Now that we getting three days of spring every week here in Chicagoland, it is time to ramp up my outdoor grilling to full swing.
I like to make these tinfoil dinners on the grill. You take a piece of heavy-duty tinfoil, fill it up with beef, veggies, butter, and spices. Then you wrap it up really carefully and put the package directly on the coals. Flip the package once half-way through 30 minutes of cooking. The trouble is it is very time-consuming to wrap and seal the tin-foil package so that it doesn’t crease or tear. If it does, all of the yummy butter and seasoning pours out of the package.
Any ideas on something I can use other that tinfoil? I was thinking of some sort of aluminum dish or pan, but it needs to be sealed.
How are you folding the tinfoil that it’s tearing? I must be misunderstanding something, because the aluminum foil I’ve used doesn’t tear, and isn’t terribly time-consuming to prepare. Have you tried just rolling the ingredients in the foil and twisting the ends, a la a tamale? Or just double lining it and folding the ends?
Maybe you’re just using cheap foil…
Use two (or three) layers of foil. That way you don’t have to worry about small tears in the first layer. The second layer is much easier to apply because you don’t have oddly shaped foodstuffs to cover – just one big pre-foiled lump.
I like this technique on campfires, but it doesn’t do much for me on the grill. Since the food is sealed in foil, you don’t get much of the smoky flavor. Might as well cook the packets in the oven.
My favor grilling technique lately involves large cuts of meat (pork shoulders, legs of lamb, turkeys) being cooked indirectly for a looooong time. I’ve also learned that when direct grilling meat, it’s better to control my masculine instincts and use a smaller, cooler fire. More control.
This is no help to you, but I want to confess my amazing grill ignorance in hopes of
Getting some grilling tips, and
Helping some other poor schmuck avoid the mistake I made.
A few years ago, my sister gave me a simple charcoal grill for my birthday. I’ve only used it a few times, because being a pescaterian means my grilling options are limited and expensive, and besides which, I suck at grilling.
YOu know how the charcoal bag says to fill the grill with no more than 30 briquets? Bullshit, I always thought: 30 briquets barely covered the bottom of the contraption, and left the coals way too far away from the actual grill part. Unless, of course, I used the strange small grill part to cook the food on, in which case 30 briquets came up almost to touch the grill part.
So I always used about 60 or 70 briquets, and they took forever to ash over, and the flames were still way too far from the grill, so the food took forever to cook.
A few weeks ago, I tremulously brought the grill out again. This time, however, I had a brainstorm: maybe I was supposed to pile the briquets on top of the smaller grill, and cook on the larger grill?
:smack:
It worked beautifully. How come nobody ever told me this?
So what other grilling techniques do y’all have for the non-warm-blooded-critter-eaters out here?
I have long admired your posts. I eagerly read what you write on this board. You’re one of the few folks whose threads I will open, regardless of the title.
Having said that … if we ever meet in person, I will mock you mercilessly and call you a girly-man who can’t make fire.
I don’t grill fish as a rule, but I have eaten catfish (and other types of swimmy creatures) that was grilled. One tip I would pass on for grilling fish – lay aluminum foil (lightly coated with some type of oil, such as Pam cooking spray) on top of the grill (the COOKING grill, not the BRIQUET grill) and place your fish on that once the coals are ready. It makes no difference in the heat transfer; the fish will still cook. However, there will be much less tendency for the fish to stick to the grill, and it will be much easier to flip the fish and cook them to the desired temperature.
Fair enough! In my defense, I’m guessing that somebody at some point told you to put briquets on the briquet grill, or at least referred to it as a briquet grill in your presence. My girlymanhood was due to ignorance. Further in my defense, I bake a fabulous quiche, which my mother-in-law just adores.
The aluminum foil sounds like a good idea; we’ve definitely had problems with salmon sticking to the grill. Won’t that mean getting less of the good smoky flavor in the fish, though? Should we poke holes in the foil so that the smoke can get through to the fish?
Get yourself a charcoal chimney. It looks like a real big tin can with a handle on it that you fill with your briquets (it fits ~30), stick a piece of newspaper under it, and light it. It gets your coals good and toasty in record time, with very little required accelerant. IMO, it’s an absolute necessity for charcoal grillers.
Umm … I read the directions that came with my grill. They were quite helpful in understanding where the charcoal goes, and where the food goes.
You realize this isn’t helping your cause, don’t you?
Yes. A few well-placed holes will let the smoke seep through the foil. Alternatively, you can use a piece of foil that’s smaller than the grill surface. Either way, be sure to cover the grill while the fish is cooking.
If you want to grill fish or items that might fall through the bars on your grill, I suggest you get one of those, um, subgrills (there’s probably a better word for this.) It’s a flat sheetmetal piece with many holes punched in it. There are handles on both ends.
Anyway, spray the thing with PAM® or wipe with cooking oil. Spray the fillets lightly, too. Sprinkle the fishies with herbs. If you aren’t herb-savvy, just use Mrs. Dash.® Put them on the subgrill, and put the subgrill on the grill. Cook 5 minutes on each side. Ideally, the meat should come apart in flakes when probed with a fork, but not be dry. Serve with lemon wedges.
Oh, one more thing. When you take the subgrill off the grill, it’s going to drip oily fish juice, so put it on a section of newspaper to carry it back into the kitchen.
If there’s a string quartet at your party, you can exclaim, “Viola!” when you serve the dish. Few of us yanks can pronounce “voila” properly, so we might as well quit it.
Daniel, I was going to suggest a fish basket too. The beauty about those is that you can just flip the whole thing over - no messing with the fish and making it fall apart. I hate to cook fish in the house, so most of my fish cooking is outside on the grill. It’s really good with salmon and shrimp are fantastic, but some of the flakier whitefish flakes too easily. It can be done, just use cooking spray and be gentle.
Those baskets are also great for grilling veggies. Grilled asparagus with olive oil and sea salt… Mmmmm!
Lefty – (Gotta use a he-manly type nickname for grilling talk, right?)
We had salmon and shrimp on the grill last weekend (since I don’t eat much red or white meat either), with the shrimp on skewers and the salmon right on the grill. No real problem sticking, though it was ‘filets’ with skin and I put it skin side down for the last part, which probably helped it stay together. A little oily marinade adds flavor, and puts a little more fat dripping on to the coals, which is what gives the good grill flavor.
Don’t forget the eggplant, peppers, tomatoes, and pineapple, also right on the grill, or skewered.
Firm fish like swordfish can be cut into chunks and shish-ke-bobbed, too.
Okay, that’s it–I’m grilling this weekend. I’ve got the marinade down pat–I’ve done lots of salmon broiled, pan-fried, and poached, and will just use a little more oil in the grill version.
These tips look great; better yet, Sauron’s mocking me for not reading the instruction manual (I swear my sister didn’t give me the manual when she gave me the grill) inspired me to go to Weber’s web site, where they’ve got all kinds of advice for grilling.
You’re supposed to leave the lid on, eh? Who woulda thunk?
If it’s any consolation, for many years I didn’t know about closing the lid on the grill. I learned my grilling secrets from my dad, who basically put meat on until it was almost black. He handled flare-ups by squirting the coals with a watergun. I never understood how something could be carbonized on the outside and almost raw on the inside.
When I invested in my first Weber, it came with a decent-sized booklet with all sorts of grilling tips. I got most of my info from there, and learned by mistakes the rest of the time.
I LOVE the Weber grill. My wife wants to get a gas grill, but I’m hopelessly addicted to charcoal.
Fair enough! In my defense, I’m guessing that somebody at some point told you to put briquets on the briquet grill, or at least referred to it as a briquet grill in your presence. My girlymanhood was due to ignorance. Further in my defense, I bake a fabulous quiche, which my mother-in-law just adores.