H ey there, you with the barbecue. Are you suffering from grill melancholy?
It happens to the best of us. Memorial Day arrives, you can’t wait to grill hot dogs and hamburgers, chicken and ribs. By Independence Day, you’re staving off boredom by grilling steaks, shrimp, swordfish, onions, zucchini and pineapple.
By mid-August, you’ve hit the wall. You’ve exhausted all your favorite menus. No mere marinade can save you from the barbecue doldrums.
Do not despair.
With a dollop of daring, this can become the most exciting and delicious part of the outdoor season. You can grill pizzas or oysters, tofu or watermelon – even ice cream. Best of all, you can cook each of these dishes within minutes, without working up a sweat or neglecting your guests.
For starters, you could do as the Deen family does in Savannah, Ga., and grill some oysters. Food TV star Paula Deen, who owns and runs Lady and Sons restaurant with her boys Bobby and Jamie, likes to serve them with an elegant lemon-dill sauce.
But Jamie says he prefers the way his Uncle Bubba makes them across town at Bubba’s Oyster House.
“You can do la-di-da, but this is just the opposite,” said Jamie, whose new TV show with brother Bob, “Road Tasted,” premiered on Food Network in early July. “These are Lowcountry fire-roasted oysters that you drink with beer, not champagne.”
Bubba’s recipe for grilled oysters has never been written down, his nephew said.
“You just take off the top of the shell and put ‘em directly over the hottest part of the grill and pour some garlic butter on ‘em and a little Parmesan cheese,” Jamie Dean said.
“Some of the garlic butter will drip onto the fire, and the flames will leap up around the oyster and crisp up the cheese. As soon as that happens – about 2 to 3 minutes – you just take it off the grill and take a fork to the cheese-crusted oyster and a piece of bread to mop up all those buttery juices. Hoo boy, it’s good!
“I’m not usually an oyster fan, but I could eat these all day long.”
For the main course, nothing could be finer than the famous grilled pizza recipe invented at Al Forno Restaurant in Providence, R.I. Owners Johanne Killeen and George Germon struggled for weeks to perfect the 8-minute technique in 1980 in the mistaken belief pizzas were cooked this way in Italy.
By the time they discovered that Italians use wood-burning ovens, their signature dish had attracted a huge following that endures to this day.
Al Forno’s executive chef Brian Kingsford warns that you can’t grill a great pizza on a gas grill, which can’t heat higher than 550 degrees. He advises hardwood or charcoal fired to its maximum heat of 1,200 degrees.
“The secret of success is low moisture – if the crust doesn’t crisp quickly enough, the pizza will be soggy,” he said.
He uses hardwood briquets that have a moisture content of only 3 percent, and Italian fontina cheese, which has a lower moisture content than mozzarella.
Rick Browne, who hosts the PBS TV series “Barbecue America” and lives in Vancouver, Wash., also found inspiration for exotic grilling while dining out.
“I saw a baked Alaska once at a restaurant in Portland, Ore., and I thought ‘How do they do that?’” he said.
“And then I thought, ‘Wait a minute! I could do that on the grill!’”
Browne’s original recipe, published in his 2003 book “Grilling America,” proved too messy, as it called for slicing the ice cream and cutting through crisp meringue with a serrated knife. His current version calls unabashedly for using processed foods, for the simple reason that “they’re a perfect fit!”
“No slicing, no dicing, no leaking, no crumbling,” he said. “I just put one ingredient on top of the other, and five minutes later I take it off the grill and everyone says, ‘Wow!’”
1-2dozen tightly closed fresh oysters in shell
Lemon dill sauce (recipe follows)
Prepare your grill grate. When coals are white, spread coals out for even heat distribution. Place the oysters directly on the grate with the deeper shell down. As soon as the shells pop open (about 5 to 8 minutes) the oysters are ready to eat. Serve immediately, with the sauce.
1 cup mayonnaise
1/4 cup buttermilk
2 tablespoons chopped fresh dill leaves
1 tablespoon minced fresh parsley leaves
1 tablespoon grated lemon zest
2 teaspoons fresh lemon juice
1 small garlic clove, minced
Combine all the ingredients in a bowl and stir well. Refrigerate until chilled; the sauce will thicken as it chills.
Makes about 1 1/2 cups.
Recipe courtesy “Paula Deen Show: Paula’s Home Cooking,” Episode: “Oyster Show”
6 ounces pizza dough (recipe follows)
1/4 cup virgin olive oil
1 teaspoon minced fresh garlic
1/2cup mixed chopped fresh herbs of your choice (3 or 4 different kinds)
1/2 cup loosely packed shredded Italian fontina cheese
2tablespoons freshly grated Pecorino Romano
1 scallion, sliced lengthwise into paper-thin strips
6 tablespoons pizza sauce (recipe follows)
Prepare a hot charcoal fire, setting the grill rack 3 to 4 inches above the coals.
On a large, oiled, inverted baking sheet, spread and flatten the pizza dough with your hands into a 10- to 12-inch freeform circle, 1/8-inch thick. Do not make a lip. You may end up with a rectangle; the shape is unimportant, but do take care to maintain an even thickness.
When the fire is very hot, use your fingertips to lift the dough gently by the two corners closest to you, and drape it onto the grill. Catch the loose edge on the grill first and guide the remaining edge into place over the fire. Within a minute the dough will puff slightly, the underside will stiffen, and grill marks will appear.
Using tongs, immediately flip the crust over, onto the coolest part of the grill. Quickly brush the grilled surface lightly with olive oil. Scatter the herbs, garlic and cheeses over the dough, and spoon dollops of the tomato sauce over the cheese. Do not cover the entire surface of the pizza with sauce, or it will become soggy. Finally, drizzle the pizza with 1 to 2 tablespoons of olive oil.
Slide the pizza back toward the hot coals, but not directly over them. Using tongs, rotate the pizza frequently, so that different sections receive high heat; check the underside often to see that it is not burning. The pizza is done when the top is bubbly and the cheese melted, about 6 to 8 minutes. Remove from fire, sprinkle with the scallion and serve at once.
Makes 1 to 2 servings as main course, 3 or 4 as an appetizer.
1 package (21/2 teaspoons) active dry yeast
1 cup warm water
1 teaspoon sugar
21/2 teaspoons kosher salt
1/4 cup johnnycake meal or fine-ground white cornmeal
3 tablespoons whole-wheat flour
1 tablespoon virgin olive oil
21/2-31/2 cups unbleached white flour
Dissolve the yeast in the warm water with the sugar.
After 5 minutes, stir in the salt, johnnycake meal, whole-wheat flour and oil.
Gradually add the white flour, stirring with a wooden spoon until a stiff dough has formed. Place the dough on a floured board, and knead it for several minutes, adding only enough additional flour to keep the dough from sticking.
When the dough is smooth and shiny, transfer it to a bowl that has been brushed with olive oil. To prevent a skin from forming, brush the top of the dough with additional olive oil, cover the bowl with plastic wrap, and let rise in a warm place, away from drafts, until double in bulk, 90 minutes to 2 hours.
Punch down the dough and knead once more. Let the dough rise again for about 40 minutes. Punch down the dough. If it is sticky, knead in a bit more flour.
Yields dough for four 12-inch pizzas.
3 tablespoons virgin olive oil
1 teaspoon minced fresh garlic
12 Italian plum tomatoes, peeled, seeded and chopped
1 teaspoon kosher salt
Heat the olive oil in a heavy saute pan. Add the garlic, and saute until golden. Add the tomatoes and cook over moderate heat, stirring frequently, for about 10 minutes, or until the sauce begins to thicken. Add the salt. Set aside until ready to use. The sauce may be cooled to room temperature, covered, and refrigerated for up to 4 days, or frozen for up to 2 weeks.
1large pound cake, frozen
3square ice cream bars (no sticks), hard
12-16 egg whites
1teaspoon cream of tartar
1cup granulated sugar
Raspberry and apricot jams
Chocolate sprinkles
1wooden plank, 12-by-12-by-1-inch thick, soaked in hot water
Heavy-duty aluminum foil to wrap plank
18-ounce jar chocolate fudge sauce or caramel sauce or other topping of your choice
Electric knife (for best results)
Fresh mint leaves for garnish
Get a good hot fire (500 degrees plus) going in a kettle grill or smoker. If you use charcoal in a kettle grill mound it in two piles on either side of the cooker, leaving the middle of the grill open. If using a gas grill, turn on all burners to high.
Whip the egg whites, cream of tartar, and sugar into a stiff meringue so that when you pull beaters away sharp points stand up in the meringue. At the last minute add a generous amount of chocolate sprinkles and quickly fold into the egg whites. Put in refrigerator.
Working quickly, wrap the wet plank in the foil. Cut frozen pound cake in half horizontally, and lay one half on the foil. Spread raspberry jam on top of the pound cake half. Place the ice cream bars on the jam-covered pound cake so they exactly cover the surface. Place the other piece of pound cake on top of the ice cream, and cover with apricot jam. Completely cover the cake on all sides with meringue, being sure to bring the meringue all the way down to touch the foil all around cake. (If you leave any gaps the ice cream may melt and spoil the dessert.) Place the plank on the center of the grill in the cooker.
Check after 2 minutes and as soon as you see the peaks of meringue brown remove the dessert from the cooker. This will take only a few minutes with a very hot fire. Slide the cake off the plank and onto a chilled serving platter. Cut vertical slices through meringue, cake and ice cream with an electric knife (much preferred way) or, if you don’t have one, use a very sharp serrated knife that you dip into hot water between slices. Slide slices onto plates onto which you have spooned a generous pool of chocolate or caramel sauce, or both. Garnish sauce with fresh mint leaves, shake more sprinkles over meringue and serve.
Makes 4 to 6 servings.
Adapted from Rick Browne’s www.barbecueamerica.com
To grill pizza successfully, you will need patience to master the technique. It may take a few practice runs before you get a pizza you want to serve, but you should persevere.
Make it hot: To begin with, be sure you start with a hot wood or charcoal fire. Gas grills, even fueled by wood chips, do not get hot enough for this dish. Build your fire on one side of the grill. During the cooking process you will want a cool area in order to add the toppings without burning the bottom of the crust.
Fire side: If you have a hibachi, build the fire on one side. For kettle-type grills, place a brick in the center of the bowl and bank charcoal on one half. If you have a small grill and cannot accommodate a 12-inch round of dough, divide it and make 2 or 3 small pizzas.
Avoid flare: Be careful not to stretch the dough so thinly that holes appear, or flare-ups will occur when you drizzle on the oil or add toppings.
Handle with care: When you are lifting the dough off the cookie sheet, it will invariably stretch; do not try to compensate for this by moving your hands apart. Work as close to the grill as possible so that the dough is without support for a minimum amount of time. If after 8 minutes the cheese is not melting and the topping is not bubbling, either you have been too cautious in your approach to the coals or you have used too much cheese and topping. More time on the grill will only dry out and toughen the pizza. The ideal crust should be both chewy and crisp.
Adapted from “Cucina Simpatica,” by Johanne Killeen and George Germon
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