Episode 7: My 5 Favorite Things to Grill

I love to grill. No matter the season, my grill stays out and I use it to cook year-round.

In this episode, I talk about some of my favorite things to grill.

Grilled Fruits

GRILLED PEACHES

Peaches are great on the grill. Here’s an easy recipe for a delicious Grilled Peaches and Cream dessert:

Ingredients:

• 2 large, ripe peaches (approximately the size of a softball)

• 1 stick of butter

• 1 cup of sour cream

• brown sugar

Combine 3 heaping tablespoons of brown sugar into a cup of sour cream (add more or less sugar to taste), stir until homogeneous, and let sit in the fridge until you’re ready to dollop it on the peaches.

Melt the butter with brown sugar and stir.

Halve and pit the peaches. After cutting around the fruit, twist (with a fair amount of force) and the two halves will separate. Using your paring knife, (carefully) cut around the stone (pit) and remove it.

Sprinkle some brown sugar on the flesh of the peaches and pack it into the crevasse left from the stone.

Over a preheated grill on medium flame, cook flesh-side-down until soft. Using a basting or grill brush, bast the skin of the peaches with a little of the butter and brown sugar mixture. If you can squeeze the peaches with your tongs and it gives, it’s time to flip.

Brush the remaining butter and brown sugar mixture over the flesh and pour it into the crevasse. Cover your grill and allow the bottom half to cook (about 2-4 minutes)

Remove from the grill and let rest about 2 minutes.

Dollop the brown sugar and sour cream mixture atop the peaches and serve—you’re going to want to put a dollop of this stuff on the side also, because you’re going to want to eat this more than the peaches.

GRILLED PLUMS

Similarly to the peaches, halve and remove the stone (pit) from the plums.

I like to skewer plums, because they’re a smaller fruit than peaches, so you can serve 1 plum, per person, but you can also just grill them as they are. The skewer is mostly for presentation but it does have a functional purpose, as it provides a serving size and makes your grill a bit more organized.

To make a merlot sauce, reduce a cup of merlot with a quarter cup of sugar, and mulling spices.

Ingredients:

• 1 cup of merlot

• 1/4 cup of sugar

• 2” of lemon zest

• 1 cinnamon stick

• 2 cloves

• 2 whole allspice

• 1/2 of a nutmeg seed

• (optional) 1 star of anise

Combine all ingredients in a small saucepan, bring to boil, lower heat to a simmer and reduce until thickened. Remove the mulling spices and let sauce cool.

For presentation purposes, and since you already peeled 2 inches of lemon zest from your lemon to make the sauce, you can zest the rest of the lemon and separate the plum halves on the skewer with the zest, for a pop of color.

Once the plums are soft, baste them with a little bit of the merlot sauce. Drizzle some more sauce over them plums, when served.

GRILLED PINEAPPLE

Pineapple can be grilled in many ways. You can grill them as spears or rounds without adding anything to them, or you can sauce them with teriyaki, a soy glaze, or even BBQ sauce, for a bit of a sovory kick.

GRILLED WATERMELON

Watermelon takes on a whole other flavor dynamic when it’s cooked. It takes on a sweet/savory flavor profile, that’s quite unique.

The trick to grilling watermelon is to go hot and fast. High heat on the flame and for a short period of time, otherwise the fruit will become bitter.

Try this grilled watermelon recipe:

Ingredients:

• Watermelon wedges (cut about 1/2” thick)

• Balsamic vinegar

• Salt

Soak the watermelon wedges in Balsamic vinegar for about 5 minutes. Season the watermelon with a pinch of salt on both sides. Sear for about 30 seconds. Flip and sear the other side for 30 seconds and serve.

GRILLED BANANAS

Nothing makes people look in awe at your grilling prowess more than when they see your throw some bananas on your grill! Steaks? Psssh! Anyone can make a perfectly-cooked steak on a grill.

Check out this easy grilled banana recipe:

Ingredients:

• 2 bananas

• 1/2 stick of butter

• Brown sugar

• (Optional) Vanilla ice cream

Create a melted butter and brown sugar mixture, like for the peaches.

Slice open the bananas, lengthwise.

Over medium-low heat, cook the bananas meat-side-down for 2 minutes. Flip and baste the banana with the butter and brown sugar mixture. Cook for an additional 2 minutes. Serve with a scoop of vanilla ice cream.

Bonus: Make a grilled bananas foster by making a foster sauce. You can find a recipe for foster sauce here, from Allrecipes.com.

kabobs

Kabobs are simple to make and cook on a grill. You can put whatever you want on them.

Marinade some chicken in teriyaki and skewer some pineapple chunks in between cubes of chicken.

Marinated steak cubes, seasoned pork cubes, meaty fish, like swordfish, striped bass, or mahi mahi, all work well on a skewer. Shrimp are much easier to grill when skewered.

steaks

These are some of my favorite cuts to grill:

Ribeye, T-Bone/Porterhouse, Skirt Steak, NY Strip (short loin), and Petite Tender (teres major).

Petite tenders are high in pH and will oxidize and smell sour quickly, so get these from a butcher and cook them that day.

A great way to cook a petite tender is to have your butcher butterfly it, then cook it to a perfect medium. What I love about this cut is the muscle fibers run lengthwise, so while it resembles a small flank steak, it doesn’t cut like one and is inherently more tender than a flank.

GRILLED CHICKEN

Chicken is a grilling staple, yet so many people grill the wrong pieces of chicken on a grill. Although the breast is the more popular cut in the U.S., it is usually overcooked when grilled. My prefered way to grill chicken is to use the thighs, which contain more fat and retain moisture better than the breast. I also like to spatchcock the chicken and grill the whole bird, uniformly.

Use an instant-read thermometer at different locations to ensure the chicken is cooked through. Remove when all pieces are cooked to 165 degrees.

burgers

Here are a few tips to cooking a better burger:

• Do not overwork the meat, when forming a patty.

• Do not seasoned unformed chop meat; you’re making burgers, not meatloaf.

  • You should season the formed patty.

• Once the meat is on the grill wait until you see the juices atop the patty and flip once.

• Never use your spatula to press the juices out of the burger.

If you want more info on how I make My Perfect Burger, you can read the recipe blog here and listen to my podcast episode about that blog here.