by Brian Simkins
Outdoor cooking and full service outdoor kitchens featuring state of the art BBQ’s are revolutionizing the way that people think about BBQ meals. It seems that days of plain old hot dogs are gone. Grilled hamburgers that could have doubled as hockey pucks are likewise quickly fading into the past. There are a number of great attachments, accessories and recipe ideas that you can utilize to maximize your outdoor cooking efficiency and to create some very memorable BBQ meals. Give the neighbors something to talk about. Be creative and see what you can create that will leave people begging for more.
A Few Suggestions
A great accessory piece that is available for many different models of popular grills is a spit. The spit functions by taking the cooking grates out of your grill installing a long metal rod through the sides of the grill. Most come with a small motor that sits outside of the grill cover and slowly turns the rod. The spit can be used to slow cook any variety of meats including, but not limited too, pork roasts, hams, chuck roasts and even whole turkeys. Imagine the look of delight on the face of your guests when you pop open the grill and they see that you’ve got an entire turkey cooking whole inside your grill! Now you are beginning to understand what it means to make a memorable BBQ meal.
Another great idea is to prepare traditional foods, but to do them in a unique way by cooking them on the grill surface. The advanced capabilities of heat control allow you to slow cook things that may not have been possible with charcoal simply because it was too hot. Do you think you could cook pizza on the grill? Absolutely you can, and it’s even easier to do well with a high quality gas grill.
The secret is that you don’t have to cook any dough. By using pre-made crusts, or even fully round pieces of pita bread, you can create single serving pizzas that the kids or your guests can custom make. Allow them to embellish their pizza with a variety of toppings, cover it with cheese and then slide it only the grill over low heat for about five minutes. When you open the grill cover back up you will be staring face to face with a perfect pizza, right down to the golden brown cheese dripping over the crust.
In the past, you used the grill to prepare the meat, but the rest of the meal was still prepared inside. Things like vegetables and side dishes had to be prepared over a traditional stove. That too, is rapidly changing. The availability of side burners for you BBQ grill gives you the ability to complete and entire meal outside and within the confines of your outdoor kitchen. Rice, vegetables, even pasta can be cooked on the side burner while you tend to the main course that is happily sizzling away on the grill.
There is another great feature of this new generation of BBQ grills that will help you create memorable BBQ meals. Most of these new grills have different heating zones on the cooking surface. One half of the grill can be fired up to high heat while the other remains low. If you need to cook different pieces of meat to different levels of rarity, then this is a great feature to have available. Additionally, you can cook different portions of the meal at the same time. Imagine being able to have stuffed jalapeño’s, steaks, and the bread that you want to toast all on the grill at the same time and to have them all cooking at the right temperature. It is now possible. Create a memorable BBQ meal by serving one that is hot and fresh because everything was cooked at the same time. No more hiding food under tinfoil to keep it warm while you cook the next piece.
If you really want to impress everyone, you can try to cook biscuits on the grill. This may sound impossible, but it really can be done, and they are quite good. The easiest way to start is with a pre-made biscuit. You can buy these in pressure sealed cans at the grocery store. Lay the biscuits out on tinfoil and put them on half of the grill. The key is to have them all on the same side. After they are in place, turn off the burner directly underneath the biscuits, but turn up the one on the opposite side. This will cause heat to build up inside the grill once close the lid, but the there will be no flame directly underneath the biscuits to burn the bottom. Do you think that the guests will shout their approval when you swing open the top of the BBQ and pull out warm, fresh, biscuits? Absolutely they will.
The best part, of course, of creating a memorable BBQ meal is enjoying the company that you have around you. Cooking outside creates an atmosphere where this kind of interaction can take place. If you think about most traditional dinner parties that take place indoors, all of the guest gather in the dining room and sit while they are served. Rarely, if ever, do they see the kitchen. That means that you are holed up in your kitchen slaving away while your guests are entertaining themselves somewhere else in the house. Outdoor BBQ cooking though, breaks down that wall. People feel welcome to gather around the grill and visit while you cook. If you’ve incorporated your grill into a full outdoor cooking station then you may even find a way to build a bar or an island around the grill. This makes an ideal place for folks to visit, and as the cook, you can stand in the middle of them and be part of the action.
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