I was surprised to see this book on the JB Cookbook award nom’s for this year. There are a lot of Weber-based grill books out there. This one is by Jamie Purviance and is published by Sunset Books, both good names. At first glance, it looks like a good basic grilling 101 book. It has great photos and layout, as one would expect from Sunset editors. It does not have much on the Weber Bullet but what is has is good. It has so many rubs, marinades and sauce recipes that it might be worth the price just for those.
I read through this book and found it more substantive than at first appearance. Yes, it covers basic grilling for meats, fish and veggies. But along the way, Purviance presents the reader with culinary how-to tutorials that border on the comprehensive. This ain’t Jacques Pepin’s La Technique, but thorough enough that the editors made a index of techniques–there must be 400 of them, most with very useful photos! Not just how to truss a boneless roast, but how to puree garlic and how to spatchcock a chicken. Recipes too go beyond the basics–his bacon wrapped turkey breasts almost makes me want to buy the tasteless things and give them another go. Sauces = 48; rubs = 20 and marinades = 27. Wow.
If your grill book is a third your age, toss it and start anew with this one, where you will learn a thing or two and have recipes that are politically correct with lower salt and fat content. This book is a must gift to your son in law who char burns most everything and for the grandchild who aspires to conquer the great American cook-out.
Making the stuff from scratch was enough of a hassle that we didn’t have it at home all that often. I then discovered a curry sauce mix that is very good and quick. It is called S&B Golden Curry Sauce Mix. It’s available in many supermarkets. (Safeway has it.) It comes in three strengths—try medium-hot first. Just add 2.5 cups of water, bring it to boil, and its ready. (Note: the mix contains MSG and meat by-products.) Good as it is, it can be improved.
While shopping for a smoker, we came across some grilling skewers made of 3/32″ stainless steel preformed cable. They have a loop on one end and a fixed probe on the other. With meat and veggies strung on the cable, the loaded cable can be dangled, loop-side-down, and formed to fit onto the grill any which way that works best, straight out, serpentine or circled–with the probe end extended over the edge of the grill grate, if you wish. Since stainless steel is non-reactive, raw product, skewer and all, can be marinated if you are using only one marinade for both veggies and meat (not to my liking). They are really long–30 inches! Sufficient to load enough food for two on each skewer. Manufactured by Inno-Labs (firewiregrilling.com), the FireWire won a kitchen gadget award last year. Big Green Egg vendors have them and others too. Preformed cable is expensive–the skewers are $20 the pair. But neato!
Cooks have used preparation dishes or “prep dishes” for years to hold and organize ingredients. Line cooks in restaurants start each day preparing meat, fish, veggies and whatever they need in a hurry to prepare their assigned items for plating or to be sent to the chef for plating, where he/she has more prep dishes filled with garnishes, for example. In small kitchens, ramekins work well for this task. Their big fault is that they don’t stack.
It seems that every time we’re on the road, I have need of a cooking knife. Friend’s kitchens all have them, our favorite summer place in Duck, NC has one in each mini-kitchen, even hotel room wet bars often have a knife. All have one thing in common: they’re dull. Still, I always fail to pack a knife from my kitchen. I’d have to wrap it up, put it in a suitcase, check it as baggage and hope that the TSA won’t pull the bag off the belt when it sees a nine inch knife in it.