Old Flame is Heating Up!
PHOTO: We have four good barbecue photos that might go with this chapter. They're paperclipped in section labeled page 223.
Are you about to barbecue something? Then you're part of an ancient tradition. Barbecuing is actually man's oldest form of cooking; the outdoors was man's first kitchen and an open fire his first stove. The earliest cooking method was to lay food on smoldering embers or impale it on sticks held over a fire or dying coals.
It wasn't until the 1950s, however, that backyard barbecuing as we know it began to catch on. It may surprise you, but auto mogul Henry Ford played a major role in this$and it had nothing to do with his automobiles. Ford's contribution to backyard barbecuing was the invention of the charcoal briquet. In the late 1920s, it was Ford who had the better idea of grinding charcoal, combining it with a starch, and re-forming it into uniform pillow shaped briquets. These charcoal briquets burned more consistently and more evenly than randomly sized and shaped lumps of charcoal.
People immediately began using charcoal briquets for industrial purposes, but backyard grills weren't readily available yet. In the 1950s, when
backyard grills became widely available, and outdoor cooking really began to take off. The combination of outdoor grills and the charcoal briquets made barbecuing so easy and reliable, that today, according to a Barbecue Industry Association survey, seven out of ten American households own a barbecue grill, and we use them about 1.5 billion times a year total.
Frank and I also barbecue, but it took some learning on my part. In spite of being someone who loves to cook, before marrying Frank, I'd never barbecued. I'd never even thought to buy an outdoor grill.
What I'd been missing! Frank does own a barbecue, a nice handsome one that can manage chickenburgers for our combined eighteen children and grandchildren all at once. I love it, because we can all be outdoors, playing volley ball or watching the young ones, with their arsenal of squirt guns, as they gang up on Frank$and the beauty of it all is that no one has to miss a moment of the fun by having to go into the kitchen to fuss with dinner.
If you've been barbecuing for years, skip ahead to the recipes. But if you're like me and still new at it, here are some tips that can help you get uniformly good results. The tips come from the Perdue food scientists and home economists, from Cooperative Extension and from the Barbecue Industry Association.
_Start with a clean grill. Removing old ashes assures good air circulation, and cleaning away any cooked-on bits of food results in better flavor and quality.
_Be sure to wash everything after handling raw meat. Don't use the same plate for the cooked meat that you used for the uncooked meat unless you've washed it in between.
_Coat grate with vegetable cooking spray, or brush with cooking oil to prevent food from sticking.
_If the basting sauce contains oil, however, do not grease the grill; too much oil causes flare-ups.
_Prepare the fire a half hour or more before grilling. For quick lighting, use a chimney starter with crumpled newspaper in the bottom and briquets or charcoal above. Or stack the charcoal in a pyramid shape and light with a liquid or electric starter, following the manufacturer's directions. Charcoal is ready for cooking when it's 80% ashy grey in daylight, glowing red at night. This usually takes about 25 to 30 minutes.
_Toss a handful of aromatic wood chips such as mesquite, hickory, alder, or fruitwood chips over the coals. They'll create a whole new dimension of flavor without adding any extra calories.
_Check the temperature of the fire before cooking food to prevent over- or under-cooking. For most of the recipes in this chapter, the fire should be medium-hot with a single, even layer of coals lightly covered with grey ash. It's relatively simple to judge the temperature of a charcoal fire. To do this, hold your hand, palm side down, at cooki_Cook white-meat poultry until juices run clear and the meat reaches an internal temperature of 170o to 175oF and dark meat to 180o to 185oF on a meat thermometer.
_Grill smaller poultry parts and Cornish game hens directly over a single layer of coals on an open grill or hibachi.
_Grill whole birds and larger parts using the indirect method in a covered grill. Place a drip pan beneath the bird; the pan should be slightly larger than the bird. Fill the pan halfway with water, and surround it with a double layer of coals to provide longer, slower, oven-like cooking. Add extra coals to the outer edge of the fire as needed to extend grilling.
_To reduce the chance of overbrowning, apply tomato-based sauces or those containing sugar or other sweeteners only during last 20 to 30 minutes of grilling.
_To make breast quarters grill more quickly and evenly, cut through the wing joint to break it and bring the wing closer to the grill.
_Chicken should be well-done. If you don't want to take the usual time it takes, cook your chicken partially in the microwave and then finish it on the grill.
_The basic guidelines for timing chicken on the grill are:
Parts$Cook dark meat 30 minutes, white meat 15 minutes, basting and turning every five or so minutes.
Halves$First, grill skin side down for 5 minutes, then cook covered, skin side up, 35-40 minutes.
Wings$10 minutes per side.
Whole$(about 3 and 1/2 pounds...About 1 and 1/4 to 1 and 1/2 hours in a covered grill, 1 and 1/2 to 2 hours on rotisserie.
_Use tongs rather than a fork to turn food gently without losing juices.
_If you plan to use marinade as a sauce to be served with chicken during the meal, be sure to cook it before using. You want to avoid the cross-contamination that can come from contact with the uncooked chicken. Temperatures over 140 degrees will destroy any microbes.
Chicken Recipes - The Perdue Chicken Cookbook
Copyright (C) by Mitzi Perdue - Used with Permission
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