Rachael Ray

Seeing as how last week I gave an elementary primer on grilling, with most of the attention on what your basic tools should be, I figure – why not take the next step? I’m not going to attempt to get into the culinary complexities of marinades, mops, and other advanced recipes. You have Rachael for that. But the more I think about it, the more naturally the basics of live-fire grilling organize themselves into four distinct subjects: 1: Basic Tools and Techniques. What kind of grill to use, what kind of coals, the principles of high heat and kosher salt. If you only have ten minutes to learn to grill, this is that ten minutes. 2: The Brown and the Black: searing, [...]...

It occurs to me, looking back on all these grilling columns that I’ve been doing, that maybe I am jumping ahead too far. While I like cooking a rolled, boned lamb leg bound with coat hangers, maybe that’s not for everybody. Maybe some of who have never done any serious grilling, outside of some hotdogs and hamburgers on a gas grill now and then. It is my purpose in life to make sure that you grill well. For those unfortunate readers who are stuck using a gas grill, I’d deal with that terribel handicap next week; for now, I want to give you the most very basic, stripped down checklist of what you will need to cook well outdoors this [...]...

Lacking as I do any form of self-restraint or long-term planning, its been my lifetime practice to cook steaks the second I get them home from the store. (They’re lucky they get that far; the peanut butter has already been probed and violated by the time I get to the car.) But sometimes I get distracted, likely by other steaks, and I solve the problem by throwing the steaks into the freezer. I know that some microbial life can persist under freezing conditions, and that freezer burn can be ruinous, but for all practical purposes, I consider these steaks as being in suspended animation. So, if I can’t get to them for a couple of days, I put them in [...]...

I’ve been thinking deeply about grilling. I mean deeply! I am working on a new recipe for a milk-braised pork loin that I want to finish over hot coals, with some kind of milky glaze of a kind never yet invented. I was planning on writing about it here, with a recipe at the end, when I realized that a lot of people were asking me grilling questions, and none of them were about bizarre, complicated dishes. They wanted to know how to make burgers; how to make steaks; most of all, they wanted to know how not to screw up, especially with all their friends and family looking on. So I am calling an audible. I will get around [...]...

I always took pride in the fact of my indifference to vegetables. If it didn’t have parents, I didn’t want to eat it. My hostillity to the whole plant kingdom was famous. But getting old and fat has weakened my resolve. And the sudden appearance, so sudden and unexpected, of some intensely gratifying vegetable dishes, has also eased my process of gender transformation. One person I have to thank for this is my friend Paul Denamiel. Paul is one of the last persons I would have ever expected to help me transition into a part-time plant eater. For one thing, Paul is the chef of Le Rivage, an old-school French restaurant where I have eaten often, and heartily, and [...]...

I got a call from Robbie Richter the other day. Robbie Richter is a New York barbecuer, and probably my oldest friend in meat. I’ve cooked with him, and drunk with him, and argued with him about the use of water pans, for ten years. His brother is my doctor. Now, after all these years, he is leaving for LA so we decided to cook one last blowout meal together. And we did. There were beef shortrib tacos, with a sriracha / kewpie mayo and a piquant Korean bbq sauce, and kim chee, and fresh cilantro; there was a jamaican jerk pork belly, which Robbie finished on the grill; there were some fantastic mojo-marinated chicken thighs. And there was a [...]...

Braising seems to belong to winter in exactly the same way that grilling does to summer. And yet….I like to grill in winter. I do it all the time. And it’s not like I live in a cabin.. The nights are still cool, and even when they get warm, it’s not like I live in a cabin. A freon fortress is my summer home. So why should I give up on braising? The only difference is that I braise smaller things; things like pork chops. My first braise of the spring was, in fact, a very large pork chop cooked with a lot of white wine. I will say here that I have never been overfond of big, thick porkchops. Or [...]...

It being spring, my mind has turned to thoughts of grilling. The fragrant smoke, the glowing embers, the sizzle and his of precious meat juices combusting like shooting stars as they fly from sputtering lamb chops. Sadly, as a New Yorker, I live in a tiny apartment and have no room for the offset smoker I so long for; I have to make due with a Weber kettle grill, a tool I have written about here with some frequency. Still, as Uncle Charley says in Death of a Salesman, “a salesman is got to dream boy. It comes with the territory.” A friend of mine just bought a house in Westchester and has a big house there. Well, I’ve never seen [...]...

“It was a bright cold day in April, and the clocks were striking thirteen.” The disorienting opening line of George Orwell’s 1984 came to mind today, when I set out too grill - Yes! - the first meat of spring. And it being spring, it seemed only right to make spring lamb. It wasn’t real spring lamb of course; it’s not time for those innocent little creatures to be slain yet. But it is spring, and it was lamb, and that is spring lamb enough for me. The wood was oak and the cut was a rolled leg and the result was so spectacular that I was forced to eat it before I could take a picture. The [...]...