Grilling Season

The Ultimate Guide

JUNE 2015 www.minnesotagrown.com

Grilling Tips Gas vs. Charcoal? “Gas or charcoal?” This may just be the most frequently asked question since “The chicken or the egg?” The age-old debate over which grilling method is “better” involves multiple variables, from the flavor you prefer to cost to convenience. Gas burns cleanest, and leaves a dark all over sear that can only be achieved with even, high heat. About 90% of the world’s top steakhouses grill their beef with gas for this very reason. From a taste perspective, many people prefer the smokier, richer taste of food cooked on a charcoal grill. This is not necessarily noticeable on food that is cooked quickly such as hot dogs, burgers or thin steaks. But on thick steaks, chicken, turkey, and thicker cuts smoke easily makes its flavor known. If you use your grill for long, slow roasting, charcoal is the way to go! Whichever you choose, local meats, fruits and vegetables taste best!

Preheat Preheat your grill 15-25 minutes before you start cooking to make sure it reaches the right temperature (and to kill bacteria). Your grill should be heated to 400-450 degrees Fahrenheit for high, 350-400 degrees Fahrenheit for medium- high, 300-350 degrees Fahrenheit for medium and 250-300 degrees Fahrenheit for low heat. When you heat your grill properly food is seared on contact, insides are kept moist and sticking is prevented. It also improves flavors through caramelization!

June is National Dairy Brush it off Month, so next time you It is the easiest to remove debris from your grill when it is hot, so after fire up the grill, don’t preheating, use a long-handled wire grill brush (or try this Minnesota-born wood grill scraper. It would make an excellent Father’s Day gift!) on your grill forget about the cheese! rack to clean charred debris from prior meals. Scrape again immediately after using your grill. To avoid foods sticking to the rack altogether, oil the rack! Oil your hot grill rack with a vegetable oil-soaked paper towel: hold it with tongs and rub it over the rack. Don’t use cooking spray on a hot grill, it is flammable!

Safety First Food safety is a top priority! Keep these simple rules in mind when you are grilling. Avoid cross contamination when cooking by using separate cutting boards, utensils and platters for raw and cooked foods. Always refrigerate Image courtesy Kingsford Coal foods while marinating and never baste with marinating liquid – make extra Classic: Save your expensive marinade just for basting. farmhouse cheddar for a cheese

plate and choose a thick cut, Marinate Your Meat modest tasting cheese to melt on Marinating does more than infuse food with flavor. It also inhibits the your burger. Look for a cheddar formation of potentially carcinogenics that form when grilling meats like with a high moisture content poultry, red meat, and fish. According to the American Institute for Cancer rather than an aged variety for Research, marinating can reduce the formation of carginogenics by as much good melting! as 92-99 percent.

Mix it Up: Don’t limit yourself to Is it Done? only melting cheese on your The best way to know if your meat is fully cooked is to check its internal burgers. Take a firm cheese, dice it temperature with an instant read thermometer. Follow the guide below up, and mix it right into your when cooking your meat to ensure it has been heated to the proper ground meat for flavor in each and temperature. every bite! Or, like a true Minnesotan, create a Juicy Lucy by putting a slice of cheese between two thin patties of meat, smashing the edges together, and then grilling. This is especially delicious when done with blue cheese crumbles!

Dessert: Peaches are in season now and taste great on the grill. Slice a peach in half, remove the pit and grill pit-side down. Flip it over after 2-3 minutes and add fresh chèvre to the hollow made by the pit. Grill until the cheese softens, then drizzle with honey. YUM!

Minnesota Grown- Pick of the Month JUNE 2015 Give it a Rest As tempting as it may be to rip into that steak as soon as you pull it off the grill, don’t do it! When a steak cooks, the muscle fibers inside tighten and squeeze the juices out of the surface. This means there is an imbalance of juice in its interior and most of the liquid is concentrated at the center of the meat. If you cut the steak open the second it comes off the grill all the flavorful juice will run right onto your plate! Let your finished meats rest on a clean platter, tented with foil, so that juices can redistribute evenly. As a general rule, for meat like steaks, pork chops, chicken breasts and roasts, you can let the meat rest for 1/3 of the time it took to cook. If you are slow-cooking or barbequing meats you do not need to rest as long because most muscle fibers have been cooked long enough to break down and are no longer able to squeeze juices to the center. Planking You may have heard the term planking used when referring to the grill. So what’s the big deal? Planking involved cooking your dinner directly on a piece of hardwood in order to transfer some of the wood flavor to the food. When planking your meat, it is important to choose the right wood to match the already present flavor of the product and to prepare the plank properly so that it doesn’t burn. When grilling foods like fish, light flavored woods like cedar and ash work best. Maple, apple, and pecan are great choices for chicken or pork and oak, hickory, and mesquite are excellent choices when cooking meats with a strong flavor like beef, lamb, or wild game. Soak your plank in cold water for at least an hour in order to allow the water to be absorbed deep into the pores of the wood. Cook using only indirect heat to allow a slow, even, gentle heat the whole time. This allows for more time for the flavors to mingle from the wood to your food! This is also a good way to ensure your planks can be used again. You can also char the plank on the hot grill before moving it to the cool side and placing your food on it. This makes for a deeper, smokier flavor!

If you have a charcoal grill, or have decided on one, you have a lot of cooking options. Depending on how you arrange your coals, you can create a fire anywhere from a raging blaze needed to sear a steak to the cool, indirect heat needed to smoke a rack of ribs. Types of fires you need to know include:

Direct Fire: All of the coals are spread evenly over the grate. This type of fire works best when you are cooking large quantities of meat, like burgers or hotdogs for a crowd.

Two-Zone Direct Fire: The coals are arranged in two distinct zones. On one half of the grill, most of the coals are piled while the other half only gets a thin cover. This set up is good for cooking thick steaks, chicken breasts or pork chops. This method will create a good sear at the beginning followed by a longer period of gentle heat.

Two-Zone Indirect Fire: All the coals are banked along one side while the other side is left completely empty. This is perfect for cooking large roasts or whole birds. Place your food over the indirect side, cover the grill, and rotate your food as it cooks. You are good to go!

Two-Zone Fire – Parallel Configuration: Coals are spread along either side of the grill with an empty space down the middle. Again, this is an ideal setup for smoking and low-temperature cooking of large roasts and whole birds.

Charcoal Snake: In this arrangement, unlit coals and smoke wood are arranged in a circle around the inside edge of your grill. A few lit coals are then added to on end of the snake and it burns

Minnesota Grown- Pick of the Month JUNE 2015 slowly over the course of several hours.

Smoking: This is a low, slow method of cooking. Meats are cooked over indirect heat over several hours and at low temperatures. Add hardwood chunks or chips of wood that have been soaked in water to achieve the smoky aromas and flavors of this cooking method! Grilling the Perfect Burger Hamburgers are an all American cookout classic. They are a favorite amongst the crowd whether it be a day at the lake, or a night in the yard. Burgers are generally pretty easy to grill but can have two problems: a burned exterior and a raw interior. But there is a key to getting it right each and every time. Indirect heat and a little tender loving care. Here’s all you need to know to expertly grill a burger.

Get the right ground beef. It’s actually critical to begin with the right kind of meat. Don’t skimp the fat! For a juicier, more flavorful burger, look for 80-percent lean and 20-percent fat. Season your meat with salt and pepper. Over-mixing your meat could compact the ground meat and result in a dense, firm burger, so use a gentle hand!

Form the patties. The ideal burger patty size is 6 oz. This is a little bigger than a baseball. Once the ball is formed, flatten it out in your hands or on a cutting board until it is about three-quarters of an inch thick. Put a slight indentation in the center of the patty to keep it from swelling up and becoming round during cooking. Refrigerate the patties until ready to grill!

Configure your heat. If you are using a charcoal grill, light a pile of about 100 briquets. Configure the coals for a two-zone fire with coals covering about half of the grill (see our explanations of fire types above). You want the coals at a medium-high temperature. You should be able to hold your hand above them for 5-6 seconds before pulling away. If you need to increase or decrease your temperature do so now. Add the grate above your coals and let it heat up.

If you are using a gas grill, light one side on medium-high heat and cover. Clean your grate and allow it to heat.

Sear and flip. Sear the burger patties directly over the coals or lit side of your gas grill until it is crispy on the bottom, about four to five minutes. You may season your burger as you wish at this time. Be careful not to char your meat or press the patties down on the grate with a spatula, you will squeeze all the juices out! Flare-ups may occur as fat drips from the meat. Use a long-handled metal spatula to flip the burgers. Do this only once! Sear the other side to lock in those flavorful juices!

Move and cover. Once your burgers are seared, move them so that they are no longer directly over the heat of your grill. Cover them and continue cooking until they are at the desired temperature. Using a meat thermometer is always a good idea to ensure that they have reached an internal temperature of 160 degrees F.

Perfect your creation. As your burgers begin to approach a tasty completion, you may add cheese, if desired. Plan ahead because you want to give it enough time to melt, but not so long than it runs through your grate. Don’t forget to butter and toast your buns as well! Keep a close eye – they burn quickly.

Minnesota Grown- Pick of the Month JUNE 2015 Serve and enjoy! You’ve done it! There is no need to “rest” a burger. Put it right on those perfectly toasted buns, top as you wish and enjoy! Image courtesy Kingsford Coal Speaking of topping your burger, why is it so hard to know what would taste good? Sure, the tried and true is always a possibility, but sometimes you want to mix it up and give your taste buds something new to exclaim over. Let’s build a hypothetical burger. Bacon: yes, of course. Cheese: Certainly, but what kind? After that, things can get difficult, especially when we start dealing with all the different types of meat Minnesota Grown members offer as a base. A fried egg goes great on beef, but it doesn’t pair as well with lamb. Do you love avocado? It pairs well with turkey burgers! In the end, everything is up to the eater’s personal preference, but check out the graphic topping chart below laying out exactly which toppings pair best with beef, turkey and lamb patties. You can also talk to your producer for ideas on how to make your Minnesota Grown meat taste its absolute best!

Image courtesy of Thrillest. Click to Enlarge.

Find more recipes for summer favorites: burgers, drinks, pies and more on our Minnesota Grown Pinterest page. There are a ton of grilling guides out there (view some of our favorites on Pinterest) but we hope ours combines the best of them to make your Minnesota summer the tastiest to date! The Minnesota Grown Directory boasts over 200 producers of fresh, local meats and 180+ farmers markets throughout the state making it easy to find everything you need for your barbeque, well... right in your own backyard!

We hope these tips, tricks and recipes will inspire you to use your grill more often. This summer, Get Out, Get Local, and get grilling!

Sources: Eating Well, bon appetit, Food Network, Country Living, Better Homes and Gardens, Cooking Light

Minnesota Grown- Pick of the Month JUNE 2015