Rachel Kay - June 24, 2023
Grilling Basics-101
How to Grill Like a Pro
Summer is a much awaited season where you get to impress your friends with extraordinary barbecue-throwing skills. You do have extraordinary barbecue-throwing skills...right? Well, don't worry. If haven’t got the slightest clue about where to start, we’ve got your back. We've collected some of the best tricks and hacks that will turn the heat up on your barbecue! Read on for some inspiration!
1. Slash Your Hot Dogs For Extra Crispiness!
The rage these days is to spiral-cut the hot dog, a trick a lot easier than it sounds. Here's how you do it: Spear a hot dog with a skewer or chop stick. Starting on one end, slice the hot dog on the bias, and then rotate the hot dog, leaving your knife in place as you turn the dog, until you’ve cut through the whole thing. Remove the hot dog, and then grill until nicely browned.
2. Turn Your Cooling Rack Into a Grilling Rack!
Tired of all those tiny and oddly shaped veggies slipping through the grill rack and landing in the incinerator? For a quick fix, grab your oven cooling rack and place it on the grill and never lose food to fire again.....You can also use that same cooling rack to rest your steaks after removing them from the barbecue.
3. Potato Hack Your Way To a Clean Grill
No one enjoys having to wrestle with the burger or chicken cutlet as you attempt to remove it from the grate and flip it over ( and avoid pieces from sticking to the grill at the same time) Luckily, there's an easy hack for this- A Humble Potato. Just slice a potato in half and rub it all over the grates before you start grilling, once your barbecue is fired up.
4. Know Your Heat
If you're cooking for a large crowd, you can save time by using direct and indirect heat on a larger grill. Think of the direct method as being similar to broiling. Food is cooked directly over the heat source, and only needs to be turned once halfway through to ensure even cooking. Use the direct method for foods that take less than 25 minutes to cook, like steaks, chops, kabobs, sausages and vegetables. Most importantly, direct cooking is the key to searing meats. The indirect method is similar to roasting, but with that irreplaceable grilled texture, flavor and appearance you just can’t get from an oven. That circulating heat works like a convection oven, so there’s no need to turn the food. Use the indirect method for foods that require 25 minutes or more of grilling time, or for foods that are so delicate that direct exposure to the heat source would dry them out or scorch them. This goes for foods like roasts, ribs, whole chickens, turkeys and other large cuts of meat, as well as delicate fish fillets.
5.Timing is Everything
Perhaps the most important part of grilling a steak is taking it off the heat before it has lost too much moisture. There is a short window of time, usually just a minute or two, when steaks go from medium rare to medium, or from medium to medium well. Catching that window requires vigilance. Don’t walk away from a steak on the grill. And remember, it’s always better to take it off when it’s underdone and then return it to the grill than it is to let a steak overcook.
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