It's Summer! (Grilling Thread)
Horseleech
3,830 Posts
Time to fire up the charcoal!
I busted out the grill for the first time this evening - on the menu:
-Bluefish marinated in Pilsner, olive oil, Cajun spices and shallots
-Oysters w/pesto, pepper and parmesan
- Zucchini, mushrooms and onions in balamic, olive oil, pepper and herbs
Lump charcoal, no fluid of course.
I got the oysters myself courtesy of my resident shellfish permit and the Bluefish was fresh from the harbor. I spent some time last year perfecting my technique, and now I'm obsessed with grilling fish. A lot of people don't like Bluefish, but I love it, it's cheap and it's not endangered. It also grills up real nice. Not shown, but I put a little foil 'tent' over the fish so it cooks through without having to flip it.
What's on your grill?
I busted out the grill for the first time this evening - on the menu:
-Bluefish marinated in Pilsner, olive oil, Cajun spices and shallots
-Oysters w/pesto, pepper and parmesan
- Zucchini, mushrooms and onions in balamic, olive oil, pepper and herbs
Lump charcoal, no fluid of course.
I got the oysters myself courtesy of my resident shellfish permit and the Bluefish was fresh from the harbor. I spent some time last year perfecting my technique, and now I'm obsessed with grilling fish. A lot of people don't like Bluefish, but I love it, it's cheap and it's not endangered. It also grills up real nice. Not shown, but I put a little foil 'tent' over the fish so it cooks through without having to flip it.
What's on your grill?
Comments
http://store.snakeriverfarms.com/steak-ready-flat-iron/default.aspx
She made rice and beans, marinated chicken, and hot dogs.
I brought/made my Jerk steak.
Gonna grill some Jerk Pork chops, Red Hots, and Corn on the Cob this weekend.
Im steppin up from a portable 14" to a 18 or 22" Weber this month.
Just ordered a big ass bag of Pimento wood chips for that real smoke shit.
I need a fuskin night lite.
I dusted off the grill yesterday as well. I smoked a pork shoulder, 6.5 hours, had been sitting in a dry rub overnight. When that was done I grilled eggplant, zuchinni, corn on the cob, hot dogs, and veggie burgers for the wife and kid. Potato salad, and quinoa salad got served as well.
Tonight its fresh tuna steaks from a Long Island day boat, with left over sides from last night.
Tomorrow its beer can chicken.
At some point I have a pineapple to grill, then top with vanilla ice cream and chocolate shavings.
Sixpoint is canning their beers now, the Benagali Tiger is amazing, the Crisp isn't bad either.
Will probably get a growler of something today too. So happy its finally summer.
grilled pineapple and cilantro salsa
Yesterday was hamburgers, fancy sausages, asparagus in citrus vinaigrette, peppers
tomatillos, onion, jalapeno for salsa
Get the 22", you won't regret it. It's a lot more versitile than the 18", particularly for indirect grilling techniques.
cool
2 tablespoons finely chopped shallot
2 tablespoons fresh lemon juice
1 (8-ounce) package cream cheese, softened
1/4 pound smoked bluefish or smoked trout, skin discarded and fish chopped
3 tablespoons finely chopped fresh chives
-- Stir together shallot, lemon juice, and 1/4 teaspoon salt, then beat in cream cheese, bluefish, and 1/2 teaspoon pepper with a spoon until combined well. Stir in chives.
Throw that shit on some crackers...ya done.
As for other grill jump offs -- does anyone else ride like I do for Trader Joe's carne asada? So def.
Scampi or Bugs with a little lemon, s&p
Sushi quality Kingfish seared HOT and QUICK for carparccio, bit of lemon, pomengrante seeds, baby oregano OR W/ Fennel Confit
Forequarter of Lamb with rosemary, garlic and grated lemon rind
Banana Chili's stuffed with Goats Cheese, s&p, good olive oil
Eel with a little julienne baby ginger and good soy
Good produce with simple embellishments is how we try to roll
Oysters on the BBQ could get you killed (socially that is) in my country
get a konro.....
is your roof accessible?
i just got finished with some jerk, and now im using the remaining coal to rock some corn on da cob that ill use for a black bean salad.
DB, u could cop a portable weber thats easy to transport. a table top joint or a 14" grill.
It works for me but the space restrictions are a bitch.
The shrimp is the most delicious stuff, and it's extremely quick and easy. I get about 1-2 pounds of shrimp, marinade them in a bowl with the juice of about 10 limes and ton of salt. lots of salt. then i just do about 3 rounds of 1/3 of the shrimp wrapped in tin foil. takes maybe 6 minutes, take off once they've turned pink.
so good. mostly washed down with Abita wheat or daiquiris.
I have a Weber Smokey Joe (14") - they work great and can be had for $30 or so. The lid clamps down, which can come in handy when the park ranger tells you to move. I fill it up with charcoal when I use it, otherwise it burns out pretty quick.
That Korin looks nice, but it's expensive and pretty small.
I do a lot more smoking than grilling these days.
If you want to smoke your food, the 22" weber with charcoal baskets works.
I want to get an electric smoker, but all I am seeing are cheap brinkmens. I want something with some integrity and a rheostat.
will my local home depot lumber dept have cherry and apple wood?
Just about any place that sells grills will sell wood chips these days. My local market stocks mesquite wood chips and cedar planks.
cedar planks for shrimp skewers are the shit
i like them because you can cook your fish, ribs or shrimp (some even have desings that make for good presentation dish)
and then break them down and reuse them as smoke wood
I like to imagine Cam'ron rapping these lines.
For real, though, I too rock a Smokey Joe but am thinking of stepping up to something with more real estate so that I can apply that, uh, indirect pressure.
The second-worst grilled thing I ever ate was some hot dogs grilled over a massive fire of old newspapers. It was like being gagged by an oily finger of foaming gap-filler.
i gotta try the cedar plank. soak then apply some fish.
i've been perfecting my Otto Burgers (until a better name comes to mind)... 1/2 beef, 1/2 pork, spices, filled with gouda cheese, smoked for a few hours and then plopped on the grill for a couple minutes and served on an onion bun... oh the deliciousness.
The access door to the roof is alarmed, which I learned a couple months in when the thing went off right above my apartment (living on the top floor directly next to the staircase-related). Shit sounds like an air raid siren. Major decibels. I would not be averse to busting the alarm, but it's so loud that trial and error isn't a viable option. It puts the whole damn building on alert.
I think I may have to cop a portable Weber and an old-person shopping cart. I can deal with space restrictions???my last grill was pretty small, and I'm usually only cooking for two, four at most.
For real, though? The thing I'm missing most right now is grilled corn. Not even the meats. Grilled corn. Peel back the husk, apply a heavy spice/olive oil paste, put the husk back down, and grill it up. Gets all smoky from the burning husk. Plus spicy and the sweetness of the corn. God damn.
:beerbang:
Back in Guinea I grilled a lot. The local Lebanese butcher had great merguez and really nice pork chops but I was frustrated that he wouldn't know what spare ribs are. I tried to explain but failed, then I downloaded a bunch of images and showed him on my laptop and from then on he did an amazing job at cutting them... I bought this dark wild honey on the market which was a bit smokey in flavor because they would use smoke to get the bees to leave the nest when harvesting it and to keep them from attacking the harvester. It was sold in quart bottles for $2 each, usually with about an inch or two of dead bees in the neck of the bottle. I heated up a whole bottle of this great stuff, added crushed habaneros (in francophone Africa they're called pili-pili), lime juice, garlic, tomato paste, salt and pepper and let it simmer for a while until it became thick and was almost beginning to caramelize, I applied a thick coat of the sauce which was more of a paste onto the ribs (of course one quart of honey would result in way more than I would need for one or two slabs of ribs, I put the rest in jars for later use) . We had a simple but large circular grill with lid, I used indirect heat by placing a large flat aluminum pot with water (I later upgraded to beer because using beer instead of water is almost always a good thing) onto the charcoal (bought locally in the bush, so much better than the store bought stuff and gives great flavor). This would also prevent the fat that was dripping down from the ribs to ignite and burn them. I closed the lid and kept it close for 50-60 minutes. Because the honey bbq sauce was already dehydrated, it turned into an evenly caramelized crust, these ribs were like spicy pork candy, sinfully delicious.
Before leaving the US next year I'm going to buy a big smoker and a ton of wood. I never used one before, does anybody have any suggestions? I want to buy something solid, it doesn't have to be too large but I want something serious and not a toy.
ive read that the green egg smoker is pretty good. google it.
Thanx for the pointer to the Green Egg grill/smoker. I've seen this before but somehow I'm not too crazy about the white interior. I mean it's clear that you wipe it down after every use but won't the white start to look nasty pretty soon? You're not supposed to scrub the interior of a smoker with oven cleaner or any other harsh chemical cleaning agents, no?
it probably gains a petina like a wok. dont quote me though.
canadian made! thx for reminding me i biked near a dealer once but forgot how i got there
Will cop soon and report back