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Any grilling aficionados who want to discuss this ritual with the same detail and care that Shak and friends discuss the tea ritual?
Lawman wants a ritual, and I say the great big gas grill he owns is a fine place to start...
Personally, I prefer to grill over an open wood fire pit, use dry seasoning rubs on the meat, and cook the veggies with a little butter and some fresh herbs sealed in foil pouches.
There have to be some more backyard gourmets around here, so lets give those tea-drinkers a run for their money here...
Wood fire, charcoal or gas?
Dry seasoning rubs, marinating or BBQ sauce?
Beverages?
brochettes
Almost time to take lunch break, and happily I have a bowl of homemade stew with me. I'd be about ready to cry if I'd brought something silly like a cheese sandwich after this thread.
They aren't served any different down here. It's filet or chicken or both; size included. If someone tries to cheat you with those small 1" cuts of cheap stew meat on a skewer, tell 'em you're busy next time 'round.
I expected Lawman to have given his Hints and Tips on "Extracting the Truth from the Accused" by now.
Onya
Woz
<added> But I guess if I had a law degree a beer would probably sound a lot better than that searchking thread.
Maybe they're afraid we'll throw away their tea again? ;) They seem to take it terribly seriously... strange, considering there's no fire or meat involved.
Not a fan of meat, but I do like flame. And propperly served tea should have flame - specifically, a "tea light" under the pot to keep it warm :) How about recipes for grilling Portabella mushrooms? I usually do olive oil and fresh garlic.
Given my experience of the tea shipped over here from the UK, chences are excellent that the stuff on that ship in Boston wasn't worth drinking anyway ;)
<added> Wait a minute. He said something about grilling mushrooms. Hold the rope.</added>
lawman
'cept steak and fish. Requires too much oil to prevent sticking.
Thought I'd better toss of few coals on the fire here before I retire. I'm a lumpy sort of guy - lump charcoal that is.
Nothing beats the flavor of a mesquite or maple charcoal grilled steak. I like to add a hunk of split maple to my grilling coals and let the flames build up to just shy of a roar. Then I dowse the flames with a squirt bottle, throw on the steak - with nothing but a smidgen of salt and pepper and then put the cover on with all the vents closed for about 10 minutes. Lets the smoke penetrate the meat real nice. Then I open the vents and let the flames come back to life to sear the meat and seal in that smokey goodness.
That, and a little Knob Creek, and I'm one happy camper!
Buy your steak now, throw it in a ziplock bag with all your favorite marinade ingrediants and toss it in the freezer. Come spring/summer take a bag out to thaw for your short notice evening get together. Your steak will come out extra tasty and tender due to the fact it marinaded while getting to frozen and marinaded while getting back to thawed.
Oooh... I hope that translates well into a cast-iron pan, because I'm not grilling in sub-zero weather...
I do it that way more often than not, actually. We don't own our own grill, so they only actually get grilled as such when I'm visiting friends and am asked to bring the vegetarian fare.
I may have to try adding other herbs to the mix. Though it really is the wrong season for herbs right now, and dried just never flavors as well.
<edit> sentence construction error </edit>
It was an exceptional dinner.
And I disagree that steak cannot be cooked in cast-iron. In the cold months up here, cast-iron is my preferred meat cooking surface. (From a non-testosterone persective.)
You need to make sure the flesh is white and firm right though. Cut your puff ball in to big slabs like steaks, fry some black bacon in a pan (bacon that has been cured in molases and beer)then with some chopped garlic fry your puff ball steak in the bacon fat until golden brown.
Make up a bed of rocket leaves, and some fetucini tossed with the chopped bacon place the puff ball steak on top, add some fresh Parmigiano Reggiano shavings some cracked black pepper. drizzle a little good olive oil, squezze of lemon juice and then Tuck in.
black bacon in a pan (bacon that has been cured in molases and beer)
Wow... if I took "regular" american bacon or ham, do you think I might be able to turn it into black bacon... or am I out of luck until I raise my own pig? I am seriously thinking of putting up fencing and raising my own livestock.... precisely because of food like this...
truth of the matter is.
I do NOT have a clue about cooking, grilling, frying etc etc.
Now "Cheese on Toast" or how to "Eat the stuff" that I could be good with :)
Shak
Otherwise, it seems I'd need my own pig to get black bacon up here. However, that is not entirely a bad idea... if I had my own feeder pigs, I could make my own black pudding also. :)
those giant puff balls you find in fields in the autumn
The ones we used to jump on as kids to watch the "smoke" billow out? I had no idea those were edible.
[edited by: lawman at 9:05 pm (utc) on Jan. 11, 2003]
[edit reason] correct typo [/edit]
But as for the billow of smoke, here's how I understood the whole puffball life cycle: A young puffball is a solid mass of mushroom-like tissue, as it gets older, the inner tissue is replaced by spores, and then a small child comes along and stomps on it, spreading the puffball spores far and wide to make more puffballs next year.
If I knew how to tell the edible ones from the poisonous ones, I might try eating one (if I can find any up here...). The only mushrooms I've noticed in my yard here are giant bright orange toadstools though, and I really don't think they'd be good for grilling. ;)
Mivox, I never said you couldn't cook a steak in cast iron. I just said it requires too much oil. :)
CI has it's place in the kitchen but frying a steak isn't what I prefer. I have, however, used a cast-iron pan to sear a steak and then broiled it in the oven. It's edible but not even close to a well grilled steak. And as for mushrooms - you betcha. Portabella mushrooms with a little dressing will cook up quite nicely in a CI pan. ;)
Interesting tip I heard for keeping steak from sticking to the pan: Sprinkle coarse pretzel salt in the pan first... acts like 'bearings' to keep the steak off the pan, I'm told. Interesting idea, but I've never tried it so I can't vouch for the effectiveness.
<sheepish>...and I used a non-stick pan to cook dinner last night, not the cast iron one.</sheepish>
