So yesterday I had my first grilling event of the year. I am sure there are other people here who set up their stuff in the backyard, some meadow or wherever. So let's talk about that: What's your preferred method? What do you put on the grill? Do you have any tips to share?
It's summer! ヽ(´ー｀)ノ
Rocks, wood, and some pieces of iron.
Putting a metal plate on top of the fire and making pancakes is pretty fun.
>Putting a metal plate on top of the fire and making pancakes is pretty fun
You can make popcorn with this method too, but unfortunately it's useless since you would need about four skilled people to catch all of it and they don't come out well because of the low heat.
I can never get chicken quite right. It's always either too rare near the bones or too charred on the skin or cooked but dry and tough.
I found some great advice on grilling here:
http://www.robertkbrown.com/2002/05/31/everything_you_thought_you_knew_about_grilling_is_wrong.html
Check it out... Make a marinade, any marinade that tastes good, (you can use a red wine base for traditional style marinades, or a soy-sauce based one for asian style marinades) and then soak your chicken or beef or whatever in that. Then, you take the marinade, heat it up to boiling, add a teaspoon of cornstarch dissolved in a little bit of water, and it'll immediately thicken. Take that stuff out to the grill, brush it on your meat and it'll thicken on and turn to a syrupy glaze. You got a taste sensation there buddy!
Things to add to the marinades for either type are:
Pinapples,
Garlic
RED PEPPER
Sesame seeds
Sugar is also very good, it may get very good if you add some sugar.
Things to add only to soy-based marinades (these kind of conflict with wine):
Sesame oil
ginger
honey instead of sugar
Katsuo-daishi if you can find it or even know what the hell it is
Make a good marinade, make sure it tastes good. If it doesnt' taste good on it's own, it won't taste good when you put it on your meat probably. Make sure you taste your marinade BEFORE you add the meat too, don't want you getting any salmonella or e-cola on us here and have to go to the hospital.
Hope you enjoyed this cookking segment here.
One more thing, red wine seems to toughen chicken, so use it more liberally on beef. Soy sauce seems to tenderize everything, though.