Fire It Up: More Than 400 Recipes for Grilling Everything

Introduction: How to Use This Book

American cooks have rediscovered the joy of good ingredients, simply prepared. We’re clamoring for heirloom tomatoes, free-range chicken, and locally grown fingerlings. These days, it’s all about the ingredients. And that’s the focus of this book. We explain the inner workings of more than 290 common and uncommon ingredients and the best ways to grill them. We’ve combined America’s oldest cooking occasion—grilling outdoors—with its newest cooking obsession: preserving the integrity of high-quality ingredients.

The ins and outs of buying, preparing, and flavoring your favorite ingredients are explained throughout every chapter. To simplify these details, we created at-a-glance charts, which are master guides to everything you would ever want to grill. The charts show the ingredient’s different cuts or varieties, alternate names in the marketplace, best grilling methods, and substitutions.

Each chapter opens with a discussion of everything you need to know when buying, handling, and grilling the ingredient you’re working with, including straight talk about terms such as wild, farm-raised, ranched, pastured, grass-fed, grain-fed, milk-fed, formula-fed, free-range, water-chilled, air-chilled, natural, organic, and sustainable.

A few other things you’ll notice are little tidbits scattered throughout the recipes called Know-How and Keep It Simple. Know-How gives you must-have information like how to butterfly flank steak, or clean an octopus, and it includes step-by-step illustrations when necessary. Keep It Simple shows you alternate ways of preparing recipes in less time, using fewer ingredients. We know that some cooks want to be grill masters and some just want dinner on the table. Tips throughout the book can help you accomplish both.

As devoted farmers’-market and gourmet-market shoppers, we put a premium on high-quality ingredients. We also know that some ingredients, like beef cheeks, can be hard to find. We offer tips throughout the recipes on sourcing oddball ingredients. You can also refer to the list of ingredient sources on page 400.

We hope this book shows you a different way of looking at grilled food. Although the ingredient is the star, and not the grill, we don’t leave grilling novices hanging out to dry. Chapter 1: A Primer on Grilling Methods & Equipment, explains everything you need to know to grill successfully. And Chapter 2: How to Build Flavor into Anything Grilled, discusses all manner of marinades, brines, mops, rubs, pastes, and sauces, with 161 mini-recipes and variations, which you can use in the book’s recipes or in your own creations. The goal in all this is to help you grill every food imaginable, and do it successfully. Grilling can be about so much more than hot dogs and hamburgers. Here’s wishing you newfound joy at the grill and the deepest pleasure possible from every dish you share at your table.

Chapter 1

A Primer On Grilling Methods & Equipment

Grilling is not simply a matter of tossing food over fire. Rather, grilling is a set of cooking methods made possible by your equipment. In fact, your equipment determines the type of grilling you can do.

Most grills are designed for direct grilling—putting food directly over fire. This basic form of grilling works on all grills, including big and small gas grills, and charcoal and wood grills such as campfire grills, hibachis, and kettle grills.

But add a lid and ample grilling space, and the possibilities expand. Indirect grilling, which means putting food on the grill grate away from the fire and covering the grill, turns a grill into an oven. With the lid down you capture smoke, which infuses your food with its aromas. A lid also allows you to do grill-roasting, grill-braising, grill-baking, and other hybrid forms of grilling.

Here’s a look at the various types of live-fire cooking we employ throughout this book:

• Direct Grilling

• Bilevel Grilling

• Indirect Grilling

• Adding Smoke

• Rotisserie Grilling

• Grill-Braising and Wrapping

• Planking and Blocking

• No Grill Grate

Direct Grilling Guide

Temperature: High, 500F—450F

Coal Appearance: Red-hot glow

Coal Thickness: 4"

Grate Height: 2"

Vents (% open): 100% open

*Counting (in seconds): 2x

Temperature: Medium-High, 450F—400F

Coal Appearance: Light ash; orange glow

Coal Thickness: 3 to 4

Grate Height: 3"

Vents (% open): 80% open

*Counting (in seconds): 4x

Temperature: Medium, 400F—350F

Coal Appearance: Medium ash; visible glow

Coal Thickness: 3"

Grate Height: 4"

Vents (% open): 70% open

*Counting (in seconds): 6x

Temperature: Medium-Low, 350F—300F

Coal Appearance: Medium-thick ash; faint glow

Coal Thickness: 2"

Grate Height: 5"

Vents (% open): 60% open

*Counting (in seconds): 8x

Temperature: Low, 300F—250F

Coal Appearance: Thick ash; spotty faint glow

Coal Thickness: 1.5"

Grate Height: 6"

Vents (% open): 50% open

*Counting (in seconds): 10x

*At this temperature, you should be able to hold your hand (palm down) about 4 inches above the grill grate and count, saying one thousand after each number (1 one thousand, 2 one thousand . . .) the number of times listed in the chart without having to withdraw your hand.

Direct Grilling

Light a grill, put food over the fire, and you are direct grilling. Typically the grill grate rests 2 to 6 inches above the flame, and quick-cooking foods are placed on the hot grate. Direct grilling works best for searing small, relatively thin foods that will cook through in less than 30 minutes, including hamburgers, hot dogs, sausages, steaks, chops, poultry parts, small whole fish, fish steaks and fillets, shellfish, sliced or tender vegetables and fruits, flatbreads, and sandwiches.

To set up any grill for direct grilling, preheat it to high with the grill grate in place and the lid down (if you have a lid). Adjust the heat to the appropriate level for the food you are cooking, and then get grilling. The way you adjust the heat will depend upon the type of grill you’re using.

To adjust and manage a live fire, keep in mind that fire is, at its core, oxygen combining very rapidly with another substance—so rapidly that it releases heat energy. Managing the temperature of the fire is a matter of controlling the flow of oxygen to the fuel. In a gas grill, the oxygen flow and fuel supply are regulated. Turn the temperature knob up or down, and you get high or low heat. With a charcoal or wood fire, heat adjustment is less automated. The flames are completely dependent upon the air and the fuel that you make available to them. Without oxygen and charcoal or wood, the fire can’t breathe and it dies.

That’s the real meaning of live-fire cooking. It’s up to you to keep the fire alive by adding charcoal or wood and adjusting the air flow with vents or by manually blowing onto the fire. On a charcoal grill, keep the lid off and the vents 100 percent open, and you’ll soon get high heat. Keep the lid down and the vents only 50 percent open, and you’ll get less oxygen and low heat.

The thickness of your coal bed also determines how hot the fire is. Four inches thick (about a triple layer of charcoal briquettes) and glowing red is best for high heat. A bed 2 inches thick (about a single layer of briquettes) with only a little orange glow is best for medium-low heat. See the chart above for details. Note that in the chart, we give a range of temperatures for each heat level, but in the recipes throughout the book, we specify a temperature within that range.

Bilevel Grilling Guide

Heat: High/Medium

Temperature: Direct: 500+/375F; Ambient: 400F—450F

Coal Appearance: Red-hot glow/visible glow

Coal-Bed Thickness: 4/3

Vents (% open): 90% open

**Counting (in seconds): 2x/6x

Heat: High/Medium-Low

Temperature: Direct: 500+/325F; Ambient: 350F—400F

Coal Appearance: Red-hot ash/medium ash; faint glow

Coal-Bed Thickness: 4/2

Vents (% open): 80% open

**Counting (in seconds): 2x/8x

Heat: High/Low

Temperature: Direct: 500+/275F; Ambient: 300F—350F

Coal Appearance: Red-hot/thick ash; faint glow

Coal-Bed Thickness: 4/1-2

Vents (% open): 70% open

**Counting (in seconds): 2x/10x

Heat: Medium-High/Medium-Low

Temperature: Direct: 425/32F; Ambient: 350F—400F

Coal Appearance: Orange glow/medium ash and faint glow

Coal-Bed Thickness: 3-4/2

Vents (% open): 70% open

**Counting (in seconds): 4x/8x

Heat: Medium-High/Low

Temperature: Direct: 425/275F; Ambient: 300F—350F

Coal Appearance: Orange glow/thick ash and faint glow

Coal-Bed Thickness: 3-4/1-2

Vents (% open): 60% open

**Counting (in seconds): 4x/10x

Heat: Medium/Low

Temperature: Direct: 375/275F; Ambient: 250F—300F

Coal Appearance: Visible glow/thick ash; faint glow

Coal-Bed Thickness: 3/1-2

Vents (% open): 50% open

**Counting (in seconds): 6x/10x

Direct temperature is measured with an oven thermometer placed on the grill grate directly over the fire. Ambient temperature is registered on the thermometer embedded in the grill hood. **At this temperature, you should be able to hold your hand (palm down) about 4 inches above the grill grate and count, saying one thousand after each number (1 one thousand, 2 one thousand . . .) the number of times listed in the chart without having to withdraw your hand.

Bilevel Grilling

When direct grilling over charcoal or wood, it helps to set up two heat levels. Let’s say you’re cooking a 2-inch thick porterhouse steak. You want to sear both sides over medium-high to high heat, but then you’ll need to move it over to medium or medium-low heat so it can cook through without burning on the surface. On a gas grill, you just turn down the temperature knob. But on a charcoal or wood grill, it’s best to create two different heat levels. To set up a charcoal or wood grill for bilevel grilling, rake the hot coals into a bed that’s 3 to 4 inches thick on one side and 1 to 2 inches thick on the other. Set the grill grate in place, preheat it, and use the higher heat area to sear meats, fish, and vegetables. Use the lower heat area for toasting breads and keeping foods warm. If anything starts to burn over the high-heat area, move it to the low-heat area. See the chart above for details. Again, we give a range of temperatures for each heat level in the chart, but each recipe will specify a temperature within that range.

CROSSHATCH MARKS

Grill grates comes in all configurations these days, but most consist of multiple parallel metal bars. To create a diamond pattern of crosshatch marks with such a grill grate, preheat the grill to high heat, and scrape and oil the grate. Think of the grate as a clock, and set your food on the hot grate, pointing the food to 10 o’clock. When the food is nicely grill-marked, rotate it 45 degrees to 2 o’clock. Cook until nicely grill-marked again. You’ll need at least 2 to 3 minutes over high or medium-high heat to create deep grill marks in each direction. That means you’ll have to cook the food for at least 4 to 6 minutes per side. If the food will overcook in that time but you really want nice grill marks, create the marks on the first side only, then flip the food and finish cooking. When serving, flip again so that the grill-marked side is faceup.

HEATING AND TURNING

When food is grilled, very intense heat hits the food’s surface, but the heat slows down dramatically from there. It is only gradually transferred to the center of the food. So the surface of grilled food can burn before the center is done. To solve the problem, start the food over high heat to brown both sides (which creates flavor), then move it to low heat to finish cooking without burning the surface. If you have no low-heat area, then frequent turning will give the surface away from the heat a rest from the intense flame and allow time for the heat retained in the food to make its way to the center. When cooking over a raging fire, turn your food often for a well-browned crust and a center that’s not raw.

Indirect Grilling Guide

Heat: High

Temperature: 400F—450F

Coal Appearance: Bright orange glow

Coal-Bed Thickness: 4" split bed

Grate Height: 2"

Vents (% open): 100% open

*Counting (in seconds): 4x

Heat: Medium-High

Temperature: 350F—400F

Coal Appearance: Light ash; orange glow

Coal-Bed Thickness: 3-4" split bed

Grate Height: 3"

Vents (% open): 80% open

*Counting (in seconds): 5x

Heat: Medium

Temperature: 300F—350F

Coal Appearance: Medium ash; visible glow

Coal-Bed Thickness: 3" split bed

Grate Height: 4"

Vents (% open): 70% open

*Counting (in seconds): 8x

Heat: Medium-Low

Temperature: 250F—300F

Coal Appearance: Medium-thick ash; faint glow

Coal-Bed Thickness: 2" split bed

Grate Height: 5"

Vents (% open): 60% open

*Counting (in seconds): 10x

Heat: Low

Temperature: 225F—250F

Coal Appearance: Thick ash; spotty faint glow

Coal-Bed Thickness: 1½" split bed

Grate Height: 6"

Vents (% open): 50% open

*Counting (in seconds): 11x

* At this temperature, you should be able to hold your hand (palm down) about 4 inches above the grill grate and count, saying one thousand after each number (1 one thousand, 2 one thousand . . .) the number of times listed in the chart without having to withdraw your hand.

Indirect Grilling

Direct grilling will burn the surface of big and dense foods that take more than 30 minutes to cook through. Tough cuts and large roasts (like beef brisket, pork shoulder, whole chickens, and turkeys), large whole fish, and dense vegetables (like whole potatoes) require longer cooking with lower heat. For indirect grilling, you put the food away from the heat and close the lid, turning the grill into something closer to an oven. Indirect grilling opens up all kinds of cooking possibilities, such as grill-roasting a whole turkey; grill-braising beef cheeks; and grill-baking an apple, a cake, or a custard.

To set up a gas grill for indirect grilling, light some burners but leave the others off. For a two-burner gas grill, light just one side and put the food over the other, unheated side. If your grill has three or more burners, you can light one side of burners or light the outside burners and put the food over the unheated middle area. We prefer the latter for more even heating.

On a charcoal grill, the principle is the same: set up the grill to create an unheated area for cooking and a heated area for the coals. For the most even cooking, rake the coals to opposite sides of the grill and leave the center unheated. However, if your grill is small, you’ll get a larger cooking area by raking the coals to one side of the grill. Either way, to indirect grill, you put your food over the unheated area then close the lid to trap and circulate heat gently around the food. For indirect grilling you need to have the lid down or the food won’t cook because most of the heat will escape. It would be like trying to bake cookies with the oven door open. You’ll also let out all that wonderful smoke from the coals. See the chart above for details on setting up your grill for indirect grilling. As in the charts for direct and bilevel grilling, we give a range of temperatures for each heat level, but the recipes in the book specify a temperature within that range.

Setting up a Drip Pan

For fatty meats like pork shoulder, beef brisket, and skin-on duck, you’ll need to put a disposable aluminum drip pan beneath the food. A drip pan not only prevents flare-ups but also acts like a roasting pan, catching flavorful juices that can be turned into a sauce when the food is done cooking. On a charcoal grill, set the pan under the grill grate in the bottom of the grill near the coals. On a gas grill, set the pan under the grill grate over the unlit burner(s). Or, use a roasting rack just as you would for roasting in an oven. Put the food on a roasting rack over the unheated area of the grill and set the drip pan directly beneath the roasting rack on the grill grate. With this method, you don’t need to lift the hot grill grate and there’s little chance of stray charcoal ashes falling into your flavorful juices in the pan. When you want steam for low-moisture foods like pork or to help soften connective tissue in tough cuts like beef brisket or veal breast, fill the drip pan with just enough hot liquid to provide steam, but not so much as to severely dilute the flavorful juices. About a ¼ to ½ inch of liquid in the pan should do it. Start with hot liquid. Cold liquid will increase your cooking time because some of the grill heat will be spent warming up the water. Choose whatever liquid you like. Water is fine for steam alone, but flavorful liquids like beer, wine, stock, fruit juice, or vegetable juice will provide a handy base for a sauce.

Adding Coals

When indirectly grilling on a charcoal grill, you’ll need to replenish the coals about once an hour. Adding hot coals works best, so keep some coals at the ready in a chimney starter. If you don’t have a chimney starter, put unlit charcoal over the old ones as they begin to die down, and leave off the lid for a few minutes to stoke the fire and help light the new coals. Then replace the lid and adjust the temperature as necessary.

Increasing Your Options

Indirect grilling requires a bit more setup than direct grilling, but it greatly expands the kinds of ingredients you can bring to the grill. We indirectly grill everything from whole chicken, turkey, and duck to pork ribs and pork belly, beef rump roast, veal shanks, marrow bones, rack of goat, ham of boar, whole rabbit, whole red snapper, whole eggplant, whole eggs (yes, eggs), flan, pretzels, shortcake, and corn sticks. And you’ve still got the hot part of the grill grate available in case you want to directly grill some tender vegetables alongside whatever you’re indirectly grilling. You can also sear meat directly over the heat, then move it away from the heat and close the lid to mimic the process of slow-roasting. Avoid lifting the lid. Every time you do, heat escapes, lengthening your total cooking time. Remember, if you’re looking, you’re not cooking.

RESTING

Grilled food tastes juicier after a brief period of rest. If you cut into a steaming hot steak or roast, the juices readily escape. But as meat cools, the proteins become firmer and better able to retain the juices. Ideally, meat should cool to about 120°F before serving, which may take anywhere from 5 minutes for a thin steak or chop to 15 minutes for a thick roast or whole chicken to 1 hour for a whole lamb or suckling pig. During the resting period, the internal temperature of the meat will continue to rise a few degrees at a rate relative to its density and thickness. For precise doneness, remove thin steaks and chops when they are a few degrees shy of the desired internal temperature, and thick roasts and whole animals when they are 5 to 10 degrees shy of the desired internal temperature.

GRILLING 1-2-3

You can use your grill like an oven or a stove. Your grill grate is essentially a built-in stove-top pan with slats. Treat your grill grate just as you would a pan or baking sheet. The grill grate is your cooking surface, so keep it clean, get it hot, and oil it. If you’re using a grill tray, screen, skillet, or basket, then this becomes your cooking surface, and the same rules apply. For successful grilling, follow these simple steps every time you grill:

1. Get it hot. Preheat your grill (gas, charcoal, or wood) on high with the grill grate and/or grill tray in place and the lid down (if you have a lid) for at least 10 minutes. You want your cooking surface to be very hot. Built-in temperature gauges only measure the ambient temperature of the air inside the grill, not the grill grate itself. Any part of the grate directly over the heat should be hot enough to sear food on contact. Hold your hand a few inches above the grate and count one one thousand, two one thousand. . . . If you make it to four one thousand, you’ve got a medium-high fire on your hands—a good place to start most direct grilling. See the charts at the start of the chapter for more details on grill temperatures. A hot grill grate provides the best sear marks, the most flavor, and the least sticking.

2. Keep it clean. When your grill grate or grill tray is hot, scrape off any debris with a stiff wire brush. A hot cooking surface cleans more easily than a cold one. For the cleanest grill, scrape it twice: once right after food comes off the grill (that’s when the burnt-on debris will easily loosen itself from the hot metal) and once again right before you add food to the grill. Once the grill grate or tray cools, any bits of food adhering to the cold metal will be much more difficult to remove.

3. Oil it well. Rub oil or fat over the hot scraped cooking surface. We like to wad up a paper towel and drop it in a little canola or other vegetable oil. Grab the oily towel with your tongs and rub it on the grill grate. You can also use a chunk of fat trimmed from meat. Either way, the fat will pick up some fine soot and create a superclean grill grate; but more important, it will lubricate your cooking surface, helping to prevent sticking and improving heat transfer to the food’s surface for more efficient browning.

Adding Smoke

One of the great advantages of a grill lid is that it captures smoke, which infuses your grilled food with woodsy aromas and flavors. Fat and juices that drip into the fire will send a little bit of smoke back to the food, but most smokiness in grilled food comes from wood. If you grill over a wood fire or very smoky lump charcoal like mesquite, you can get some good smoke flavor in a roast or long-cooking, tough cut of meat. But when grilling over gas or a fire of charcoal briquettes, you’ll need to add wood chips or chunks to get a smoky flavor. (You can buy chunks or make them yourself by chopping up appropriate wood.)

To set up a grill for added smoke, soak wood chips or chunks in water for at least 30 minutes so they’re wet enough to slowly smolder rather than quickly incinerate. Light your grill and add the soaked chips or chunks as part of the preheating step. On a charcoal grill, toss a handful or two directly onto the hot coals, wait until you see smoke (5 to 10 minutes), then add your food, and close the lid. If you can, position the lid so that the upper air vents are on the opposite side from the lower air vents on the bottom of the grill. This will draw maximum smoke over the food.

On a gas grill, add the soaked chips or chunks to your grill’s smoker box or tray. If your gas grill doesn’t have a smoking tray, you can make one. Put a single layer of soaked wood in a disposable aluminum pan or wrap it in foil and poke holes in the foil with a fork. Put your foil smoking tray directly over one of the hot burners beneath the grill grate and preheat the grill. When you see smoke, add the food, and close the lid to trap the smoke. Whenever the smoke subsides, add more soaked chips or chunks (usually about once every 45 minutes). The more smoke you see, the more smoke flavor you’ll get in the food.

Choose your smoking wood based on the food you’re grilling. Mesquite and hickory emit thick, heavy smoke, which works best with robust meats such as beef and game. Oak, alder, and maple produce a medium-bodied smoke, which works well with a wider range of foods like pork, poultry, game, fish, and dense vegetables. Fruit and nut woods like apple, cherry, and pecan give off milder, sweeter smoke, which complements delicate foods like lean fish, shellfish, vegetables, and fruit.

You can also soak leaves, branches, vines, nutshells, herbs, and other plant material in water for smoking. For the most smoke, use green wood or branches rather than dry, seasoned wood. Green wood is moist enough to smolder over a long period, giving off wonderfully fresh-smelling smoke. Green tea leaves lend delicious herbal flavors to Wasabi-Drizzled Mussels with Green Tea Fumes, and grapevines add sweet and tannic aromas to Vine-Smoked Dungeness Crabs with Preserved Lemon Relish.

If you have no other source of smoke but really want smoke flavor, cheat by adding liquid smoke to your marinade, baste, or sauce. See Chapter 5 for details on this widely available natural product.

Rotisserie Grilling

Indirect grilling usually requires frequent basting to keep the meat from drying out. A rotisserie does the basting for you. As fat melts from the meat, the rotisserie keeps the melted fat constantly rolling around the meat’s surface. Most grills can accommodate a rotisserie assembly, but each one works a little differently. Usually, you slide the spit rod through the center of your bird or roast, secure the meat with thumb-screw skewers or several lashings of kitchen string, then set the meat into the assembly. Before you complete the process make sure there is (1) ample space for rotation, (2) even weight distribution, and (3) a secure and appropriate weight load for your motor. If the food is too heavy or cannot rotate easily, it may burn out your rotisserie motor. On some grills, you’ll need to remove the grill grates so that the food can rotate unobstructed. If you can adjust the food’s distance from the heat, 4 to 10 inches works best in most cases.

Rotisserie grilling a whole animal is usually referred to as spit-roasting, but the process is the same. It’s just done on a large scale. For large whole animals like kid goat, spring lamb, and suckling pig, suspend the meat 1 to 2 feet away from the heat. For heavy animals, you may want to use pliable metal wire (18 to 20 gauge) and secure the backbone to the spit rod to be sure the animal does not spin loose on the rotisserie. To cook large animals evenly with a charcoal rotisserie setup, it helps to make a thicker coal bed beneath the animal’s toughest cuts (shoulders and hips) and a thinner coal bed near the tender cuts (along the back). It’s also nice to throw some soaked or green-wood chunks in the grill for smoke flavor. Rotisserie grilling may seem like a bother, but once the fire and food are set, it produces self-basting, superior-tasting meat and handily feeds a crowd. For some examples, try the Rotisserie Chicken for Everyone and Spit-Roasted Whole Kid Spanish-Style.

LID UP OR DOWN?

Putting a grill lid down over your food traps heat, moisture, and smoke. By trapping heat, the lid delivers some convection heat currents to the top of your food, which speeds the cooking and offers other advantages such as melting cheese on pizza. By trapping moisture, a lid can help dissolve connective tissue in tough meats and keep them juicy. Finally, a lid traps smoke, which infuses the food over time, enhancing its flavor. For all of these reasons—faster cooking, juicier food, and more smoke flavor—we usually grill with the lid down. However, moisture is the enemy of a crusty surface on foods like grilled steak. If you want a great crust on a steak or if the food will cook through in less than 10 minutes—for example thin, small, and tender foods like asparagus, fish fillets, and chicken cutlets—there is little reason to close the lid.

Grill-Braising and Wrapping

Barbecue pit masters have always struggled to maintain enough moisture in meat to soften the connective tissue in tough cuts like ribs without adding so much moisture that the meat tastes steamed. For big, tough cuts like brisket and ribs, they sometimes wrap the meat in foil about halfway through cooking. That gives the meat enough time near dry heat to form a tasty crust or bark, while retaining moisture during the last half of cooking. Meat juices collect in the foil and simulate the cooking method known as braising, whereby tough meats are slowly cooked in a little liquid in a covered pot. The method works wonders for tough cuts on the grill like beef cheeks, oxtail, and veal shanks. We call it grill-braising because we usually brown the meat over direct heat on the grill, and then wrap it in foil or nest it in a foil pan with some liquid and finish cooking away from the heat. The liquid slowly braises tough meats to melting tenderness and makes a terrific sauce.

You can also wrap just to hold together delicate ingredients. Foil isn’t the only wrap for grilling. You can use grape, banana, or lotus leaves; corn husks; or almost any large leaf. These wraps are best for foods like fish or ground meat, which tend to fall apart on the grill. In addition to retaining the food’s moisture, wrapping infuses the food with the wrap’s subtle flavors. Soak any dry wrapper like dried leaves in water to prevent the wrapper from burning. Use this technique in dishes like Whole Red Snapper Stuffed with Feta Pilaf and Wrapped in Vine Leaves and Camembert Wrapped in Grape Leaves Served with Cranberry Mustard Vinaigrette.

Planking and Blocking

Another way to protect delicate foods on the grill is to set them on a plank of wood or a block of salt. Wood planking is fairly common now and allows you to effortlessly cook a fillet of salmon or a wheel of cheese. Choose a plank that is about ¼ inch thick and wide and long enough to accommodate the food you are grilling. Cedar and alder planks are easy to find, but apple and cherry also work well. In fact, you could use almost any plank of untreated wood. Like chips and chunks, a wood plank should be soaked in water so it smolders instead of incinerates in the grill, but the plank needs to soak for more time, about 1 hour. For the most smoke flavor, char one side of the plank over the fire, then flip it and set the food on the charred side. You’ll find a lid helpful here to trap heat and deliver it to the top of the planked food for even cooking. For a novel variation, roll up some food in wood grilling paper. These extremely thin sheets of cedar or alder can be wrapped around delicate foods and grilled like little food bundles.

To push the grilling possibilities even further, pick up some salt blocks. They are similar to wood planks on the grill, but they get hot enough (up to 650°F) to sear food and also delicately season it. Salt blocks for grilling should be at least 1½ inches thick to prevent cracking. Be sure to slowly heat the block and gradually bring it up to searing temperature. Start the block over low heat on the grill and over a 30-minute period move the block in two steps to high heat. On a charcoal grill, use a bilevel fire to better regulate the heat. Then set the food on the hot block and the food will cook in minutes.

The big advantage to salt blocks is they are reusable dozens of times. After each use, wipe the block clean of debris with a scouring pad, warm water, and gentle pressure. Blot dry and the block is ready to go for next time. Salt blocks work best with thin and delicate foods like fish, shellfish, cheese, and eggs. Bring some fried eggs on a salt bock from the grill to the table, and your guests will surely be impressed. Try the recipe for Pepper and Salt Block Scallops with Grapefruit Mojo.

No Grill Grate

With indirect grilling, spit-roasting, wrapping, and planking, the food gets progressively farther away from the heat. But we have to confess: we love what fire does to food. Sometimes we dispense with all accessories—even the grill grate—to bring the food closer to the fire. For example, we tested the Preserved Lemon and Lamb Kebobs two ways. First we grilled the skewers of ground lamb directly on the grill grate. The next time we made the dish, we removed the grate and suspended the skewers over the fire with the skewer ends resting on bricks. The latter method eliminated sticking and gave the lamb a clean, fire-kissed flavor. On a gas grill, you can remove the grill grate and place the bricks directly on your heat diffuser (the metal plates, flavorizer bars, or lava rocks above the burner); then suspend the skewers over the bricks.

Sometimes closer to the fire isn’t close enough. Firm vegetables like potatoes, sweet potatoes, and beets taste completely delicious when cooked right in the fire. Nestle these vegetables in hot coals and the skins will blister and char, sending wonderfully smoky aromas deep into the flesh. When it’s cooked to fork-tenderness, cut the vegetable in half, dollop with some seasoned butter, and scoop the fire-roasted vegetable from its toasted jacket. Yum! Meat and fish work well on the coals, too. Just be sure to use lump charcoal or a wood fire when you will be eating the surface of the food that has touched the coals. Charcoal briquettes (made from sawdust) leave an unpleasant sooty coating of fine ash on food. However, lump charcoal and wood leave nothing but phenomenal flavor. Check out the recipes for Fire-Roasted Sweet Potatoes with Root Beer–Rum Butter, Campfire Raclette with New Potatoes Cooked in the Coals, and Raw Charred Tuna with Green Tea Ponzu Sauce. We firmly believe that the less that comes between the fire and the food, the better the flavor.

Types of Grills

We mentioned earlier that your equipment determines the type of grilling you can do. The biggest determining factors are the size of your grill, what it’s made of, and the type of fuel it uses. If you’re buying a new grill, consider all three factors. The grill should have plenty of space for your average grilling session. If you only cook a few steaks, chops, fish fillets, and/or vegetables at a time, a cooking area as small as 150 square inches or 14 inches in diameter may be sufficient. For larger roasts, leg of lamb, and whole turkeys, you’ll want at least 400 square inches and preferably 600 square inches of grill space, about the size of an average four-burner gas grill. For large grilling sessions with bigger foods or a greater variety, consider an even larger grill or more than one.

Most grills are made of stainless steel because it’s durable, easy to maintain, and fairly lightweight compared to other materials. Ceramic grills like Japanese kamados and Indian tandoors are heavier but retain heat better than steel and use less fuel. Ceramic grills excel at cooking tough cuts of meat for long periods of time.

Apart from the material, the more common concern is the fuel the grill burns. Gas, charcoal, and wood all have advantages and disadvantages. Here’s a quick survey of each.

GAS: Turn a knob or push a button, and your gas grill is lit. Turn the knob again, and the flame goes up or down instantly. This convenience has made gas grills the most widely used type of grill in North America. While charcoal aficionados point out that gas grills don’t emit smoke to flavor your food, you can always add wood chips to a gas grill for smoky flavor. The chief disadvantage with gas grills is moisture. Gas contains about 30 percent moisture, which vaporizes as steam during combustion. For every 10 minutes of cooking on a gas grill, you release about ½ to 1 cup water vapor in your grill. That moisture goes to the surface of your food and prevents the internal temperature from rising as high as it does in a charcoal or wood grill. Water cannot reach temperatures above 212°F (at least not outside a pressure cooker). But browning, the hallmark of grilled flavor, doesn’t happen until at least 250°F—which isn’t to say that browning doesn’t occur in a gas grill. It does. But the average backyard gas grill doesn’t get quite as hot as a charcoal or wood grill. If you’re a purist about creating a crusty surface on your food, the high and dry heat of charcoal and wood is hard to beat.

CHARCOAL BRIQUETTES: Charcoal comes in two readymade forms, briquettes and lump charcoal. Both are essentially wood that has been preburned to make it easier to light the fire and get grilling. Briquettes are made from finely ground wood (sawdust) and various ingredients to bind the sawdust into briquettes, help the briquettes light, and make them last a long time. The primary advantages of briquettes are steady burning, fairly high and dry heat (see the discussion at left regarding gas), and a bit of smoky aroma to flavor your food. The chief disadvantage is the mess of handling and cleaning up charcoal. If you love grilling with briquettes, shop around for a good brand. We’ve found that national and boutique brands perform more consistently than less expensive store brands.

LUMP CHARCOAL: This type of charcoal is closer to real wood in its natural state and we prefer it for most grilling. It looks like rough pieces of burned wood, and that’s exactly what it is. The pros and cons are similar to charcoal briquettes with one additional consideration: lump charcoal tends to burn hotter than briquettes. A briquette fire won’t burn as hot as one made from mesquite lump charcoal, which burns at around 800°F, and can’t come close to the heat of bincho-tan, a dense Japanese oak charcoal that burns at around 1100°F. With lump charcoal, you can count on a great crust and browning on your steak. But the fuel burns out faster, requiring frequent replenishment for long-cooking foods. To get the best of both worlds, we sometimes combine fast-burning, high-heat lump charcoal with steady-burning, medium-heat briquettes.

WOOD: While charcoal has already lost half its potential energy during the preburning process, wood contains all of its potential energy and burns much hotter—a distinct advantage for browning and flavor. Wood also emits billows of smoke, which, given time, thoroughly infuse the food you are cooking. The downside is that wood takes longer to light than charcoal and is less consistent. It scores low on the convenience scale but high on the flavor scale. You make your choice. If it’s high heat you’re after, choose seasoned (aged) wood, which burns dry and hot. For more smoke, use green or unseasoned wood, which burns wet and slow. Barbecue pit masters often use a combination of the two.

Meat, Game, and Fish Doneness

Meat: Beef and bison roast and steak

Blue: 120F

Rare: 125F

Medium-Rare: 135F

Medium-Done: 145F

Medium-Well: 155F

Well-Done: 170F

Meat: Venison steak and roast

Blue: 120F

Rare: 125F

Medium-Rare: 135F

Medium-Done: 145F

Medium-Well: 155F

Well-Done: 170F

Meat: Lamb and goat chops and roast

Blue: 120F

Rare: 125F

Medium-Rare: 135F

Medium-Done: 145F

Medium-Well: 155F

Well-Done: 170F

Meat: Duck, goose, and game birds

Rare: 140F

Medium-Rare: 150F

Medium-Done: 165F

Medium-Well: 170F

Well-Done: 180F

Meat: Veal chops and roast

Medium-Rare: 135F

Medium-Done: 145F

Medium-Well: 155F

Well-Done: 170F

Meat: Fish

Medium-Rare: 125F

Medium-Done: 130F

Medium-Well: 140F

Well-Done: 150F

Meat: Ground beef and bison

Medium-Done: 150F

Medium-Well: 155F

Well-Done: 160F

Meat: Ground venison

Medium-Done: 150F

Medium-Well: 155F

Well-Done: 160F

Meat: Pork and boar chops and roast

Medium-Done: 145F

Medium-Well: 155F

Well-Done: 170F

Meat: Pork and boar roast

Medium-Done: 145F

Medium-Well: 155F

Well-Done: 170F

Meat: Pork and boar shoulder

Medium-Done: 145F

Medium-Well: 165F

Well-Done: 170F

Meat: Rabbit, squirrel and small game

Medium-Done: 140F

Medium-Well: 150F

Well-Done: 160F

Meat: Alligator

Medium-Done: 140F

Medium-Well: 150F

Well-Done: 160F

Meat: Beef and bison tough cuts

Medium-Well: 155F

Well-Done: 170F

Meat: Venison tough cuts

Medium-Well: 155F

Well-Done: 170F

Meat: Ground pork and boar

Medium-Well: 155F

Well-Done: 165F

Meat: Lamb and goat shoulder

Medium-Well: 155F

Well-Done: 170F

Meat: Ground lamb

Medium-Well: 150F

Well-Done: 160F

Meat: Veal shanks

Medium-Well: 155F

Well-Done: 170F

Meat: Ground veal

Medium-Well: 150F

Well-Done: 160F

Meat: Whole chicken and turkey and all dark meat

Medium-Well: 165F

Well-Done: 175F

Meat: Chicken and turkey breast

Medium-Well: 155F

Judging Doneness

Even the most sophisticated grilling technique will be of little consequence if the food is over- or underdone. Burning and overcooking food is the most common grilling mistake. Setting up the grill for bilevel grilling will help. We also give grilling temperatures for the fire and the cooked food in every recipe. But it is helpful to know what food is supposed to look like when it’s done. Here’s an overview of what happens to food as it cooks and what it should look like at various stages along the way.

The intense heat of a grill causes the molecules in food to move, react with each other, and form new textures and flavors. Water evaporates, causing shrinkage; proteins coagulate and shrink; starches soften and gelatinize; fats melt; and sugars caramelize and brown. All of these changes release volatile aromatic compounds, which make grilled food smell delicious. These changes also show you how far along your food is in the cooking process.

In our recipes, we often give doneness cues like Cook until nicely grill-marked. What we mean is that the food should bear light to dark brown stripes where it has been seared by the hot metal. For vegetables and fruits, you want only light to medium grill-marking to prevent the soft tissues from becoming flabby, which makes the vegetables or fruit go limp on the plate. Most grilled vegetables like bell peppers and zucchini should still be crisp-tender. For flatbreads like pizza and naan, the bread should blister and brown in spots and look matte rather than shiny on the top side. It will also feel firm to the touch. Fish should have light or medium grill marks and still look quite moist and somewhat filmy in the center.

The doneness of meat depends on factors like muscle density and other breed and genetic considerations, as well as how long the meat was aged, the meat’s temperature before cooking, where it comes from on the animal, and its fat and water content. Fat conducts heat more slowly than muscle fiber, so fatty meats cook more slowly than lean meats. Bones also slow down the heat transfer because air within the bone structure conducts heat much more slowly than the bone material itself. Water, on the other hand, speeds up heat transference and conducts heat twice as fast as fat. That’s why lean, tender, boneless cuts like beef tenderloin cook very quickly.

Visual or tactile checks and internal temperature are the most reliable methods of testing meat doneness. As meat cooks, it becomes drier, more opaque, browner, and firmer. Meat cooked to a doneness of blue has a red center that’s still raw and it feels soft when pressed on the surface. When cooked rare, meat has a deep red center and resists slightly when pressed. Medium-rare meat appears bright red in the center and feels resilient to the touch, while medium is rosy red or pink in the center and feels slightly firm. Medium-well meat retains only a hint of pink in the center and feels firm when pressed, and well-done meat looks tan or gray all the way through and feels stiff.

Judging the doneness of tough and fatty cuts of meat like pork shoulder is a lot easier. Tough cuts are done when they are fork-tender. Period. Most tough meats won’t show signs of tenderness until they reach at least 160°F inside. Use the chart above to familiarize yourself with internal doneness temperatures for various kinds of meat, game, and fish. These temperatures provide an accurate doneness test if you are not confident about what the meat should look like and how it should feel.

When testing internal temperatures, be sure that the thermometer reaches the center of the thickest portion of the food without touching bone (which could give you a false reading). The temperatures below are consistent with how most chefs serve food for the best flavor and texture and to meet consumer expectations. But keep in mind that