Never use a fork when cooking steak, as you will pierce it and the juices will escape

Don't use the lean meat, you want some fat in it, otherwise you will have very dry burgers

Here are mine:
-Clean the grill.
-Always begin with cooking brats. They make a good snack for the cook and provided lubrication for the rest of the food to be grilled. When brats are done, drop them into a bath of beer on the side burner to simmer.

For burgers:
-Use ground chuck. I know that there is more fat but that equals flavour on the grill.

-Make a 4-5 oz. patty. Crimp an edge rim (ala a pie crust) onto one side of the patty (this prevents the patty from shrinking on the grill)

-1. Set it on the grill, crimped edge up. 2. Leave it. 3. Close the lid and come back in four minutes. Flip, repeat steps #2 & #3.

For flank steak:
Marinade in bourbon and ginger. Slice vertically. While slicing cuts like flank steak and skirt steak, it is tempting to cut on the bias. It looks nice but cutting straight up and down leaves a less chewy piece of meat.

Form your burgers so they are thicker at the edges and (slightly) thinner in the middle. (Such as 1/2 inch at the edge and 1/3 inch in the middle.) The edge will shrink, and they will be even when cooked!

Also only flip your burgers once! (Otherwise they dry out.) And don't "flatten" them with the spatula while grilling. (You'll lose the juices/flavor.)

That is excellent advice. I can't stand when my wife brings home 95% lean ground beef for burgers. Even 90%.

85% is a happy medium... enough fat for flavor and moist burgers, but not so much that flare ups are a major problem.

Four minutes/side? You sure you're not getting mixed up with a thick steak, medium rare?

Wish I could cook a burger in eight minutes.

Grind your own meat for burgers

Buy quality meat (read prime or dry aged to the tune of 25-28 days) this makes all the difference in the world. Even those of you who like things *gasp* well done. These steaks will still be tender.

Buy a grill with a real searing unit (I just ordered mine!) for a very high heat to lock in jucies



I've also been smoking a ton of stuff on the grill lately (whole turkey, pork, chicken. Going to do ribs this weekend). The key to this is the dry rub, wood chips and using indirect heat.

Make tomorrow's meal today - use the covered BBQ as an oven , then with the coals still hot, do your grilling. This also helps to avoid raising the temperature in the kitchen, since you will not be using the oven.

I really don't understand the foil-pack method for grilling fish or vegs. Why bother? Just cook it in the oven or on the cooktop.

I love grilled fish (granted, it can be sticky!) and grilled veg (directly on the grates - especially eggplant/aubergine or squash/courgettes or asparagus).

I guess I don't understand the 'searing unit' concept. Is it electric? How is it different than my method - heat the grill on high to burn off excess 'stuff', clean/scrape, then throw the meat on for a good sear, then turn the heat down for final cooking?

I guess I could also just heat up my cast iron skillet, sear the meat, then throw it on the grill.

Please explain. :confused:

Triple-wrap one to six shucked corn-on-the-cob ears in aluminum foil with an ice cube or two.

Grill at the same time as the meat, turning the package ever few minutes.

If the meat for hamburgers on the grill is not as perfect as you wish, try "fake filets": make fairly thick hamburger-ish patties and wrap with a good slice of bacon or two; toothpick to hold together.

With less than perfect ground beef, I also usually put in a couple of tablespoons of fine seasoned bread crumbs per two pounds of meat to help things cohere.

Of course, if you run out of room on the grill for that fish, try THIS variation..... ;)

(I first read about this technique in Sunset Magazine in the 1970s, although IIRC they did a whole fish, not just fillets).

Get a nice thick fish steak -- halibut, ono, 'ahi, or even salmon.

Put on cedar plank (soak the cedar plank in water first) after spraying plank with a non-stick vegetable spray.

Baste fish with soy sauce and fresh minced ginger and garlic.

Put plank-with-fish-on-it on the grill. Baste a few more times. Cook til done :)

If you had been planning to slow-smoke your pork ribs 12-18 hours using charcoal and mesquite/hickory/apple wood, but find you only have 6-10 hours, boil the rib slabs first for about 3 minutes. This will reduce the final product's tenderness somewhat, but slightly-less-tender smoked ribs are better than no smoked ribs at all.