Fire It Up - Andrew Schloss [3]
Bilevel Grilling
When direct grilling over charcoal or wood, it helps to set up two heat levels. Let’s say you’re cooking a 2-inch thick porterhouse steak. You want to sear both sides over medium-high to high heat, but then you’ll need to move it over to medium or medium-low heat so it can cook through without burning on the surface. On a gas grill, you just turn down the temperature knob. But on a charcoal or wood grill, it’s best to create two different heat levels. To set up a charcoal or wood grill for bilevel grilling, rake the hot coals into a bed that’s 3 to 4 inches thick on one side and 1 to 2 inches thick on the other. Set the grill grate in place, preheat it, and use the higher heat area to sear meats, fish, and vegetables. Use the lower heat area for toasting breads and keeping foods warm. If anything starts to burn over the high-heat area, move it to the low-heat area. See the chart above for details. Again, we give a range of temperatures for each heat level in the chart, but each recipe will specify a temperature within that range.
CROSSHATCH MARKS
Grill grates comes in all configurations these days, but most consist of multiple parallel metal bars. To create a diamond pattern of crosshatch marks with such a grill grate, preheat the grill to high heat, and scrape and oil the grate. Think of the grate as a clock, and set your food on the hot grate, pointing the food to 10 o’clock. When the food is nicely grill-marked, rotate it 45 degrees to 2 o’clock. Cook until nicely grill-marked again. You’ll need at least 2 to 3 minutes over high or medium-high heat to create deep grill marks in each direction. That means you’ll have to cook the food for at least 4 to 6 minutes per side. If the food will overcook in that time but you really want nice grill marks, create the marks on the first side only, then flip the food and finish cooking. When serving, flip again so that the grill-marked side is faceup.
HEATING AND TURNING
When food is grilled, very intense heat hits the food’s surface, but the heat slows down dramatically from there. It is only gradually transferred to the center of the food. So the surface of grilled food can burn before the center is done. To solve the problem, start the food over high heat to brown both sides (which creates flavor), then move it to low heat to finish cooking without burning the surface. If you have no low-heat area, then frequent turning will give the surface away from the heat a rest from the intense flame and allow time for the heat retained in the food to make its way to the center. When cooking over a raging fire, turn your food often for a well-browned crust and a center that’s not raw.
Indirect Grilling
Direct grilling will burn the surface of big and dense foods that take more than 30 minutes to cook through. Tough cuts and large roasts (like beef brisket, pork shoulder, whole chickens, and turkeys), large whole fish, and dense vegetables (like whole potatoes) require longer cooking with lower heat. For indirect grilling, you put the food away from the heat and close the lid, turning the grill into something closer to an oven. Indirect grilling opens up all kinds of cooking possibilities, such as grill-roasting a whole turkey; grill-braising beef cheeks; and grill-baking an apple, a cake, or a custard.
To set up a gas grill for indirect grilling, light some burners but leave the others off. For a two-burner gas grill, light just one side and put the food over the other, unheated side. If your grill has three or more burners, you can light one side of burners or light the outside burners and put the food over the unheated middle area. We prefer the latter for