These Are a Few of My Favorite Things
It’s that time of year, at least in the Greater Chicago area where I live, to dust off your grill, gather up your grilling tools, and replenish the charcoal and wood pellets/chips for another season of live-fire cooking. So it’s appropriate that we’re kicking off the These Are a Few of My Favorite Things series with me telling you about some of the things I love.
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Flavors of the Southeast Asian Grill: A shameless book plug? You bet. The Kindle version is $2.99 right now—just about the same price as a tall latte at Starbucks for a body of work containing information I spent decades learning and another two years writing and publishing.
Weber Original Kettle Premium Charcoal Grill, 22-inch, Copper: You can’t beat Weber. You just can’t. I learned how to grill growing up in Bangkok, but when I came to the US, I had to learn how to use the tools available here and what’s a better learning tool than the standard Weber kettle grill. So easy to use. So easy to control the fire. So easy to clean. So reliable. I’ll use this grill until I’m too old to grill, and I’ll love it until the day I die. (I love the copper color. Pick any color you like.)
Weber Go-Anywhere Charcoal Grill: Weber also makes a great compact hibachi-style grill which I use all year round. When I want to reverse-sear a piece of steak, grill meat or vegetables on skewers, or char-grill small things, like shallots or peppers for various Thai relishes (lots of recipes in the Relishes issue of Dill Magazine), I use this grill. You get the smoky flavor of charcoal without having to light up lots of coal for a larger grill. Plus, it’s portable! I’m not much into camping, but for those of you who do, I’m sure this small grill comes in handy.
One thing I really like about the Weber Go-Anywhere grill is that it’s rectangular. When it comes to two-zone cooking (explained in my book mentioned above), which I nearly always prefer, a rectangular grill offers you more grilling surface than a round grill of roughly the same size (in this case, this would be the Weber Smokey Joe portable kettle grill, which I also own and love).
Speaking of rectangular grills, the PK Grills PKO-SCAX-X charcoal grill and smoker combo is perfect. I don’t have this grill yet, but I fell in love with it when I used the one I’d borrowed from a friend a few years ago. Grilling enthusiasts like Aaron Franklin (of the Franklin Barbecue fame, who has kindly endorsed my Flavors of the Southeast Asian Grill book) love the PK Grills. Meathead Goldwyn, another endorser of the FOTSAG book, is also a fan. This rust-proof cast aluminum grill is solid—it’s built to last.
You know what? I’m gonna buy myself one after I send this newsletter. I’ve been putting it off long enough.
Weber 18-inch Smokey Mountain Cooker: When I’m lazy, which is most of the time, I smoke my pork shoulder and brisket in my Green Mountain (Daniel Boone) pellet smoker—just set it and forget it. However, pellet grills have limitations: they don’t give your food a very strong “smokehouse flavor.” You need this solid smoker from Weber, which I use when I’m not so lazy (it requires some babysitting). The advantage is the best pulled pork or brisket you’ll ever have. Last grilling season, I smoked a hunk of pork shoulder and used it to make barbecue pork noodles (recipe in Bangkok), and I still dream about it. The 14-inch model is a bit too small, whereas the 22-inch model is quite big and appropriate for large families. The 18-inch model is the Goldilocks.
What I also love about the Smokey Mountain cooker is that the bottom part can be used as a small portable kettle grill. Two pieces of equipment in one!
Western Premium smoking chips: I use these high-quality chips when I smoke meats with my Smokey Mountain cooker or Weber kettle grill set up for smoking (details in the FOTSAG book). Wood chips are also great when you have a gas grill and not a charcoal grill. A gas grill may char your food, but it doesn’t offer the smoky flavor a charcoal grill does. One way to fix that is to use wood chips. Some gas grills come with a wood chip drawer, but if yours doesn’t, I recommend a hexagonal pellet tube, which works with wood pellets, or a stainless steel smoker box, which works with wood chips.
Weber Rapidfire Chimney Starter: Hands down the quickest, most straightforward way to light briquettes. Don’t use the lighter fluid. Yuck. Even the odorless one is bad. Use this thing. And make sure it’s Weber because it’s the best and will last a long time. One chimney’s worth of briquettes will fill a standard 22-inch kettle grill. I almost always do two-zone grilling, though, as this setup makes it very easy for me to control the heat (you have to try very hard by pretending to be super careless to burn food in the two-zone situation) and get impossibly crisp skin on my chicken thighs, so I usually half-fill my chimney with briquettes.
All you have to do is fill the chimney with briquettes or wood coals, then light them from underneath. In about a minute, the entire chimney will be on fire, creating a black smoke followed by a thick white smoke. Wait until you see a thin, wispy “blue” smoke before spreading the briquettes onto the bottom of the grill.
And the easiest way to light a chimney full of briquettes is to use one of these bad boys: Weber lighter cubes. No more crumpled magazine pages. These little white things never fail. So easy to use. Two cubes would be enough to light up a chimney full of briquettes—only one if you half-fill the chimney.
Lastly, when the cooking is done, you need to clean your grill/smoker grates. Contrary to what you may have heard, dirty grates don’t make food taste better; it’s the opposite, as Meathead Goldwyn has explained. I like the GrillArt grill brush and scraper; it does the job well.
That’s it for now, dear readers. Happy grilling! I’ll see you in the next dispatch of The Epestle.