Grilling is healthier way to prepare lean meats, poultry and fish. During the summer months, you can almost move your kitchen out onto the barbecue. If you haven't jumped on this particular culinary bandwage, just tune into the Food Channel or cruise the cookbook aisle of your local bookstore and you'll find directions for creating exotic, elegant cuisine using the grill. Once you've got the right accessories, healthy barbecue cuisine can be a snap.
Grilling Accessories
Accessories are pretty important. Your grill doesn't need a lid or a cover, but for some foods you do need some way to cover them. A metal colander can be used to cover grilling food to create a steaming effect. Invest in a metal colander with handles for grilling purposes.
If you plan on doing different types of cooking on your grill, you'll need a cast-iron pot for stews and a hinged wire basket for grilling veggie burgers, extra firm tofu or slices of vegetables. You'll want a sharp knife available, to cut into veggies to determine their doneness. Long-handled tongs are easier to use for turning food than spatulas and can double as serving utensils. Metal or heat-resistant wood skewers are useful for making veggie kabobs that are easily turned on a grill. Heavy-duty foil is the type to use for lining grills or for wrapping food to be placed on the grill. Invest in some long-handled brushes for cleaning the grill too.
Wood and Fire
Wood and fire are highly personal items for the experienced griller. Different types of wood, such as cherry, mesquite or maple, can impart different flavors to the food. You can select different types depending on their availability.
If you have a large enough grill, you might want to have several racks in it at different heights. This way you can take advantage of all the time and effort that went into building the fire. You can wrap white or sweet potatoes or corn in foil and place them underneath the coals. You can grill heartier foods, such as eggplant, onions, carrots or winter squash, on the rack closest to the fire and more delicate items, such as extra-firm tofu, mushrooms or asparagus, on the rack furthest away from the flames. Put together a vegetable stew with chunked tomatoes, green beans, summer squash, potatoes and onions in a cast-iron Dutch oven with a cover and place it on a rack further away from the flames to cook slowly. If you have an apple, wrap it in foil with some spices and margarine and place it next to the stew pot. Your oven's going to get mighty lonely.
Grilling Tricks
Non-stick tricks
Vegetable tips. You have several choices when it comes to grilling vegetables or meat alternates. You can use frozen, unthawed vegetables or sliced, washed fresh vegetables. You can cut up vegetables or cook whole, small vegetables, such as tomatoes, baby carrots or petite sweet onions. If you think your ingredients are too delicate to place directly on the grill rack, put them in foil packets and let them steam on the grill rack. Heartier ingredients, such as carrots, potatoes or tempeh (a chewy, fermented tofu found in the refrigerator case in the market) can be placed directly on the grill or under hot coals for 10 to 15 minutes. Or you can grease a grill rack above the coals and use thick slices of mushrooms, peppers and tomatoes. If want to cover your grilling items, use an upside-down metal colander, sealing in some of the juices by creating a steaming effect.
Marinating. Grilling does take a lot of moisture out of foods, so some people like to marinate ingredients before grilling. Marinating also adds flavor to grilled items. For an elegant touch, use a wine and tarragon mixture for lean meat, potatoes or tofu. White wine, oil, garlic, onion and celery salt make a good marinade. Non-fat dairy or soy yogurt, garlic, pepper, curry and cardamom can give an Indian or Indonesian flavor to grilled foods, and they add a nice flavor and color to grilled items. If you prefer not to use wine, then vinegar, soy sauce, oil, sweetener and ginger can give an Asian flavor to grilling.
Lemon juice makes a good base for grilling marinades. Use a simple lemon juice and olive oil blend, or get a little fancier and mix lemon juice, hot sauce, onion, dry mustard and paprika. Try pineapple juice, soy sauce, lemon juice and garlic with firm vegetables. Orange juice, turmeric, ginger, garlic and lemon zest are a light marinade for summer squash or tofu. Experiment with some of your favorite salad dressings as a grilling marinade. If you are in the mood to cook, you can create a marinade with sautéed celery, onions, carrots, oil, parsley, thyme, basil and pepper that are cooked and then pureed. Or you can stew and puree dried apricots or nectarines, onions, garlic, curry powder, vinegar and cayenne and use it as a marinade.
Beets take on an inky glaze and their sweetness is magnified with grilling. Grilled potatoes are crisp on the outside and sweet and moist on the inside. Tofu and veggie burgers take on a smoky flavor that enhances their interest. Try pairing mushrooms marinated in white wine and tarragon with roasted beets and roasted white potatoes or portobello mushrooms marinated in balsamic vinegar and basil with a roasted skewer of tomatoes and summer squash or roasted sweet potatoes.
Grilling can add a new elegance to ingredients. Grilled eggplant slices stand regally on the plate. Portobello mushrooms attain a smoky richness on the grill. Marinated, grilled mushrooms or tofu paired with braised greens and sun-dried tomato pasta is reminiscent of nights on the Mediterranean coast. Be sure to grill several extra portions so you can serve your gourmet grill chilled the next day.
Grilled Sweet Peaches
Serves 4
Ingredients:
Directions:
Note: this technique can be used with fresh apricots or very soft fresh pears
To prevent food from sticking to the grill, you can either keep the grill racks greased with vegetable spray (before heating-never spray into the fire) or you can wipe the grill racks with oil before you start cooking. This will not add an appreciable amount of oil to your cooking. If you are going to put some pots on the grill, a hint for preserving pot bottoms is to coat the bottom with liquid soap. Just be sure there won't be any food directly under the pot.
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These basic BBQ safety tips are a must-have when summer approaches and millions of people dust off their barbecues, ready to enjoy the weather and delicious grilled food. |
