Around the House: Let’s Get Fired Up

By Yehudit Garmaise

Summer is the perfect time to head out to the backyard and grill up everything from steak, hamburgers, chicken, and fish.

Seasoned corn, potatoes, vegetables, pineapple and peaches also taste and look great when grilled.

RocklandDaily provides a few tips to get your barbeque party started.

1. Meat should be near room temperature before grilling, so start defrosting the night before and take it out of the refrigerator 10 minutes before you are ready to cook.  

2. Give your grill masters cold drinks before sending them out to cook, because it is going to get hot near the barbeque. Keep young children away from the barbeque.

3. Use long metal utensils vs. plastic, which will melt from the heat.

4.     For grilling vegetables and fruits, you can wrap them in tin foil first or use stainless steel baskets with long handles.

5. Oil it up: Like cooking pans, barbeque grates need little oil to keep food from sticking to them. Before turning on the grill, pour some olive oil onto a paper towel and rub it all over the grate or spray them with a cooking spray like Pam.

6. Wait 5 to 10 minutes before starting to cook: Whether you are lighting charcoal or using a gas grill, barbeque grills are not ready to cook on until they are fully pre-heated. Plus, if you are using lighter fluid, you want those fumes to burn off and not penetrate your food. 

7. Don’t let the heat get too high: or the meat will get too charred on the outside, while remaining raw on the inside.

8. Make a perfect burger: Help your burgers to cook evenly by making them consistent in thickness. Also, use your finger to pinch the center of the burger to create a small indent that will allow the heat to distribute more evenly. Try not to flip the burgers too much because the meat starts to fall apart. 

9. For delicious chicken that is crispy on the outside and juicy on the inside: use low heat and turn it often with tongs.

10. For steaks and other red meat on the bone, cook on a higher heat and don’t flip too often.

11. Check that your meat is cooked all the way through: Don’t serve chicken that is not white all the way through. Red meat should only be slightly, if at all pink at the center, depending on how you like it done. 

12. Take food off the grill a minute early: because it will continue to cook a little once off the heat.

13. Keep the raw foods away from the cooked: It might be easy to take the raw burgers off one plate and then use the same plate to put them back on once they are cooked, but use a new plate, or salmonella and other bacteria can easily be transferred to your beautiful barbeque dinner.

Photo: Weber