Summer Grilling

Summertime cooking is different: easy, fast, and preferably low-heat. This means lots of grilling, minimal use of oven and stove, and maximizing fast-cooking (or no-cooking) ingredients - vegetables, fruit, fish, and tender, grillable meats.

Grilling is great, of course, but it only helps if it keeps you away from the stove altogether; if you're grilling one part of dinner and roasting another, you're defeating the purpose. So when you're grilling, try to plan a whole meal around the grill, by making a salad using grilled bread, for example, or grilling vegetables as a side dish or fruit as dessert.

Most people find grilling easy - especially if they limit it to hot dogs and hamburgers - but I do hear a couple of frequent complaints. One is, "I like to grill fish, but it always sticks." The other is, "I never have time to marinate meat before I grill it." Both of these challenges are easily addressed.

Grilling Fish
There's no doubt about it: Finfish DOES stick to the grill. (Shellfish, however, like shrimp and scallops, does not, and is among the easiest and most foolproof foods to grill.) But there's a way around it, one that is traditional throughout the Mediterranean, and has been since wood-fire-grilling was discovered. By laying stalks of fennel or dill directly on the grill, and placing the fish on the branches, the sticking problem is completely eliminated: The fennel or dill is sacrificed, but it contributes its flavor to the fish, which in turn is easily lifted from the grill when it's done. Brush off the lingering ashes from the herb and serve with lemon. (If you live on the west coast, where fennel grows wild, you don't even need to do extra shopping for this. Otherwise, use dill branches, or the top fronds from fennel bulbs.)

Adding Flavors
Marinating, for the most part, is usually unnecessary and completely overrated. People marinate meat for two reasons: to add flavor and to tenderize. But the first can be achieved in ten minutes and the second cannot be achieved in ten days. If you want a tender piece of meat, buy a tender cut; in steaks, that means sirloin strip, rib-eye, filet (more tender but less flavorful than the others) or skirt. No amount of marinating will turn chuck steak tender - it just isn't going to happen.

As for adding flavor - a fine goal - you can do that by brushing the meat as it is grilling, and giving a final brush just before serving. Not only is this faster than marinating, I'd argue that it's better, in that it keeps the flavors fresh.

Compliments of Cooking.com

Article written by Mark Bittman. Mark is the author of The Minimalist Cooks at Home. He is also the award-winning author of the number one best-selling cookbook, How To Cook Everything.