that you have a chance to wipe all of that away and get back to how it all started.  

D: We’ve always said the essence of grilling is flames and food. It’s not so much about smoke; it’s not so much about the kind of grill grate,

A: or about marinades

D: or rubs, or sauces. It’s about food and fire.  And a campfire is the greatest expression of that. When you simply spear a piece of food on a stick and hold it over a fire you are enacting the purest form of grilling.

A: You don’t control the heat with any fancy equipment, but simply by how you hold the food and where you hold it.  It’s like playing an instrument.  One of the great things about cooking over a campfire is the challenge of playing the fire, and responding to it artfully.

D: So if the history of culinary arts is based on manipulating fire by putting blockades between food and heat, then cooking on a campfire is a way of getting back to the real craft of hands on cooking.

A: Absolutely! Cooking over a campfire is a real test of a cook, separating those who understand how to master a fire from those who don’t. Take s’mores, for example. It’s a simple and spectacular food that is easily screwed up if you’re not watchful and quick to respond.

D: All of your control is how close you allow the food get to the flame.

A: So how do you do it?

D: In a s’more all you’re cooking is the marshmallow.

A: And that’s also cool, because you have to get the marshmallow hot enough to transfer enough heat to melt the chocolate without allowing the marshmallow to burst into flame.

D: It’s pretty sophisticated. Who would have thought? So what are the tricks for making perfect s’mores?

A: You can’t just stick a marshmallow, which is incredibly high in sugar, right into a raging campfire. It will incinerate in seconds. You need to judge the heat. 

D: You need to find a good spot, where there isn’t any flame. You want to look for a glowing bed of embers, preferably one that has burnt down so that the heat is glowing red all of the way across.

A: Which is always easy to find because all the other people, who don’t know the secret, will be hogging the area over the high flames on the other side of the fire.

D: Right, so you’ve found your spot. Now you want to hold the marshmallow over the coals raising and lowering it.  

A: Slowly raising and lowering your marshmallow over the fire achieves the same thing as adjusting the flame on a stove to get the right temperature.

D: You want to slowly roll the marshmallow to get even heat all of the way around the marshmallow. Don’t just flip it like a steak, which will make some parts of the surface burn before the inside is evenly heated. After a while the surface of the marshmallow will begin to dry and swell (not brown).  

A: This is the point where most people mess up.  They don’t realize that the outside of the marshmallow has to get completely dry before it will start to brown. So browning takes a long time to start, but once it starts, its going to progress quickly.  Usually right before its ready to start we get impatient; stick the marshmallow close to the heat to get it to brown, and before we know it, ignition - incinerated s’more.

D: You have to be patient and you have to check it often.

A: Okay, so we’ve achieved the perfect toasted marshmallow. What about the chocolate?  One of my pet peeves is when you bite into a s’more and the chocolate is still hard.

D: I think the chocolate has to be pretty thin.  Hershey milk chocolate bars seem to be a near perfect thickness, and (here’s the crucial point) you have to let the marshmallow-chocolate-cookie combo sit for a minute.  This gives the heat from the marshmallow a chance to soften the chocolate and it lets the marshmallow cool down a little so it doesn’t goosh out the sides when you take a bite.

A: A perfectly cooked s’more is an astonishing food, and I know I really shouldn’t mess with perfection, but I can’t help it.

D: I’ve used shortbread cookies instead of graham crackers and replaced the chocolate bar with a chocolate spread like Nutella.

A: Brilliant, introduces a new flavor, hazelnuts, and its easy since Nutella is a spread so you don’t  have to melt the chocolate.  Recently. I’ve been working with toasted caramel s’mores, replacing the marshmallow with a caramel candy, and the chocolate with thin slices of apple – sort of a candy apple riff on a classic.

D: A sprinkle of smoked sea salt, like Halen Mon Gold, would be awesome on there.

Download Building a Wood Fire

Salted Caramel Apple S’mores

Makes 4 servings

 

8 traditional chewy caramel candies, such as Kraft

1/2 tart green apple, cored and cut in 8 thin slices

1 teaspoon canola oil (optional)

8 cinnamon graham crackers

1 teaspoon fleur de sel or sel gris

 

Light a wood fire and allow the embers to burn down to a red glow, or light a grill for direct medium heat, about 375°F.

Unwrap the caramels and flatten between the heels of your hands to about 1/2-inch thick.  Pierce 2 caramels through their narrow sides onto each of four long skewers or sticks. 

If you have a grill grate you can grill the apple slices if you want.  To grill them coat the slices with oil and grill over a medium-hot part of the fire until marked, about 1 minute per side. Arrange 2 apple slices (grilled or not grilled) on each of 4 graham crackers.  Arrange on a plate.

Hold the caramels about 6 inches from the fire until they brown lightly on both sides and start to collapse, 3 to 4 minutes, turning often.  When the caramels are on the verge of collapse, place each skewer on an apple-topped graham cracker.  Sprinkle with fleur de sel and top each with one of the remaining graham crackers.  Holding the graham sandwich in place slide the skewers from the centers.

Let the s’mores rest 30 seconds before eating.

 

Grilling Beans

Bonus Audio: Grilled Food for Vegans

Dave and Andy are hanging out in Dave’s back yard.  It’s a beautiful, sunny, breezy, mild summer day – great for grilling.  They’re talking about what to grill and all the main dish ideas they come up with are meaty.  They start tossing around options for vegans, and that leads to a brainstorming session on grilling beans – the most complete vegetable protein available.

A: Cooking over fire is so tied in with cooking meat it seems that “meatiness” even dominates the kind of foods that vegans grill.

D: I know. When I was vegan I mostly grilled stuff like tofu steak and veggie burgers, but now I’m looking for food that’s a little less “processed.”

A: Beans are a great way to go.  But beans have problems on the grill. A lot of them need moisture to soften.  They’re small and they can fall through the grill grate.

D: It depends whether they are shelled or unshelled.  So something like chick peas that are shelled you can sear in a grill skillet and glaze with teriyaki, harissa, or whatever you like. Beans that are still in their pods, like edamame or green beans can be done the same way.  But because pod beans are bigger, you really don’t need the grill skillet.

A: Yeah, for some reason grill pans feel like cheating. They’re just one more thing between the food and the fire.  But the flame does get through, and it’s a lot easier than balancing green beans on a grill grate.

D: The bars on most of my grill grates are too far apart for grilling something like edamame, so I always use a grill skillet for them. A little smoky char on an edamame pod makes them completely different from edamame that are just boiled and salted.

A: And because the pod chars, when you suck the beans from the pod you get some of that char off the pod, giving the bean itself the flavor of the grill. Which is part of what’s exciting about grilling stuff like beans.  You get this amazing grilled flavor with an ingredient that doesn’t seem like you should be able to grill it at all.

D: Right, you get the same kind of char on other pod beans, too. Fava beans are fabulous on a grill because the pods are so broad. They pick up a hell of a lot of flavor from the fire.

A: What’s also cool is how grilling favas is actually easier than boiling them.

D: Absolutely, you know how it’s usually such a pain to get fava beans out of their hulls.  That’s because inside the pod there is another layer that you have to go through to get to the actual bean. The bean itself is very tender and bright green, but it’s trapped inside this waxy hull that is pretty thick when the bean’s mature.  Traditionally to get the hull off you have to boil the whole pods, shock them in ice water, remove the beans and then boil them again to blister the hull from the bean. But the grilling method is faster and there are fewer steps.  You toss the whole pod, unseasoned, right on the grill, and the high heat wrinkles the pod and loosens the hulls, so that when you squeeze the beans, their hulls slip right off.

A:  And you can grill them over pretty high heat, because it really doesn’t matter if the pod burns, since no one’s going to eat it.  In fact burning the pod helps to give the beans inside a smokier flavor.   What flavors would you toss grilled favas with?

D: I like Mediterranean flavors – fresh herbs, olive oil, garlic, lemon.

A: A chopped preserved lemon slathered with some garlic and e.v. olive oil is awesome, but chunky stuff like that, which would fall off the beans during grilling, needs to be added after the grilled beans are shucked and hulled. So would a thin mixture like your herbs and oil. 

D: Favas are really versatile once you get them hulled. You can toss them with a flavorful sauce or dressing, like you said, and eat them hot, or cooled down as a salad. Or make a taco by tossing grilled edamame or fava beans with grilled corn cut from the cob, wrap it all in a grilled tortilla, and serve with some salsa and guac for a complete protein - totally vegan and totally natural. 

A: Very cool and very easy.

D: Even easier is just tossing some grilled edamame with your favorite spice rub.

 

Grilled Edamame with Mustard Wasabi Rub

We had some Mustard Wasabi Rub left over from the tuna in the coals post, so we tossed it on grilled edamame. The rub recipe is repeated here; the original is in the last post.

Makes 6 servings

Mustard Wasabi Rub:
1 1/2 tsp wasabi powder
1 1/2 tsp dry mustard
1 1/2 tsp sesame seeds
1 1/2 tsp salt, preferably coarse sea salt
1 1/2 tsp sugar or brown sugar
1/2 tsp garlic powder
1/2 tsp ginger powder
1/8 tsp ground black pepper
Pinch cayenne pepper

1 lb frozen edamame in their pods, thawed
1 tsp toasted sesame oil

    Heat a grill for direct high heat, about 500ºF.

    Mix the ingredients for the rub; store in tightly closed container for up to 1 month.

    Blot dry the edamame with paper towels then toss with the sesame oil.

    Put a grill skillet or grill wok on the grill; wait a few minutes for the pan to get very hot. Rub the skillet or wok with a paper towel dipped in oil to coat the pan surface. Add half the edamame in a single layer, and grill for 2 to 3 minutes without moving the pan, or until the edamame are blistered and begin to whistle (the sound of steam escaping from the pods). Shake the pan vigorously to flip the edamame, and grill for 2 to 3 minutes more, or until blistered and softened. Transfer to a serving bowl, and toss with half the wasabi rub. Grill the remaining edamame the same way and toss with the first batch and the remaining rub. Serve immediately.

Tuna in the Coals

If you've never cooked food right in hot coals before, try it. You get intense smoky flavors and a great browned crust. Plus, it makes you look like a Master of Fire. Porous foods like fish absorb more woodsmoke, while dense foods like beef steak develop a thick crust. Here's what we found out in our latest experiment cooking in the coals.

A: Last week I made tuna steaks in the coals. But it was so different than the usual rib-eyes and strip steaks we usually do in coals.
D: How so?
A: Well, we’ve been cooking steaks right in the coals for years now, but last week with the tuna steaks, my thinking about this cool grilling technique did a complete 360.
D: What happened? You mean it’s not a cool technique?
A: No, no, it’s cool. It’s even cooler than I thought! That’s just it. I was afraid I was going to overcook the fish because my thinking about cooking anything in the coals is that the fire is really, really hot. I wanted some way of taming that heat. Most of the time when you’re grilling, you can turn down the heat or raise the food away from the heat. But when you’re cooking in the coals, you can’t do that. The food is right down there in the fire. It’s blazing hot, right?
D: Well, maybe.
A: Exactly. What I found is that it’s not that hot. Right there in the fire! Even though the tuna sizzled like spit on a griddle when it hit the hot log, the surface of the fish barely browned.
D: A-ha. That’s because you put the fish on the flat side of a burning log, which isn’t as hot as you’d think. It’s cooking between the coals that’s really hot... Remember when we did that podcast for Mastering the Grill? We were trying to get those strip steaks in the coals to cook, but they were taking forever? It’s because we put them on the flat side of the logs. The logs had burned down pretty well, but they were still whole. We turned a couple logs over with the burning side up and put the steaks on the flat side, thinking the logs would keep the steaks nice and stable and cook them evenly. But it took a long time for them to cook through. That’s when I realized that there was barely any oxygen between the steaks and the wood. So little that the heat was really low. It became crystal clear when I noticed the piece of steak hanging over the edge of the log. That piece charred and cooked through quickly but the piece sitting right on the wood didn’t.
A: That’s interesting because that’s how I ended up doing the tuna steaks to keep them from overcooking. I put them on the flat side of a burning log. For something like tuna, it worked because it kept the tuna rare—even raw—inside, which is perfect. And I got much more wood flavor that way, probably because the tuna is more porous.
D: Bingo. The tuna is more porous, so it absorbs more smoke aromas. Same thing with vegetables. They absorb a lot more smoke flavor when cooked in the coals than something dense like steak will absorb. I’ve done beef steaks both on the flat side of burning logs and on burned-down embers. The beef doesn’t get intensely smoky like the tuna would because the beef is so much more dense.
A: It’s a really cool technique, but what surprises me about cooking in the coals is that what you get is totally different than what you’d expect. I mean, you’re putting food right in the fire... you feel like you’re going to burn the crap out of it! But the food doesn’t burn. That’s the surprising part.
D: But it makes sense when you think about it. Because you don’t actually put the food right into the fire. The fire doesn’t exist where the fuel is. The fire exists where the fuel and oxygen combine. And that’s right above the coals not right in them. That’s why cooking on a grill grate, above the fuel, will give foods a great charred surface, but cooking right on the flat side of a burning log gives you almost no charring at all. There’s no fire there.
A: So how do you get a lot of charring when cooking in the coals? Like if you want a good crust on a steak? We usually advise people to rake their coals into a pretty flat bed. But maybe we’ve been wrong. Maybe we should be telling people to rake the coals into a lumpy bed.
D: I guess that would be more accurate. A slightly lumpy coal bed would give you more pockets of air between the coals, which means more heat and better charring. But the reason to rake the coals is to create a relatively stable surface to hold the food. I’ve had the best results when’s there a mix—a mix of coals burned down to nuggets about one inch square plus some logs that aren’t quite yet burned down to nuggets. That’s if you want charring, like with a steak. But for the tuna you don’t want that much charring.
A: Right. The tuna worked really well because charring means heat. And you don’t want a lot of heat for the tuna. You want the middle to be raw, bare flesh. You want it to still be cool inside. With the tuna on a flat burning log, it got only a thin crust and almost no char. But it got intensely smoky, giving you this mind-blowing contrast of untouched virgin fish flesh and wood-drenched meat surrounding it.
D: Yum! So either way, the big advantage of cooking in coals is flavor. With dense foods like steaks, you get intense surface browning, a thick crust, and deep roasted flavors. With porous foods like fish or eggplant, you may not get as much charring, but you get great smoke flavors.

Bonus audio: What is Fire?

Know Your Basics: Building a Wood Fire Download Building a Wood Fire

Raw Charred Tuna with Green Tea Ponzu Sauce

Makes 4 servings

 

2 tablespoons jarred pickled ginger (for sushi), finely chopped

2 thin scallions, root ends and dry ends trimmed, finely chopped

1 medium garlic clove, minced

2-inch thick tuna steak, about 1 3/4 pounds total

1 tablespoon dark sesame oil

1 tablespoon Mustard Wasabi Rub

1 tablespoon sesame seeds

1 1/4 cups Green Tea Ponzu Sauce

 Build a hardwood charcoal or wood fire.

Combine the pickled ginger, scallion and garlic.  Insert a thin-blade knife 3 to 4 times into the narrow sides of the tuna steaks creating punctures going directly toward the center of the tuna steaks.  Stuff the holes with the ginger mixture. Coat the tuna steaks all over with sesame oil.

Combine the wasabi mustard rub and sesame seeds on a sheet of foil or plastic wrap and coat the narrow sides of the tuna steaks (not the broad flat sides) with the mixture.

If using charcoal even the fire bed as much as possible.  If using wood turn the logs split-side up. Blow off excess ash with a leaf blower.

Put the steaks directly on the hot coals and grill until bottom side is crusty, about 1 1/2 minutes.  Turn with a long-handled tongs, picking off any coals clinging to the surface and grill 1 1/2 minutes on the other side.  Remove to a cutting board.

Slice against the grain into 1/4- to 1/2-inch thick slices and serve with the ponzu sauce

.

Mustard Wasabi Rub

Makes 3/4 cup

 2 tablespoons dry mustard

2 tablespoons wasabi powder

2 tablespoons sesame seeds

2 tablespoons kosher salt

2 tablespoons sugar

2 teaspoons garlic powder

2 teaspoons ginger powder

1/2 teaspoon cayenne pepper

1/2 teaspoon ground black pepper

 

Mix everything together; store in tightly closed container for up to 1 month. 

 

Green Tea Ponzu Sauce

Makes about 1 1/4 cup

 1 cup brewed green tea

2 teaspoons kosher salt

2 teaspoons light soy sauce

2 teaspoons rice vinegar

1/4 cup mirin

 

Mix everything together; store in tightly closed container in the refrigerator for up to 1 week.

Smokin' In The Boys Room

Bonus Audio - Smokin' with Dads


A: When you’re grilling you’ve got your fuel source and then depending on what you’re using you get more or less smoke. Like a gas grill doesn’t give you much smoke you can add wood chips’ to get some smoke; but using wood gives you the most; charcoal gives you some.
D: You also get a little smoke from the fat and juices dripping onto the hot coals in a charcoal grill or the hot metal in a gas grill.
A: True. But why do you smoke food? What’s good about smoke?
D: There ‘s something alluring about it. It smells good.
A: And it makes food a beautiful color.

.

D: Yes, the smoke ring is a beautiful thing. It tastes good too. But not to everyone. A little smoke flavor tastes good, but a lot can overpower the other flavors in the food. Let’s say you use liquid smoke in something, you only want to use a little bit. And you can oversmoke foods like pork shoulder for pulled pork barbecue. That’s actually one of the criteria that BBQ judges use, how well the smoke is handled, asking themselves “Is this oversmoked?” If the smoke is all you taste, you’ve failed.
A: When you taste too much smoke does it mean you used too much smoke or is it an off taste?
D: It’s usually too much. But sometimes it tastes acrid from dirty-burning white smoke instead of clean-burning blue smoke.
A: So how do you control the smoke?
D: You get blue smoke from well-seasoned wood that’s burned down a bit. White smoke comes from greener wood that burns off more particulates and steam, clouding up the smoke. Wood chips and chunks are seasoned, and lump charcoal is pre-burned so all of those give you good blue smoke. In a charcoal or gas grill, you want to soak your dry wood in water so it will smolder instead of incinerating.
A: Why is it that you don’t want it to combust?
D: Because you want the smoke to last. If it were dry, wood chips would incinerate pretty quick. You put the soaked wood right on the hot charcoal and it smolders slowly instead burning right up. For a gas grill, you put the wood in foil or a foil tray and put it right over your heating element.
A: Can you add too much?
D: Yeah. To control how much smoke you get, just don’t add too much wood to a charcoal grill. A few wood chunks or a couple big handfuls of chips should do it. If you’re smoking something for a long time, you just replace them when they burn out. You use the vents to control the amount of smoke inside the grill. Open them for less smoke, which also gives you a hotter fire, and partially close them to trap more smoke and create a lower fire. When you’re smoking on a grill, you’re making the best of the equipment you have.
A: Which is why a smoker is more effective than a grill for smoking.
D: Exactly.
A: A smoker is designed to deliver the smoke to the food rather than delivering the heat of the fire. In a smoker, the fire is outside of the cooking chamber. Which is different from most grills where the fire is directly beneath the cooking area. That’s why they call it “direct grilling.”
D: Yep. But you can put the food away from the fire in a grill for indirect grilling and smoking on a grill.
A: One of the things that you make that I really like are those smoked eggs. You can’t really get those on a grill.
D: No, you can’t because you can’t get the temperature low enough. But in my barrel smoker, I have a low-temperature chamber that stays about 60 to 70 degrees lower than the main smoking chamber. You can smoke almost anything in a smoker…pork shoulder, brisket, chicken, peppers, eggplant, and even eggs. I smoke the eggs at about 150 degrees for 6 hours. I usually toss them in the low-temp chamber when I have the rig fired up for something bigger like a hunk of meat.
A: The eggs come out amazing.
D: They’re not quite what you expect are they? You’d think that they would hardcook and get firm and chalky like when you boil eggs. But with an egg at such a low temperature for so long, the yolk gradually reaches the texture of softened butter. And the white barely cooks at all.

A: What’s happening there is that the yolk is drying out. Moisture is lost through the shell, which is porous. The yolk has less moisture than the white to begin with, so the yolk dries out. The protein in the yolk coagulates a little, which firms up the yolk some, and it coagulates in the white, too, but because the white has so much more water,  the white stays liquidy—it doesn’t become as dry as the yolk.
D: Right. But as the moisture comes out of the yolk, it concentrates the fat, which makes the yolk creamy like soft butter. When it comes out of the smoker, you can crack the egg, let the white fall away, and spread the warm yolk on toast just like butter.
A: Does it get a smoky taste?
D: Just a hint.
A: You would think it would absorb more smoke flavor.
D: The eggs smell smoky and the shells get dark and smoky-looking, but there isn’t that much smoke flavor in the yolk. The real reason I like this method is the texture of the yolks.
A: I can get pretty smoky-tasting eggs on the grill. I usually use a combination of things that go from very combustible, like tea leaves, to not very combustible, like rice. So I’ll create a mixture of say, tea leaves, wood chips, brown sugar, and rice so the smoke starts soon and lasts long. And I usually don’t have to replenish during the cooking.
D: What’s the process?
 A: You put that whole mixture to one side in a disposable aluminum pan and put eggs on the other side of the pan. Then you put the smoking side over the fire and the egg side away from the fire. And cover the whole thing in foil. I can get a really good smoke flavor in the eggs with a low fire, about 225 degrees, after about 3 hours. But the eggs become hardcooked; they don’t have that creamy texture. What’s interesting is that in the smoker, which seems like it would give you more smoke flavor, you’re basically doing it for texture. But in the grill, you get more smoke flavor.
D: Counterintuitive, eh?
A: Yeah.
D: Smoker smoked eggs have just a hint of smoke but an unbeatable creamy texture and grill smoked eggs have a familiar hardcooked texture but unbeatable smoky flavor.
A: We need to figure out how to get that texture and the smoke flavor.
D: Definitely.

Know Your Basics: Smoking on a Grill Download Smoking on a Grill

Dave's Slow Smoked Eggs

Makes 4 eggs

 

Oak, hickory, or fruitwood logs, pellets, or shavings

4 large eggs

 

            Fire up your smoker to 150ºF (a very low fire), adding the wood logs, pellets, or shaving as appropriate for your smoker.

            Add the eggs to the smoking chamber, close, and smoke at 150ºF for 6 hours.

            Remove the eggs and let cool slightly. Crack an egg over a trashcan, nudging the loose white into the trash and holding onto the yolk. Transfer the yolk to a small bowl; it should be squishable with a texture similar to softened butter or play-doh. D’oh! Repeat with the remaining eggs.

            Spread on toast with a little coarse salt and ground pepper. Or use as a sandwich spread or to thicken a sauce. Or dream up other good uses!

 

Andy's Grill Smoked Eggs

Makes 6 eggs

 

2 cups wood chips, preferably fruitwood or hickory

1/3 cup white rice

1/3cup loose tea leaves

1/3 cup dark brown sugar

6 large or extra-large white-shelled eggs

 

Cover the wood chips with water in a medium mixing bowl and soak for at least 1 hour.

Light a grill for indirect medium-high heat.  If using a gas grill turn one burner on medium-high and leave the grill grate off the grill.  If using a charcoal grill build a medium large fire (about 40 coals) to one side of the grill bed and put the grill grate in place.  

Drain the chips, reserving the water in a separate bowl. Mix the rice, tea leaves, and sugar with the wood chips. Mound the mixture at one end of a disposable aluminum roasting pan, about 9 x 12 in. Put on the grill with the wood-rice mound directly over the fire and the open space away from the fire. Cover the grill and wait until it fills with  smoke, about 15 minutes.

If using a gas grill turn the heat down to low. If using charcoal or wood spread out the coal beds to lower the heat.  Place the eggs in open part of the pan and pour 1cup of the wood-chip soaking liquid over the eggs. Cover the pan tightly with heavy-duty aluminum foil.

Cover the grill and cook for 1 hour. Lift the pan from the grill, using pot holders or grill gloves. Carefully remove the foil cover, and turn the eggs, and add another cup of the wood-chip soaking liquid if the pan is dry. Reseal the foil; replace the pan, and cover the grill, adding more charcoal, if needed.  Cook for another two hours (replenishing the charcoal as needed), until the shells of the eggs are amber.  

Remove the pan, uncover, and transfer the eggs to a bowl of ice water. Cool for a few minutes, then remove from the ice water and run under hot tap water for 10 seconds. Carefully crack the shells and peel. Serve in anyway you would serve hard-cooked eggs.