Bacon.  Ah, my good friend bacon.  Not sure how we could live without you. The only thing better than good bacon, is good crispy bacon.

It isn’t easy to get good crispy bacon.  Many people that don’t know any better cook the bacon at a high temperature and get burned but chewy bacon.  In this post I’ll give you a quick run down on what I’ve found works.  And yes, since this is a grilling site, we’ll do it on the grill.

My favorite pan to use is a cast iron skillet.  At these prices, there is really no reason not to have a pre-seasoned cast iron skillet in your arsenal.

Starting with a cold pan, add 3 slices of bacon and put over a medium heat. You want to cook as much of the fat off the bacon without it burning. This means you may have to move the pan around a bit if it gets too hot and the bacon starts to burn or gets too cool and the bacon stops sizzling.  Either on a gas grill or a charcoal grill, you will want to make sure you have zones set up so that you can regulate the temperature and move to a cool zone if you need to. If you start to see any black on the raised rounded bumps of bacon or the edges, your pan is too hot and you should move it to a cool zone.

While cooking, continuously turn over the bacon so that it cooks evenly on both sides. Changing positions in the pan helps in case the are hotter areas in the pan.  As the bacon cooks it will render the fat into the pan.  If it gets to the point where the bacon is swimming in the grease, you should carefully drain it. This is very HOT stuff and is VERY flammable so do this very carefully. Never drain into water or your sink.  I usually drain into a large dry empty metal can or another pot and then let the grease cool completely before putting it into the garbage.

Depending on bacon thickness the bacon should be done in about 10-15 minutes. Look for the deep brown color. Move to paper towels in order to drain any remaining fat.

Enjoy!

Update: Recently read on Twitter that if you soak the bacon for a few minutes in cold water before frying, it will be even crispier.  Next time I fry bacon, I’ll give it a try and let you know how it turns out.

What’s not to love about a cut of meat with the word “tender” in it’s name? Beef tenderloin is right up there with my choices if I ever need to pick a last meal. If you have a special occasion coming up and want to impress your guest, this is the cut of meat you should splurge for at the butcher’s shop. Some cuts of meat require work to get great taste and optimal tenderness. With the beef tenderloin, all the cook needs to do is not screw it up.

The beef tenderloin is the cut of meat that provides us with the filet mignon. Just like the filet mignon, we want to keep the seasoning minimal and focus more on technique. Aside from over-seasoning, the easiest way to screw up a great beef tenderloin is to over-cook it! If there was ever a justification to purchase a good probe meat thermometer, this is it. You just paid a lot of money for this thing, what’s another $40 for a good probe thermometer that will allow you to monitor the progress?

Before we get into actually cooking this hunk of meat, we need to talk about trimming and preparing the tenderloin. If you can, I would suggest getting your butcher to trim the meat for you. You may pay more for it, but it will save you about 20 minutes of trimming time and also save you the trauma of removing so much waste from this expensive cut of meat. On the 6.5 lb. tenderloin I just prepared, I would estimate that I removed a pound of fat. That’s a lot of waste and it hurts to throw that stuff away after spending so much on the tenderloin. Entire articles have been written and some videos published on how to trim and prepare a tenderloin, so you can Google if you need more information. You are going to want to remove all of the fat and membrane (most will come off by pulling with your hands), the rubbery silver skin and the “chain”, which is a fatty piece of meat that runs down one side of the tenderloin. Once trimmed, fold a few inches of the thin end of the tenderloin over onto itself and secure with butcher’s twine.

Tie some twine around the tenderloin at about 2 inch intervals to hold the shape. Once the meat is trimmed and tied, you’re ready to get started cooking!

How to Grill a Beef Tenderloin

1. Allow the tenderloin to come to room temperature on the kitchen counter. This step is really important, so don’t skip it. If you don’t let the tenderloin (or any large cut of meat) come to room temperature, it won’t cook evenly.
2. While your tenderloin is warming up, go ahead and light the grill. We are going to cook this indirectly, so pile up the coals on one of your charcoal grill or light half of the burners on your gas grill.
3. For seasoning, less is definitely more here. I like to season mine with some fresh ground black pepper and just a little garlic powder. No salt is needed and might actually pull some of the moisture out. Rub the black pepper all over.
4. Now that the beef tenderloin has warmed to room temperature and your grill is hot, place the tenderloin over the hot part of the grill to sear. We want to sear (not burn!) all sides of the tenderloin to create a nice crust.
5. Once all sides are seared, insert your probe thermometer into the thickest part of the tenderloin and then move it over to the cool side of the grill.
6. Close the lid and leave it alone!
7. Maintain a grill temperature (on the cool side) of around 325 – 350. A 6 pound beef tenderloin should take a little over an hour to reach our magic temperature of 130 degrees. Don’t go by time though, cook to temperature.
8. Once the tenderloin hits 130 degrees, remove from the grill and place on a platter.
9. Allow the tenderloin to rest under aluminum foil for 15 minutes before carving. Serious, let it sit! If you don’t, all of those delicious juices will run out of the meat.
10. Remove the twine.
11. Carve either thick filets, or for maximum tenderness, thin slices and serve!

That’s all there is to this great piece of meat. The hardest part is the prep and I would recommend you get the meat guys to do the work for you there. Grilling technique is the key here and with a good probe meat thermometer, there’s nothing to it. I LOVE the Maverick RediChek remote meat thermometer. It has two probes that allow me to monitor both the meat and the grill temperature. I’d highly recommend it (and will in an article soon).

I don’t know why, but I’ve had a love affair with lamb (cooked lamb only) for years. If it is on the menu, I’m ordering it. If there is a reason to cook it, I’m on it. Even if there isn’t a reason to cook lamb, I’m on it. So when I was perusing the meat case at my local super market and saw some loin lamb chops staring back at me, how could I say no?

Lamb chops may be a fancy food to eat, but they are very simple to cook, especially on the grill.  Loin chops are the most tender and leanest of the variety of available lamb chops.  Of course that makes them the most expensive too, but worth the extra outlay of hard earned cash.  They can be easily identified by the T-bone.

Ingredients:
Lamb chops – about 1 inch thick
Dried rosemary 1/2 teaspoon per chop
Olive oil 1/2 tablespoon per chop
Salt – pinch per chop or to taste
Pepper – pinch per chop

Directions:
Step 1 – Trim the fat. Since we are grilling these lamb chops, it is best to trim the excess fat from the edges of the chop to reduce the flareups.  This fat won’t add flavor in the cooking process (it’s the marbled fat throughout the meat that adds flavor), and will only lead to oily flare ups.

Step 2 – Clean and season. Rinse and pat dry the chops.  Brush both sides of the chops with the olive oil. Sprinkle with the dried rosemary, salt and pepper.  So far, pretty easy!  Leave the meat out of the refrigerator to come up to room temperature for about 1/2 hour.

Step 3 – Grill prep. Next prepare your grill.  We’ll be cooking with an open lid on direct high heat.  If using a gas let the grill heat up with the lid closed for 10 to 15 minutes before grilling.  This will allow the grates to get hot which will make nice grill marks and add to the radiant heat.  If you are using charcoal, start your coals in a chimney and then spread out the coals to create the three zones: no coals; 1 layer of coals; and 2 layers of coals.

Once the grill is ready and the chops have been out of the fridge for 1/2 hour,  carefully oil the grates with a paper towel dabbed in vegetable oil (peanut works great).

Step 4 – Grill the chops. Add the lamb chops to the grill and grill over high heat with the lid open.  If you get any flareups, move the chop to a cooler part of the grill until the flames die down.  After about 4 minutes, turn the chops over and cook for another 4 to 5 minutes.  As always, this varies based on the temperature outside, the temp and thickness of the meat, and the grill temp.  If you use a instant read thermometer, 155° F is medium.

Step 5 – Let it rest. Remove the meat from the grill, cover and let it rest for 5 minutes.

Step 6 – Eat and enjoy! In this case I served it with roasted garlic and smoked tomato couscous and grilled asparagus. Don’t forget the mint sauce.

If you like this, you should try the leg of lamb.

Ah, the delicious flank steak. This cut of steak comes from one of the toughest muscles on the cow, but it has some of the best flavor on the animal. Flank steaks are also great candidates for a long bath in a delicious marinade. Marinade them in some lime, garlic, cilantro and jalapeno and I bet most of those slices won’t even make it to your grilled fajita bar!

Sorry, I got a little excited there, back to the point. We all have probably heard, or read on our grilling recipes, that tough muscles like flank steak should be sliced thinly against the grain. Most people probably give up on these tough cuts after eating slices that weren’t properly cut against the grain. The concept of slicing against the grain is to shorten the actual muscle fibers so that they are easier to chew. If you slice with the grain, those muscle fibers are really long and tough to chew. Think of a rubber band. If you (for some odd reason) wanted to consume a rubber band, would it be easier to chew up long strands or short? One might argue that you wouldn’t be able to chew even the short bands, but one might also admit you wouldn’t choke as easily as on the longer bands. Nonetheless, you get the point!

Still not following me? Well, luckily the Food Lab over at Serious Eats conducted a much more in-depth experiment into slicing meats against the grain. The article is filled with enough photos to make it easy to illustrate the technique, along with enough math and science to please us geeks.

Head on over to the article to learn how to slice that tough, but delicious, cut of meat. Then come on back over here for some delicious grilling this weekend using our cilantro lime flank steak recipe!

My goal this year is to experiment a lot more with flavors I haven’t really used in recipes.  I feel like I am kind of in a rut and tend to stick with the flavors I am most comfortable with.  We’ll see if my little experiment results in a coup attempt in my family at dinner time.  More on that later…

One of the best areas to experiment is with spices.  A simple grilled boneless chicken breast can be made into something awesome with the right combination of spices that you should have in your cupboard at all times.  Last night I made a quick Southwestern rub for chicken with chili powder, cumin, garlic powder, salt and pepper.  Simple, delicious!

The key to successfully experiment with such spices is knowing what each spice brings to the mix.  To that end, the Kitchn wrote up this awesome quick guide to the most common spices.  There is no substitute for sticking your finger in there and TASTING the spices, but this is a good start.  Funny, I just followed a recipe the other day for yellow rice.  I hadn’t really used Tumeric before and once I was done with the recipe, couldn’t really taste it in the dish.  According to this guide, it’s used more for the color than flavor…makes sense.

Check out the great spice quick guide from theKitchn.com.

It’s times like these where my oldest son is jealous of his friends that have fireplaces.  When the weather dips to an icy 60 degrees, it’s time to over-pay for a shrink-wrapped bundle of wood at the grocery store and light a fire, even if you have to turn on the AC.  After all, what’s the use in having a fireplace if you can’t roast some marshmallows once a year?  To tell the truth, I am a little jealous too this week.  I’m a sucker for off the wall cooking and grilling techniques and I love how this one brings us back to the days of the Pioneers.  If I had a fireplace, you can bet that I would be trying to roast our dinner over a nice hot fire.

If you have a fireplace, check out WikiHow’s article for ideas on how to cook with your indoor open flame.  I can see the  “human rotisserie” method getting old after the first 5 minutes, but they had me with the string turning method.  It would be worth cooking a chicken this way just to see my wife’s face when she came home.  Here’s a detailed video from firepit-and-grilling-guru.com:

Give it a shot next time you are snowed in.

I chose leg of lamb for this meal because I wanted to grill something fancy for Christmas Eve, and my sister was already planning on standing rib roast for Christmas day. Not much fancier than standing rib roast, but leg of lamb makes a close second.  I found a New Zealand boneless leg of lamb at my local grocery store, butterflied and rolled, wrapped in a mesh, just begging to be thrown on the rotisserie.  So I got the remainder of the ingredients and prepared to make a meal to impress my family.  In this recipe I made a pistachio and mustard encrusted boneless leg of lamb, rotisserie style.

Ingredients:
Boneless leg of lamb,  about 4.5  lbs
1 1/2 cup Dijon mustard
6 tablespoons red wine
6 cloves of garlic, minced
2 teaspoon chopped fresh rosemary (I use kitchen scissors)
1 teaspoon ground pepper
1 cup chopped pistachios

Directions:

First I removed the lamb from the bag and rinsed.  The leg of lamb I bought was already de-boned butterflied, and rolled in a mesh.  But if you can’t find one already prepared like this, you can ask you butcher to prepare a leg of lamb for you or remove the bone yourself.  Once rinsed, skewer the lamb and make sure it is secure.  Balance the skewer according to your manufactures directions.  Let the lamb come to room temperature as you prepare the other ingredients.

To prepare the mustard mixture, in a large bowl, add the Dijon mustard, red wine, garlic, rosemary, and pepper and mix thoroughly.  Divide the mixture in half and set aside one half.  Slather the lamb in the mustard mix.  Anything that drips off you can add after you get the lamb going on the grill.

Prepare your grill for the rotisserie.  I remove my grates to give more clearance.  Heat the grill on high.  Once nice and hot, about 8 minutes on my grill add the lamb and start the rotisserie turning.  Reslather any of the mixture from the initial slathering that ran off the lamb (hopefully you had a plate under the lamb).

With an open lid, roast on high for 10 to 15 minutes until you have a golden brown crust on the lamb.

Now it’s time to slow things down.  I turned off my center burner and left on my front and back burner on low.  Add a pan of water under the lamb, with just enough water to cover the bottom of the pan.  Reduce the temperature down to low, about 300 to 325° F.  If your grill has left, right and center zones, turn off the zone that is directly under your lamb.  If you have charcoal, you’ll need to rearrange the coals so they are not directly under the lamb.  The pan of water will catch drippings which prevent flareups, regulate the temperature and will help keep the meat moist.

As usual, the amount of time you have to cook the lamb will vary greatly depending on the size of the lamb, your grill, and numerous other factors.  Mine took about 2 hours (about 1/2 hour per pound @ 325° F).  When the internal temperature gets to 145° F (for medium rare), turn off the grill and carefully remove the pan of water.

Slather the lamb with the remaining mustard.  Relight the grill, and put it on medium high, with the middle burner going again.  We want some direct heat to get the crust back on the lamb (you’ll find that the steam from pan of water may have caused your crust to drip off).  After about a minute, add the chopped pistachios.  I used a spoon to press them into the mustard and get them to stick, slowly rotating the lamb as I did this.

Cook for another 10 minutes until the crust is brown and crispy.

Remove from the grill.

While it is resting for 10 minutes, take lots of pictures until you get one that looks just right.  Well, that’s what I did anyway.

Then carve it up and serve.

We had sides of wild mushroom bread pudding, twice baked potatoes and green bean casserole.  And don’t forget the mint sauce for the lamb.

If you don’t have a rotisserie, this recipe is reason enough to get one.  The lamb turned out perfect and was the best I’ve ever had.  The complements were non-stop.  Here it the model I have, Weber 9890 Gas Barbecue Rotisserie.  If you have a char-broil, there is this one.  And this is a generic one that is supposed to fit many types of grills.

During this process, I learned it is good to have more than one thermometer.  My instant read thermometer decided to go on the fritz about an hour and a half into cooking, leaving me with an old school meat thermometer and the thermometer from my turkey fryer.  Nearly flying blind!  Fortunately I got lucky and it turned out perfect.  I’ve since bought this thermometer and this one as a backup.

Hope you enjoy!

Not this year though.  It’s “worse-ta-sure“.  I think “worse-ta-sheer” is also acceptable, but never, EVER, “war-chester-shire“.  As a matter of fact, that may be a New Year’s resolution I can stick with for 2010.  I am now making it my mission to educate people and finally eradicate WarChesterShire from the English language.  Who’s with me?

Market research shows that 40% of Americans grill all year-round.  TLC posted some tips on grilling in inclement weather for those less-than-perfect days.  I don’t (yet) have a covered outdoor kitchen, so I can attest to the value of a good, large umbrella to cover the grill:

I have a LOT of respect for those of you that can use their tips for grilling in the snow.  Send us some photos of grilling in the snow so we can remember why we love living in the Sunshine State this time of the year.  In return, we’ll post some video of us running for our lives during a Summer lightning storm when it is 99% outside…

Check out TLC’s tips for grilling in bad weather.

Fancy remote thermometers that works on a rotisserie for $59.99

Cast iron skillet for $21.62

Grilling baskets and tray with lidded shaker for $19.99

Good oven mitts (or lobster costume) for $20.30

Turkey fryer kit for $124.99

Garlic press for $14.99

For the little griller: Melissa and Doug toy grill for $13.78

For the chef with everything: Ceramic Drunk Chicken Heads for $14.95

Villaware Pizza Grill for $99.99

and pizza peel for $32.50

Oven thermometer like this one for $9.95

Magic Bullet Express 17-Piece High-Speed Blender Mixing System for rubs and marinades for $54.99

Basically, coat the cast iron in a thin even layer of shortening and heat it upside-down between 325°F to 375°F for about an hour. It is best to use indirect heat. Let the cookware cool on the grill.

Using the grill is best since this will smoke a bit and would stink up your kitchen if you did it in the oven.

Hmm, I’m gonna have to build my own molecule model one of these days…

Once it is seasoned, don’t forget to try out some cornbread!

Do you trust that you are getting a full tank when you exchange?  The video report below suggests that you could be getting less than you paid for, even though the tank they exchanged did appear to be within a pound of the weight of a full tank.  The point is, without weighing the tank, you really don’t know.  If you want to be sure to only pay for the actual propane you are using, you need to take the tank to a place like U-Haul and pay by weight.  Take a look at the video below and decide for yourself.  If you are more comfortable with refilling, wander on over to U-Haul and save some money…

There are good and bad things about having a kid with the flu on Thanksgiving.  Both the good and bad have to do with family.  The bad is that when you are quarantined with a sick kid, you can’t go hang out with the rest of the family.  The good is that you have an excuse to stay at home, sit on the porch, smell the sweet smoke from the smoker all day and watch football!  I’d by lying if I said I didn’t enjoy a nice Thanksgiving at home without rushing around to see two families.

The best part is that I used our quarantined situation as an opportunity to really plan and smoke a turkey in my homemade smoker this year.  I recently tried fried turkey, since everyone is always raving about it.  Although I love how fast you can fry a turkey, it didn’t really impress me in the taste department.  This smoked turkey, however, was a real winner and I think I’ll have to celebrate half-Thanksgiving this coming year, just to have leftovers.

Choosing and Brining Your Turkey

You really don’t want a huge, stork-like turkey for smoking.  A 10 – 12 pound turkey is the perfect size for the smoker.  Make sure you buy a “natural” turkey, not one that says it has been “enhanced”, or “self-basted” with juices of any kind.  It’s pretty easy to tell once you read the label.  If you do happen to get an enhanced bird, just skip the brining process because an enhanced turkey means it has already been injected or soaked in a salty substance.

Once your turkey has been thawed (make sure you take out the neck and gizzards, but save the neck for the gravy!), it’s time to brine that sucker.  Brining adds a lot of moisture and taste to the bird.  If you have never brined meats before, you are about to start.  Rather than repeating ourselves, wander on over to our article on how to brine a turkey for the brine process and recipe.  Meet me back here once the turkey has soaked in the fridge….

Fire Up the Smoker and Get the Bird Ready

Ok, the bird has been soaking for a while (if it wasn’t already “enhanced”) and getting itself ready for it’s journey to smokey deliciousness.  It’s time to get the smoker going and make some final preparations to the turkey.  We need enough charcoal to smoke this baby for around 4 hours.  For my smoker, that means about a half of a bag of charcoal.  To enable my smoker to burn nice and evenly for that long, I need to make a ring of unlit charcoal and then dump a chimney-full of lit charcoal into the middle.  Here’s a visual:

Once the charcoal is lit, get your smoker into the “zone”, we are looking for 250 degrees.  If it creeps up around 300, no worries, just make sure you have some foil around to cover the breast so it doesn’t cook too quickly…we’ll talk about that later.

Now that the smoker is heating up, let’s get the turkey ready.  If your bird has a little clip holding the legs together, go ahead and remove that.  Remove any excess fat around the bottom opening of the bird, along with the tail while you are at it, but save those for the gravy pan!  Now rub the whole turkey down with some olive oil.  Using your fingers, gently separately the skin from the breast and work your fingers all the way to the top of the bird.  Now make sure you rub the inside of the breast with some olive oil as well.  Mix together some fresh chopped rosemary, Kosher salt and fresh ground pepper and rub the entire bird down with the mixture.  Make sure you stuff some in between the breast meat and skin as well.  This is an optional step, but if presentation is a big thing for you, you’ll want to create some socks and gloves out of aluminum foil.  Gloves and gloves?  Yeah, wrap the ends of the drumsticks and wing tips so they don’t burn to a crisp, like this:

Let’s Talk Wood, Smoke, Moisture and Gravy

One misconception about smoking meats is that you need a lot of smoke throughout the cooking process.  Turkey does not need a lot of smoke and as a matter of fact, you can ruin a good turkey with too much smoke.  For turkey and chicken, I like to use a fruit wood like apple.  I also prefer chunks over chips.  If you can get the chunks, you only need one chunk the size of a baseball for smoking a turkey.  If using chips, just use the same amount.  Throw your wood right over the coals right before you put the turkey in the smoker.

A pan of water under your turkey serves multiple purposes when smoking a whole turkey.  For one, it keeps a lot of moisture in the smoke chamber, that’s good for obvious reasons.  The second and third benefits involve catching the drippings from the turkey during the cooking process.  We need those delicious juices for the gravy!  The other benefit is easier clean up.  Ever seen all of the juice coming out of a turkey?  Want to clean that mess out of a of 55 gallon drum smoker?  I think not.

So let’s give that gravy a head start.  Place the neck, 2 onions, a few carrots and a sprig of rosemary into the pan and heat it up on the stove.  Once it’s about to start boiling, shut off the stove and transfer the pan to the smoker.  I installed an additional rack 7 inches under the smoking rack of my ugly drum smoker for this exact reason.  As the turkey cooks, it deposits it’s juices into the simmering pan of deliciousness below, all the while taking in that great moisture to stay nice and juicy!  Oh man, I can almost taste it again as I write this…

Ok, Enough Already, Let’s Smoke This Sucker!

Ok, I think we have covered everything.  We have a hot smoker, we’ve got a prepped bird and a pan to start making our gravy.  Throw your wood onto the coals and place the turkey on the cooking rack directly above the gravy pan and close the smoker.  Again, we want to cook at around 250 degrees.

After about an hour, remove the aluminum foil from the legs and wings.  At this point, loosely place a sheet of aluminum foil over the breast so that it doesn’t get too brown.  If you think it needs more time to brown up, you can cover it at a later time, just a warning that the breast will brown quickly and at some point you are going to want to cover it with the foil to make sure it doesn’t get too brown (burnt).

A 12 pound turkey will take around 3.5 – 4 hours to cook at 250 – 300 degrees, but go by meat temperature and not time!  When a meat thermometer placed into the thickest part of the breast (without hitting the bone!) reads between 155 – 160, the turkey is done.  Once it’s done, remove the turkey from the smoker, making sure to dump out all of those great juices into the gravy pan and then transfer the bird to a platter.  Loosely cover the turkey with foil for at least 20 minutes before you even think about trying to carve this sucker.  We want those juices to have a chance to settle back into the meat.

Use the turkey stock from the pan to make some good gravy, slice your turkey masterpiece and enjoy!  It was a real hit around my house, for all ages, even the sick little guy:

I think I have about overdone it with my new homemade smoker.  Any time my wife mentions cooking I usually blurt out “why don’t we smoke it?” before she can even finish her sentence.  She finally let me light the coals again this weekend while we were just sitting around watching football.  There’s something about watching football that makes me crave grilled chicken wings,  so I thought I’d try smoking some wings this time.  The only problem though is that smoked chicken usually has a nice soft skin.  Chicken wings on the other hand should have a crispy skin that can soak up all that delicious sauce (if you are in to that sort of thing).  Ah ha!  A perfect excuse to burn even more fuel, I’ll fire up the grill and crisp up the skins once they have cooked on the smoker!  Overkill?  Nah, it’s beautiful in Florida outside this time of the year, so why not extend my outdoor cooking duties?  Let’s take a look at the process.

For smoking any kind of chicken, I like to make a quick dry rub.  A simple dry rub can be thrown together from stuff you should always have in your pantry anyway.  Experiment by adding your own favorite spices, but this one will get you a good tasty foundation:

Ingredients
1 tablespoon Kosher salt
1 teaspoon fresh ground black pepper
2 teaspoons Paprika
1 teaspoon garlic powder
1 teaspoon onion powder
1/8 teaspoon cayenne (start small and add more if you like spice)

Directions

1. First step is to fire up the smoker and get the coals burning while we get everything else ready.  Fill up a chimney starter with coals and let them burn down until you see ash forming on the top coals.
2. Once those have burned down, empty them into your smoker’s fire basket, open the ventilation and close the lid so she can heat up.  The wings only need about 45 minutes to cook at around 300 degrees, so no need to add unlit coals for a longer burn.
3. While the smoker is getting itself ready, throw together your rub and mix thoroughly.
4. I like to cut off the actual wing part of the chicken wings.  This is the wing tip that has no meat on it, but they somehow always leave it on when butchering the chicken.  It’s optional, but just takes up room on the smoker or grill.
5. Rub your wings down with the rub, throw a handful of wood chips on the smoker then place the wings on your smoker’s grate.
6. Get your smoker at a stable 300 – 315 degrees and let them smoke for about 45 minutes.
7. Once the wings have cooked on the smoker for 45 minutes, the meat should be cooked through.  Fire up your grill to medium.
   
8. Transfer your wings over to the grill and grill them for about 2 minutes per side.  This should be quick, we just want to crisp up the skin.  A little charring isn’t bad, but watch those flare ups!
9. Remove from the grill and either serve “dry” or toss them in your favorite wing sauce!
   

Don’t have any bottled wing sauce in your refrigerator?  It’s really easy to make with stuff you can just have sitting around the house.  Here’s a quick chicken wing sauce recipe:

Chicken Wing Sauce:
4 tablespoons Crystal or similar hot sauce (more to taste, depending on your preference for heat)
1 tablespoon white vinegar (increase a little if you add hot sauce)
2 tablespoons melted butter
1/4 teaspoon garlic powder

Mix all of the ingredients thoroughly and that’s it!  I preferred the wings dry in this case actually.  I dipped a few in the wing sauce, but they were awesome with just the dry rub.  The smoky flavor combined with the spices were just right for my tastes, but the sauce also mixed well with the delicious smokiness.

The reason I have been cooking almost everything on my homemade smoker recently is because nothing tastes better than food cooked using something you built with your own two hands!  My cousin Drew can now attest to this fact with his new pride and joy, a homemade cowboy style grill.  Cowboy style grills are made to cook over the open flame of a wood fire using the direct heat of the flames and coals.  Drew’s design is great because it allows him to use the two grates to provide two different grilling temperatures.  As shown in this photo, his new grill handled the oysters on the half shell with parmesan and garlic, as well as the sausage and stuffed peppers.  Looks like a great cookout to me!

This set of grilling baskets and tray with lidded shaker on Amazon has me pretty excited.  This set comes with a smaller tray for grilling items you don’t want to fall through the grate, I could live without that tray, but it comes with the set.  I would seriously pay $25 for the lidded basket alone.  I love my Weber grill basket, but it falls short in two areas for me.  For one, I have to put on 2 oven mitts to remove the thing from the grill.  The lidded set pictured above has a handle so even if it gets hot, that’s only one mitt I need to wear.  The coolest part though is that there is a locking lid.  No longer will I have to use a spatula to move those little potatoes, shrimp or whatever around while grilling.  I can just grab the handle (with my one mitt) and give her a shake!  No more grilled foods going MIA in the bottom of the grill!  I also love the fact that there is little surface area to clean and look dirty.  The Weber basket looked great, right up until my first grilling.  It’s a little hard to clean and scratches easily.

I’m heading over to Amazon to pick one of these up today!

We had working lunch the other day (if talking about grilling is work) at the local J. Alexander’s.  If you haven’t been there, it’s one of those places where you can see the folks in the back cooking your meal.  Of course, the grill is conveniently located right by the waiting area so that you come in wanting a salad, but leave full of steak.  Steak was precisely what the guy was throwing on the grill as we were standing there watching through the glass.  As the cook placed the steak on the grill, he also placed a steak weight on top.  My first instinct was to run over and save that poor hunk of meat from the crushing force of the cast iron, but I resisted.  That little episode did make me wonder whether I was missing a good grilling tip, so I did a little research.

The idea behind the steak press is to apply additional pressure and heat to the top of the steak while grilling.  The added heat captured by the metal weight and then transferred to the top of the steak causes the steak to cook faster and more evenly.  Steak weights are recommended more often for people that like their steaks on the well done side, which explains why I have never felt the need to use one!  I like my steaks medium rare and personally feel that the reason a well-done steak is grey is because you have cooked out all of it’s soul .

What say you, GrillingCompanion readers?  Does your grilling arsenal contain a steak weight?

If you are going to smoke, grill, or fry a turkey (yes, even if you are going to roast it in the oven), it pays to brine the turkey first.  Do NOT brine a turkey that says it has been “enhanced” with salt and turkey brother, further brining will make the bird too salty.  The turkey will be more moist, and by choosing some good aromatic herbs to add to the brine, the turkey will have a much better flavor.

There aren’t any hard and fast rules to what should go into your brine.  I sometimes add brown sugar (about 1/2 cup per gallon) or apple juice, to give it a little sweetness.  Search around the Internet and you will find many variations, but the salt content is pretty much universal.  Here’s a cool way to see if you have enough salt in your brine.  Once your brine has cooled to room temperature, drop a raw egg into the solution.  It should float if you have enough salt.  I know, weird…Here is a basic brine to get you started:

Ingredients:
1 thawed or fresh turkey – not frozen. Not Kosher or self-basting as these have high salt content already.
1 cup table salt
1 gallon of cold water
3 to 5 sprigs of fresh rosemary
1 sprig of fresh sage
1 bunch of fresh thyme
1 large pot that is big enough to fit the turkey
enough room in the fridge to fit all of this

You can also use an oven bag from Reynolds if you don’t have a big enough pot to submerge the turkey, but you want to be careful (obviously) not to let the wings or a bone poke holes in the bag. Not enough room in the refrigerator? If you have a big cooler, they work great for brining as well. Just make sure you clean them well before and after (a little bleach water to kill all the bad stuff).

Heat a 1/2 gallon of the water over medium high heat. Add the salt. Stir until the salt is dissolved. Tie the herbs in a bouquets garnis (a what? yeah, that is what I said. It is a bunch of herbs tied with a string) and add to the water. Let it simmer for about 25 minutes. Remove from the heat and let cool. Add the cold water and stir.

Clean out the turkey (none of that giblet stuff inside the cavity). Rinse it inside and out.

Add the turkey and water to the container you are going to brine in and refrigerate for 10 to 15 hours or overnight. If you didn’t plan well enough ahead and have only 4 to 6 hours to soak, double the salt. This way you can time it with when you are going to cook.  Make sure it is fully submerged.

After the long soak, remove the turkey from the brine. Dispose the brine water safely. Remember, these birds can carry salmonella, so disinfect any spills. Rinse the turkey inside and out. Now your turkey is brined and ready to cook.  At this point, the turkey doesn’t need a whole lot of additional seasoning.  A little fresh ground black pepper is fine, but do NOT add more salt.

Check out some other tips on brining.

You can try a variety of other spices, herbs and even sweeteners (honey, molasses, brown sugar, etc) to get different flavored turkeys.  Tell us your favorite brine recipe.  Go crazy!

So yeah, frying with no oil.  The thing even catches the drippings so that you can still make that gravy!  My only question is, how do you call it frying without oil?  I think I’d re brand it as Infrared Meat Cooker or Really Hot Crock Pot, but that’s just me….

Want one?  Go buy it here.  If you still want to use all of that oil you have sitting in the garage, we’ll show you how to make a fried turkey the old-fashioned way over here.  Just don’t use the Big Easy, infrared and oil might go BOOM.

I hope it’s this easy because with my luck, I’ll be wearing the rest of the day.