Summer grilling recipe ideas

Summer Grilling Ideas
By: Chef Cristian Feher
www.tampabaychef.com

 The mercury is rising, the birds are chirping and the sun is out. It’s time to dust off the old grill and do some therapeutic grilling.

How is grilling therapeutic? Think about it; you’re outdoors breathing in fresh, non-recirculated-unconditioned-air. The sun is turning your skin into a vitamin-D-producing laboratory. That burst of flame that shoots up at your face while you’re in there wondering why it won’t light - that’s exfoliating your skin! The charred bits of flavor leftover from your previous fiery feasts - they make you stronger, because according to the old adage, they haven’t killed you. And if that isn’t enough, your grill will actually burn the fat that drips off your food, so your body doesn’t have to. Grilling is therapy for the face, stomach and soul.

Most people look at a grill as just a grill. But did you realize that it’s also an oven (if it has a lid),  and a stove? Your grill is basically a full outdoor kitchen with which you can do a lot more than burgers and steaks. Below are a few ideas that may tickle your grilling-bone this summer.

Grill Your Lettuce!
If you’ve taken a personal chef cooking class with me in the past, chances are that you’re experienced the delight of a grilled romaine salad.  You have no idea how much flavor is hidden inside of a lettuce leaf until you put fire to it!

Cut the romaine lettuce in half, drizzle the cut side with good quality olive oil, and sear for a minute or three on a really hot grill (cut-side-down) until it begins to wilt and grill marks form. Chop it up, mix it with a garlic anchovy dressing, sprinkle with shaved Parmesan cheese, black pepper, and key lime juice for an unexpectedly flavorful Caesar salad.


Is it Steak or Pizza?
My friend Jorge made this for us in Argentina. It was one of my fondest food memories of that trip and it was insanely good - in fact, everything there was insanely good. The secret to Argentine cuisine is that they have not reinvented the mouse trap. What worked 100 years ago still works the same way today. And that antiquity in agricultural methods, farming, butchering, and cooking just happens to make every dish special, amazing, fresh and revitalizing. It’s real food.

A smoky charcoal fire. A large grass-fed sirloin steak rubbed with kosher salt and black pepper sizzles on the grill. It’s called Steak Pizzaiola. When the steak is a few minutes from perfection, you top it with a simple tomato and oregano sauce, oily sundried tomatoes, roasted red pepper strips, and sliced buffalo mozzarella. Let the cheese bubble and melt, move the steak onto a wooden board and have the lucky participants serve each other slices of this sublime dish. Fresh bread to sop up the juices left on the board? I will cut anyone who gets in my way...


You Make Your Paella in the Oven?
A paella is a traditional dish from Spain. Rice is cooked in a saffron-infused broth with your choice of meats and vegetables - the most popular being seafood, onions, peppers, capers and peas - over a coal fire in a cast iron pan called a Paellera. The unfortunate thing is that few people make it this way in North America. Most cook it on the stovetop or in the oven.

For a real Spanish paella, get a cast iron skillet, put it on a hot grill, cook your ingredients, add the rice and saffron and slowly add the stock while cooking the dish over a smoky charcoal grill, or a gas grill with some wet wood chips inside. Trust me, the smoke and cast iron make a big difference. And if you haven’t quite mastered making a paella, just hire a personal chef to teach you how ;)


Slap Some Hershey’s on the Grill!
It could be that I’m a caveman at heart, but I love to make chocolate cake on the grill. I suppose it could be an acquired taste for some, and if you think that’s you, start off by using your gas grill which should only impart a hint of smoke (as compared to a very smoky charcoal grill).  This adds a rustic undertone that makes me feel happy.

Combine 1-3/4 cups of flour, 1-3/4 cups of sugar, 3/4 cup of Hershey’s cocoa powder, 1-1/2 tsp of baking soda, 1 tsp of salt, 2/3 cup of soft butter, 16oz sour cream, 2 eggs, 1 tsp or vanilla extract. Mix it all together, put in a cake pan and stick it in the grill - if you can turn the burner off underneath the cake, good, if not - turn it down to low and close the lid. Bake for 30-45 mins, or until a toothpick comes out clean. Serve warm with a big scoop of chocolate or coconut ice cream!

If you have your own creative recipes for the grill, I would love to hear about them! You can email me at tampabaychef@gmail.com. Happy grilling everyone!

Summer grilling tips "101" with Chef Cristian Feher

Summer Grilling Tips
By: Chef Cristian Feher
www.tampabaychef.com

The temperature is rising, the sun is shining, and the grass is growing like, well... grass. It’s summer. For most people this means firing up the grill, sticking meat on it, and walking away. And for some, it means burnt pucks, rusty grills and a boring repertoire of tiresome menu ideas. In this article I will give you some tips that should improve your grilling skills, help you maintain your grill, and give you some new ideas to expand your summer menu.

Does your grill get rusty? Does food tend to stick and hold on for dear life? A grill, much like your car, could use some maintenance every now and then. And you may not be aware of it.  Rust and sticking might just be an issue of maintenance. The first thing you should do before you even turn on your grill is to take some spray vegetable oil and spray all of the inside surfaces; the grill, the inside of the lid, the sides and the bottom under the burners. Once you turn on your grill, the oil will burn onto the surfaces protecting them from rust. This is called “curing” your grill. Another good thing that burnt oil does, is it makes your grill surface non-stick over time. The more oil you can burn onto your grilling surface, the less food will stick to it. This practice will eventually turn your grill into a seasoned “classic” instead of a rusty “junker”. So, throw that heavy steel brush away and clean your grill gently with a Brillo pad just to get the big chunks of burnt food off. If you use a steel brush, you’re really just removing that burnt oil and ruining the non-stick property of the grill - not to mention that you’re creating the perfect surface for rust to form. If there is some grease on your grill and it grosses you out, just preheat the grill with your lid closed to 400 or 500 degrees for a few minutes and it will sterilize the surface, making is completely safe to cook on. And remember that your grill must be really hot before you put food on it, otherwise you can bet that it will always stick - burnt oil or not.

Do you start with a perfectly good steak, and end up with a mysterious lump of charred coal? Unless you’re a meat alchemist (an alchemist was a medieval “scientist” that tried to turn metals into gold by using magic, potions and so forth) you could probably benefit from what I’m about to share with you. Stop looking as your grill as a grill, and start looking at it as an outdoor oven. The whole idea of the grill is not to apply fire directly to your meat, but to surround it in heat. When I grill, I only turn on half of the heating elements, leaving the other half of my grill off. I put the meat on the “cold” side of the grill and close the lid. The temperature goes up to 400 or 500 anyways, and since there is no fire directly under my meats, they cook evenly and they don’t burn. And since it’s so hot in there, they still get perfect grill marks. You can also do this with a charcoal grill by moving the hot coals over to one half of the grill, or you can lower the coal so that the fire is not in actual contact with the meat. The idea is to use your grill as an oven, and not an incinerator. Would you cook your meat with a blow torch? I didn’t think so. If your grill doesn’t have a lid, or doesn’t give you a choice of lighting up only half the grill, then you should consider buying a new grill that has these functions. There is no sense keeping a piece of equipment around if it doesn’t do the job.

Use your grill as an oven. As stated above, a grill with a lid is really just an outdoor oven. And if you have the capability of turning off half of your grill, you can use the other half as an oven. I actually bake in my oven during the summer months when it makes no sense to heat up my kitchen (Here in Florida, that’s about 10 months out of the year). I put my baking and roasting foods such as salmon, whole fish, roasting potatoes, marinated turkey breasts, meat loaf, whole chickens, etc, on a non stick baking sheet, as I would for a regular oven, and put them in the “cold” side of the grill. Lid closed, temperature regulated by thermometer on the lid. It becomes a really efficient outdoor oven. And since I never really roast anything under 400 degrees anyways (most Chefs don’t) the grill works perfectly for me. I even bake puff pastry appetizers in the grill and am able to add a nice, smoky flavor to foods by adding some wood chips in there, or using my charcoal grill as an oven. It really beats my indoor oven hands-down for most recipes.  If your grill has a stove top, try grilling your meatballs while preparing a fresh tomato sauce on the stove. I guarantee you won’t go back in your kitchen for a while!

I always enjoy reading emails from my readers. Have you prepared something interesting on your grill? Do you have tips of your own to share? Please email me at tampabaychef@gmail.com. You can also visit our website at www.tampabaychef.com. Grill on!