Weber Kettle Club Forums
Cooking & Food Talk => Charcoal Grilling & BBQ => Topic started by: mike.stavlund on March 24, 2013, 06:13:14 AM
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I'm sure a lot of you good folks are like me-- all of your friends know all about your crazy passion for Weber grills. Heck, Weber even comes up in the classes I teach (not related to grilling or even cooking or food or anything of the sort). Some people are troubled by this passion, others are amused, and still others are impressed (both with the world of charcoal cooking and with the delicious food it produces). And still others have the courage and inner fortitude it takes to step up and say, "I'd like to learn how to do this myself". At which point they are officially welcomed into my unofficial little email group I call "The Circle of Fire". Eventually they are invited to one of our WeberFests, where we line up everyone's kettle at some central location and start cooking our favorite dishes.
But I'm getting ahead of myself. Once they show this initial interest, the first order of business is finding them a kettle (usually used). And after that, I try to assign them their first project. What I've always done is to send them off to roast a whole chicken, since I find that most folks already have some experience with gas grill direct-heat cooking of burgers and brats and stuff. My intent is to get them to look at their kettle in a whole new way: as a very efficient and delicious convection oven. Plus chicken is cheap and quick and forgiving and easy to season and widely enjoyed. My hope is that this chicken project will be a portal to all kinds of other roasts and vegetables and even to baking on the kettle.
So my question for the Kettle Crew here is, what would be your first assignment for a newbie kettle cook? Pork tenderloin? Steaks? Burgers? Salmon? The apprentice's favorite dish?
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Chicken is a good start. I have found fire management to be the key to turning out well cooked food. I just picked up Weber's "Way to grill" and just looking thru it, it has a lot of how tos, such as how to trim different meats or how to set up different fire zones etc.
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Though burgers come out fantastic and with wood chips on the coals they will never go back to gas.
Next chicken
Then ribs
My two cents
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Can't beat brined chook
It'll be the most succulent, tastiest chicken they've ever had
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Brined chicken is a good first call. I brine my pork tenderloins too. Juiciest I have ever eaten.
Teach them about fire temp control. Have them cook a perfect hot dog. I have so many friends that consider themselves masters of the grill and they serve these blackened puss rocket hot dogs. Seriously? Why do so many people torch hotdogs?
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This is all very helpful, thanks.
Brining is another key skill that I forgot. Essential for turkey, and it's good to practice on chickens too.
And ribs are rewarding-- they require fire control, but not for too many hours.
It's funny, some of my apprentices never even get past burgers and steaks, but others go right from the roast chicken to whole pork shoulders. I picked up a free kettle for a friend of mine last summer. The guy giving it away needed room for his new huge whiz-bang side smoker/grill combo monstrosity that was easily 8 feet wide. He was all frustrated because he had spent 14 straight hours tending the fire in his new smoker for two pork butts that turned out terrible. I didn't have the heart to tell him that he was giving away a *great* smoker. Within a week, my buddy was turning out great butts without breaking a sweat.
...sometimes the kettle gets no respect, and that is great for those of us in the know. ;-)
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...sometimes the kettle gets no respect, and that is great for those of us in the know.
"But the ever versatile kettle reigned supreme"
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As I taught the XC, brining is the key to poultry and pork.
The Webers Real Grilling cookbook is fantastic at explaining direct cooking, indirect cooking and fire zones.
When I first bought a WK, I found burgers and steak (mostly because I love my beef mooing when I put a fork into it) were simple. Chicken was easy as long as you didn't walk away to replenish your beverage.
With that being said, there is nothing like trial and error. The first several cooks the the XC did (and myself for that matter) were trial and error. We ruined a great many dinners. This might sound cliche, but cooking on a WK is feel. The "hot" zones aren't always the same. No matter what anyone says, all WK's aren't the same. There is no "magic touch" to a WK, but once you figure out yours, there is no limit to what you can do. As you go on you will learn that there are so many ways to do different things. I've been cooking on a WK for the better part of 20 yrs, but with the help of 1Buckie the XC and I learned a completely new way to do a pork shoulder and beans. It is a never ending learning curve.
Like jacoblee so eloquently said... my two cents.
Oh, and if the apprentice is your wife her favorite dish is absolutely what you want to perfect!!!! ;) ;)
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I would look for a Weber cook book - the one that comes with the grill. Weber has probably populated that with recipes that are as bullet proof as they come. My recollection is that they also include specific information down the how many briquettes you need. I'm sure they include information I would forget to tell the newby that could help to make the first experience successful and fun. Then the new owner can pick and choose what they like from the recipes provided.
I think you might be able to download the PDF from Weber.
Here's one that has the briquette counts: http://www.weber.com/assets/pdf/charcoal-user-guide.pdf
Looks like a lot of good information at weber.com under the GRILL OUT tab. (Not sure about the non-US sites though.)
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Another vote for chicken. I spatchcock all my chicken. I don't always brine but brining makes for excellent yard bird, I just don't do it when I'm short on time.
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My wife only likes burned hot dogs. That's the way her father always cooked (ruined) hot dogs her whole life growing up. I have to always cook hers until they're split and blackened. ew.
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My wife only likes burned hot dogs. That's the way her father always cooked (ruined) hot dogs her whole life growing up. I have to always cook hers until they're split and blackened. ew.
I must admit, I like them that way also :-)
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I agree with chicken first, them I'd probably go with tri tip 2nd and ribs next. After that, maybe a chuck roast.
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Roasting marshmallows? lol j/k Try cooking something with a rotisserie? Difficult to mess that up and it usually comes out great no matter what you cook.
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I'm late to this one, but I'd start off by showing direct and indirect techniques. Do some burgers and/or Hot Dogs for direct cooking, then maybe a whole chicken or a roast for indirect cooking. I'd discuss fire management>> I like that phrase, and that at its root, its covered cooking and keeping the lid on for most of the cook and not constantly removing it and poking and prodding the food. I did that a lot when I was a grill pup.
Too many people that I'm around in the 'burbs just don't get nor want to understand the kettle or charcoal grilling in general, its too inconvenient since they have massive SS gas grills.
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A nice tri-tip if you can get them... I usually sear mine first and then finsh on indirect. But I think I may try a reverse sear. I also want to try marinating one overnight.
That's the great thing, learning and experimenting never ends.. 8)
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Great question, mike. I always worry about that when I convert some one. They don't seem to realize the preparation, study, and learning that goes into consistently cooking good food. The weber makes it easy but still have to be careful.
The thing I do is introduce them to indirect vs direct cooking. Showing them that the food doesn't have to be over high heat usually opens a whole new world for them.
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Yeah, the main reason I suggest roast chicken first is because it *forces* them to think of grilling in a whole new way. Like Craig, I find that-- even when they are eating kettle-roasted meat-- people just can't grok that grilling doesn't need to be thin pieces of food right over heat. So I just tell my padawans, "Go and cook some chickens-- then come back to me and we will talk". And most of the time, a simple roast chicken is about 1 chimney of coals for about 1 hour. Pretty foolproof.
Unfortunately, tri-tip is practically nonexistent out east (in my experience, anyway-- I need to find out where Chris is getting his!). But chuck roast or pork loin is another good idea. I think I'll start suggesting ribs to people, since they take a relatively short time and have a big payoff.
And Chris, that spatchcocked chicken is a thing of beauty. I am inspired. (I picked up a Jacques Pepin cookbook on clearance the other day, and followed his instructions for de-boning a whole chicken. It went pretty smoothly, and got me thinking about boning out a whole bird, then stuffing it and tying it back together to go on the rotisserie...)
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Unfortunately, tri-tip is practically nonexistent out east (in my experience, anyway-- I need to find out where Chris is getting his!). But chuck roast or pork loin is another good idea. I think I'll start suggesting ribs to people, since they take a relatively short time and have a big payoff.
And Chris, that spatchcocked chicken is a thing of beauty. I am inspired. (I picked up a Jacques Pepin cookbook on clearance the other day, and followed his instructions for de-boning a whole chicken. It went pretty smoothly, and got me thinking about boning out a whole bird, then stuffing it and tying it back together to go on the rotisserie...)
I got all the tri-tip in my avatar at restaurant depot here in Virginia for 3.99 a pound(trimmed choice grade), that place is great! I can also get it at costco but it's more expensive and smaller. I like to spatchcock my yard bird because I believe it's easier to get it to cook evenly without drying out the breast. You can also rub the inside of the bird better that way. A while back I saw someone using wooden skewers like in the picture and it makes it way easier to handle the bird. Mike, where are you on the east coast?
Chris
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Chris, I'm in Falls Church, VA. Just outside DC. We'll have to grill together sometime.
That's good news re: the tri-tip at Restaurant Depot, as one of my apprentices has privileges there. Do you know if they have hanger steak as well?
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Chris, I'm in Falls Church, VA. Just outside DC. We'll have to grill together sometime.
That's good news re: the tri-tip at Restaurant Depot, as one of my apprentices has privileges there. Do you know if they have hanger steak as well?
Not sure if they have hanger steak but I'm willing to bet they do. Their meat section almost made me pass out after crying tears of joy, and I'm only partially joking lol. You actually can get unlimited one day passes to shop there if you're a kcbs member, that's how I got in.
Oh yeah, I'm always down to grill with a fellow BBQ connoisseur
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when I started showing my daughter how to cook on the Wk, the direct and indirect methods were the first things I showed her. First with hot dogs then burgers and then bratwursts. It was only after she understood the difference with these cooks did I move her up to chicken .
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Bob's post just reminded me, have them do Brats, some direct some indirect. That'll teach them the difference between the cooking methods better than anything else.
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Great point. It'd be good to have them use both sides of a two-zone fire for the same item. And brats are pretty forgiving.
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Brats are forgiving but they can turn into the towering inferno if left unattended on the direct side, would make for a good lesson in vent control and lid patience.
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