Newspaper Page Text
14A
■FORSYTH COUNTY NEWS—WEDNESDAY, OCTOBER 2, 1985
Mesquite adds flavor to grilled foods
If you want to grill food, the besl
thing you can do is throw out the
briquets and lighter fluid.
So says master griller George Ger
mon, who with his wife Johanne Kill
een owns and cooks for the much
celebrated A 1 Fomo restaurant in
Providence, R.I. The restaurant,
which has won national recognition in
such magazines as Redbook, Gen
tleman’s Quarterly and Bon Appetit,
is particularly noted for its grilled
food.
The success of A 1 Fomo has coin
cided with a national obsession with
grilled food that began two years ago
when the country “discovered” mes
quite, a weed tree of the Southwest.
All of a sudden, everyone was adding
mesquite wood chips to their charcoal
fires to give pungent new flavor to
steaks and chops.
Today, the focus on grilling has
broadened, and innovative cooks are
learning that other woods, such as
grape and apple, can be used to add
interesting flavors to food cooked on a
charcoal fire. And more and more
people are discovering that they pre
fer old-fashioned natural hardwood
charcoal to the more familiar char
coal briquets. (Germon uses hard
wood charcoal exclusively at A 1
Fomo and for home grilling.)
Hardwood charcoal is made from
wood such as red oak, hickory or
maple, which is converted to irregu
lar-sized black chunks of charcoal
through a process that may be simply
described as burning with oxygen.
Says Germon: “When we first
opened, people were sending food
back, complaining that it didn’t taste
‘charcoal-grilled.’ Actually, the fla
vor that they were missing was just
the briquets.”
There is an art to making real
charcoal, says Garmon, and the way
it is done, as well as the kind of wood
that is used, affects the grilling proc
ess. For example, hickory charcoal
pops when it’s first lighted, and it
imparts a stronger flavor to food than
red oak charcoal.
Size is a factor, too: Germon likes
to use “softball-sized” chunks rather
than smaller ones that tend to
smother the fire because they fit too
closely together.
Hardwood charcoal is sold in five-,
10- and 20-pound bags, just as the
more familiar charcoal briquets are,
and it costs $4 to $5 for 10 pounds,
which compares to about $3.60 for 10
pounds of briquets. It is easily lighted
with a little dry kindling and paper.
No need for the petroleum-based
lighter fluid that, as Germon sees it,
“has no place in good cooking.”
A hardwood charcoal fire takes
about the same amount of time to
reach cooking stage as briquets do
20 to 30 minutes, depending on the
amount of charcoal used. “A lot of
people habitually use too much char
coal,” warns Germon. “Then they
wonder why it takes them so long to
cook.” Hardwood charcoal also bums
hotter than briquets, so less is re
quired to create the same amount of
heat.
As a rough gauge, use a generous
handful of charcoal per person to be
served. Or, estimate by spreading
charcoal in a single layer that is
roughly the size of the grill surface
the food will cover.
The fire is ready to cook on when all
the flames have died down and the
coals are glowing red with a slight
blush of ash on their surfaces. Out
doors, the hot coals may look blue. A
good general rule is that, if you can
hold your hand within a few inches of
the coals only to a count of three,
they’re ready. Use an implement to
spread them into a single layer for
even heat distribution.
If your grill is not already clean, it
should be scraped down with a wire
brush to remove charred material
and grease that impart a bitter taste
to the food. (When cooking fish, it’s
especially important to use a clean
grill.) To keep food from sticking,
paint or spray the grid with vegetable
oil, then place above coals.
Before grilling on any type of char
coal, food should be allowed to come
to room temperature. If desired,
paint chicken or fish with a good
quality olive oil to keep the pieces
moist. A good technique for meats is
to remove a bit of fat and use this to
rub the hot grill. Fish should be
seared when the grill is hottest so that
juices are sealed inside.
If desired, sprinkle the food to be
grilled with herbs, or marinate for a
half-hour in a simple mixture of bal
samic vinegar and extra-virgin olive
oil, or lemon juice with olive oil and
garlic, suggests Germon “A mari
nade tenderizes and adds flavor, and
the meat will pick up the smoke from
the fire differently, too.”
“If it catches before you want it to,
reach in with a metal implement and
just roll it a bit to put out the fire. Or,
you can remove it and douse it with
water before replacing. After a while,
you can move it to the center of the
fire and just let it bum.”
To intensify the smoky flavor,
cover the grill, if it has a cover,
during the final few minutes of cook
ing, or simply place a pie-pan over
the food on the grill to catch the
smoke.
You can use almost any hardwooc
to flavor food, and the pieces need nol
be large. Fallen twigs or prunec
branches from an ash, willow, rec
oak or maple tree are ideal; apple
peach or lilac work well, too, anc
their perfumy smoke is a good ac
companiment tor chicken or pork.
Grapevines or trimmings impart i
strong flavor that is similar to mes
quite; Germon likes to use them witf
fish. Cherry wood gives a distinctive
flavor, too. Soft woods such as pine
should not be used because they give
a bitter flavor to food, and hemlock,
Germon notes, is poisonous.
Another way to add aromatic flavor
to grilled food is to sprinkle two or
three teaspoons of dried or fresh
herbs on the coals just before you
take the food off.
As the food cooks, watch carefully
and move pieces that are cooking
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quickly to cooler parts of the grill. If
the coals flare up, move the food
away from the flame. Says Germon,
by way of general advice: “Anyone
can char a piece of meat black, but
that’s not the goal here.”
Avoid piercing meats to test for
doneness flavorful juices may be
lost. Salt meat only after it has been
turned so that it doesn’t become
tough, and use salt sparingly, be
cause the flavor of smoke tends to
intensify saltiness. When the meat is
done, remove it from the grill and
drizzle with a little olive oil. It’s a
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good idea to let the meat sit for eight
to 10 minutes to concentrate the fla
vor. Quick-cooking foods such as fish
should be slightly undercooked on the
grill, because they will continue to
cook for a minute or so after they’re
taken off.
The myriad flavors that can be
achieved by using different woods,
herbs and marinades are what keep
the excitement in grilling for Ger
mon: “I make a fire every day, and
it’s never the same. The charcoal is
different (sometimes there’s more
hickory in it, sometimes more oak),
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the wood I add is different... the fire
even bums differently depending on
the surrounding temperature, humid
ity and barometric pressure.”
Germon does not like gas grills:
“They take just as long to heat up as a
properly built charcoal fire, and
there is an electric aftertaste to the
food, such as you taste when you bum
a piece of toast in a toaster. Unlike
charcoal or wood, the lava rocks that
are used in a gas grill impart no
flavor of their own. Sometimes, peo
ple will say that the first time they
cooked on their gas equipment, they
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1985.
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missed the ‘charcoal’ flavor, but that
after a few times, they thought they
could taste something. Actually, all
they’re tasting is the accumulated
grease and drippings from earlier
meals.
“The nice thing about grilling on
hardwood charcoal and wood is that it
makes the simplest foods special.
And it’s a very natural and direct
method of cooking. But you can’t
cheat the grill: Use only the freshest,
best ingredients you can find, and
you’ll be rewarded with superb fla
vor.”
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