Skills: Grilling

Here are a few general grilling tips to help get you started:

Wood chunks/chips for smoky flavor:

For a charcoal grill put water soaked wood chunks directly on the hot coals 5 minutes before you start cooking. You should have 20-30 minutes worth of smoke. Add more wood chunks as needed for larger cuts of meat.

If your gas grill doesn’t have a wood chip drawer, you can fill a small metal pan with ½” depth of wood chips and set it on the grill 5 minutes before you start cooking, replacing the chips as they burn up. You should have about 20 minutes worth of smoke for each pan full.

Types of wood for smoking:

Hickory- pork, ham, bacon
Apple- turkey and other poultry, pork
Mesquite- red meats
Alder- game and seafood (great for salmon!)
Cherry- dark meats, game, pork, chicken
Oak- whole fish

Marinades for moistness and flavor:

Marinating quickly tenderizes meat and also adds additional flavor. Use roughly 1 to 2 cups of marinade for every 1 1/2 to 2 pounds of food. The marinade should completely surround the food. Leftover marinade should be boiled before reusing. Better yet, make extra to serve alongside the cooked meat.

Indirect grilling method:

Larger or tough cuts of meat can be cooked on the grill using the indirect grilling method:

-charcoal grill- move the piles of charcoal into two piles on opposite sides of the grill and cook the food in the middle of the grill.

-gas grill- light only the outside burners, or if you have only one burner, turn it down so that the temperature of your grill is at a constant 225 degrees.

Food doneness:

Food will continue to cook after it's removed from the grill, so take things off when they are slightly rarer than you want them to be and let them rest for a few minutes after cooking so the juices can redistribute themselves. Large cuts of meat need to rest for 20 minutes before slicing.

Meat- don’t cut into a piece of meat to check for doneness, poke the meat with your finger and feel whether it is done:

Squishy — it's still raw in the center
Soft and yielding — it's rare
Gently yielding — it's medium-rare
Firmly yielding — it's medium
Firm — it's well done

Fish/seafood- flakes easily, shells pop open

Veggies- tender and flexible (plan on 30 minutes for halved new potatoes)