Simply: Home Cooking

Brining

For years now, I've been brining my Thanksgiving turkey before roasting it, but recently, I've started brining just about all animal proteins before broiling, searing, roasting, grilling, or smoking them - it basically improves anything cooked by a dry heat method. Brining serves many purposes, among them imparting flavor, retaining moisture, and improving tenderness. Brining takes a bit of planning ahead, but the results will be well worth it.

If soaking your fish/meat/poultry in salty water sounds odd or sends you into fits of concern about sodium intake, consider that just about any poultry, much of the fish, and most of the pre-marinated meats in the store are injected with saline solution that contains a lot of other chemicals you probably don't want to know about.

The most basic brine consists of 1 cup (yes, a cup) of salt dissolved in 1 gallon of water, which in home kitchen terms reduces to 1/4 c of salt to 1 quart of water or 2 T of salt per 2 c of water. This is all well and good, but pretty boring.

Here is my favorite brine recipe, which can be varied infinitely based on the flavors you want to impart - it makes enough to brine approximately 2 lbs of meat/fish/poultry:

• 2 c water
• 2 T kosher or sea salt (non-iodized, please - iodized will make your meat have a metallic flavor)
• 1 T maple syrup
• 3-5 juniper berries, crushed with the flat of a knife blade
• 3-5 peppercorns, crushed with the flat of a knife blade
• 1 bay leaf, crumbled
• fresh or dried herbs of choice: you can use entire sprigs of rosemary, thyme, sage, etc. - just crush them slightly in your hands
• 1 small dried chile pepper or 1/4 tsp chile flakes - optional

Combine the ingredients, stirring gently until the salt crystals are completely dissolved. Some cooks like to heat the brine, which speeds the salt dissolving and melds the flavors more quickly. If you do this, be sure to cool it to room temperature or lower before adding your meat. Place the meat in a non-reactive container - I prefer to use glass or stainless steel bowls, but food-grade plastic bags and containers are also usable - and add enough brine to cover completely. If your meat floats, weigh it down with a plate to submerge it completely. Brine for approximately 1 hour per pound, basing the calculation on the largest piece you are brining.

Remove the meat from the brine, pat it dry, and allow it to sit in the refrigerator for at least an hour before cooking - this ensures a better color on the outside and a crisper skin on poultry.

Smoke, grill, broil, or roast the meat as you normally would - you'll be impressed by the difference in flavor and texture!

Once you've tried out the basic brine, feel free to experiment: you can vary the liquid, the sweetener, and spices and herbs. Remember, though, if you add an acidic element to the liquid (wine, vinegar, fruit or fruit juice), your meat will be even more tenderized - overbrining in these liquids might result in grayish meat with a mushy rather than tender texture.

Blanch & Shock

This a method used to precook items (usually vegetables, with the exception of starchy ones, like potatoes) that would not cook through in the context of a recipe, or for when you want to prepare something ahead and quickly finish the cooking later. It’s also a great way to set that bright green color for vegetables you want to serve not-quite-raw (broccoli, asparagus, green beans…).

Blanch – cook slightly (NOT until cooked through) in boiling water.

Shock – immediately plunge just-blanched vegetables into ice water: this halts the cooking process and sets the color. As soon as the vegetable is cold, drain and/or pat dry.

These two techniques are often used together, but occasionally, blanching is enough to cook a vegetable you want to serve warm, in which case the shocking is eliminated.

Roasting Peppers

Roasted peppers (both sweet bell and spicy chile varieties) are a useful basic ingredient to keep on hand. Their smoky flavor enhances all sorts of dishes: vegetable and grain salads, pizzas, fajitas, burritos, casseroles, pilafs.... You can roast a batch in advance and keep them in a tightly covered jar in the refrigerator for up to a month.

Here I give two methods to roast peppers - I find the first easier and cleaner, as well as more efficient when you are roasting more than one pepper, but there are those who swear that you will lose too much of the juice this way. If you have a gas stove and are roasting just one pepper, this is a quick method to use.

Look for peppers with thick flesh - these will stand up better to the high heat involved in roasting. Make sure you turn your exhaust fan on before starting the roasting process.

Broiler method:

• Turn the broiler onto high heat and line a broiler pan with a sheet of aluminum foil.
• Wash and pat the peppers dry, then cut each pepper in 1/2 and pull out the seeds. (If you're using chile peppers, wear gloves or wash your hands carefully after handling, and don't touch your eyes, nose, or mouth before doing so.)
• Place the peppers cut side down on the broiler pan.
• Broil approximately 1" away from the flame until the skin is charred and blistered - this will take about 5-10 m, depending on the intensity of your broiler. Start checking at 1 m intervals after 5 m, but don't remove until the skin is completely black.
• Remove from the broiler and gently bring the corners of the foil together to make a loose package.

Stovetop method:

• This method will only work for gas stoves, and you have to have the sort of grill over the burner that will allow a pepper to rest on it without falling through or rolling. Test this by placing a raw whole pepper on the grill directly over the burner - the pepper should not slip down to touch the burner, neither should it roll away from the burner.
• Wash and pat the pepper dry, leaving it whole.
• Light the burner, then use long tongs to place a pepper on the grill directly over the flame. Adjust the flame so that it comes within 1/2 - 1" below the pepper.
• Let the skin char and blister on that side, then turn the pepper to another side.
• Continue charring each side until the entire pepper is black.
• Place in a bowl and cover with a clean towel.

Peeling and storing:

• Let cool enough to handle, then peel the skin away from the flesh - it should come away easily. Cut whole peppers in 1/2 and remove the seeds. Remove the stems.
• Leave the halves intact, cut into strips, or dice, then put in a glass jar or container. Cool to room temperature. Pour enough olive oil over the peppers so that no part of the peppers pokes through the oil. Cover tightly and refrigerate. The oil will solidify and form a protective barrier so that the peppers last longer.

 

Basic Cutting and Chopping

I can't recall how I used to cut and chop things before I went to culinary school - I must have done it, I know...? This was brought home to me when I was at a conference with a colleague and we watched a cooking demonstration. The chef doing the demo was chopping an onion, and my friend turned to me with wide eyes and said, "THAT's how you cut an onion? I never knew that! That's soooo cool...." At first I was amused, but then I remembered having the same reaction to the process in Culinary 101 - it was really a revelation that there's a proper (and safe and efficient) way to do something that seems so elementary it shouldn't need explaining.

So at the risk of posting the obvious (what my 11-year-old would call a "duhhhhh moment"), maybe it's time to talk a bit about something so elementary as proper cutting and chopping techniques. Once you learn to do these properly, you'll not only be safer and more efficient in the kitchen - you'll also notice that food properly and beautifully cut will make every dish look better, more professional, downright gourmet!

Of course, as with any other skill, cutting and chopping need to be practiced over and over again, which could result in a lot of wasted food. I suggest that, as we did in culinary school, you practice on inexpensive ingredients that will be used in your home cooking: onions, garlic, carrots, and celery are good candidates - you can use them to flavor all sorts of soups, sauces, and gravies and their shape and size will be relatively unimportant. You can also freeze them, all cut or chopped, for future use.

Before actually beginning to cut, though, let's take a look at the basic shapes that you'll end up with. In culinary school, you're taught all the French names for the shapes, but in most cookbooks, it's more likely you'll find the simplified terminology, so here I give you both.

• chop: to cut into irregular pieces
• chop coarsely (concasser): to cut into large irregular pieces - this is used for foods that will be cooked a long time or pureed, so the shape is less important
• mince, chop finely: to cut into very fine irregular pieces - used for foods that will be cooked a short time, fresh herbs used for garnish
• slice thinly (emincer): to cut into 1/8" or thinner slices, can be done by hand or on a mandolin
• shred: to cut into 1/8" or thinner strips, can be done by hand or on a mandolin
• dice: to cut into regularly shaped cubes - see below for sizing.

One of the skills we had to practice over and over in Culinary 101 was cutting "sticks" and dicing. By the end of the class, we had to present the chef with 3 perfectly shaped and sized (yes, we carried rulers in our toolboxes!) samples of each:

• matchsticks (julienne,also called allumette): 1/8 x 1/8 x 2.5" sticks
• batonnet: 1/4 x 1/4 x 2.5 to 3" sticks
• French fry: 1/3 x 1/3 x 3" or 1/2 x 1/2 x 3" sticks
• fine dice (brunoise): 1/8 x 1/8 x 1/8" cubes
• small dice: 1/4 x/ 1/4 x 1/4" cubes
• medium dice: 1/2 x 1/2 x 1/2" cubes
• large dice: 3/4 x 3/4 x 3/4" cubes

But HOW do you get perfect cubes from vegetables that are essentially round??? First, remember the most important rule of cutting: the fingers of your non-knife hand should be curled so that the knife, when reaching the point where you're holding the vegetable, is simply guided by the second knuckle on your fingers - there's no danger of cutting your fingertips or fingernails.

slicing/dicing long, rounded vegetables

The safest way to cut a carrot, zucchini, or other round vegetable into sticks or cubes is to first "square off" the vegetable. This means cutting just enough off one side to give it a flat surface on which to rest - this will keep it from rolling around on the board and endangering your fingers! In a very fancy restaurant kitchen, you would continue to square off other sides until you literally have a square vegetable, but why waste all that food? (To be fair, most restaurants would use the scraps for soups, stocks, etc., so they wouldn't be really wasted. You can do the same or just not worry too much about the fact that sticks and cubes from your vegetable won't be perfectly square - they'll still be plenty attractive!)

1. Square off the vegetable along one long side.
2. Resting the vegetable on the flat side, cut it into 2.5 - 3" pieces.
3. Cut the vegetable lengthwise into slices of the desired thickness.
4. Stack the slices together (you may want to start with small stacks or even one slice at a time) then cut lengthwise again into sticks of the desired thickness.
5. If you're dicing the vegetable, bring a few sticks together (you may want to start with one at a time), and cut crosswise into cubes of the desired dimension. Again - remember to keep the fingers of your guiding/non-knife hand curled. When you're moving slowly, you may feel this is a waste of effort, but once your knife hand becomes more adept and you can slice/chop more quickly, your guiding hand will already be accustomed to the initially awkward curled position.

slicing/dicing onions

When you try to cut an onion, very often the layers slide around and make things difficult. The secret is to keep the root end intact up to the last step. The process I use varies slightly from what you'll see other trained chefs use: I find it simpler for home cooking and just ignore that the pieces won't be as uniform in size - they'll be pretty enough!

1. Square off the onion by cutting a slice off the stalk end. 
2. Place the onion on the flat stalk end, and cut in 1/2 through the root end.
3. Now peel the onion halves - much easier once they're cut!
4. Place the onion flat side down on the cutting board.
5. Putting the tip of your knife very close to the root end, slice downward, essentially cutting the onion into half again (but leaving the root end intact).
6. Continue cutting this way from (but not through!) the root end to the cut edge, angling your knife toward the middle of the flat side of the onion and spacing your cuts the desired distance apart where the onion is largest. You'll end up with wedges (like orange sections), all connected by the root end.
7. If you want slices of onion, carefully slice off the root end at this point, and your wedges will fall into slices.
8. If you want diced onion, place the root end of the onion beneath the palm of your guiding hand, curl the fingers of the guiding hand, and cut across the wedges into the desired size dice. (The dice from the inner layers will be smaller.)
9. If you want to cut the onion into 1/2 rings, after step 2, hold as in step 6, and cut the onion crosswise into 1/2 rings - the layers will fall apart as you slice.

slicing/mincing/creaming garlic

The steps for slicing and mincing garlic are similar to slicing and dicing an onion. (And once you know how to do this, you'll never want to buy the jarred minced or creamed garlic again!)

1. With the flat of your knife blade, gently press on a clove of garlic until you hear the skin pop. It should now peel off easily.
2. Square off the peeled clove of garlic by slicing in 1/2. (No need to cut off the stalk end.)
3. Place the half clove on the flat side and slice from (but not through) the root to the tip, creating wedges as with the onion.
4. For slices, cut off the root end at this point.
5. For minced garlic, cut the slices very thin, then cut crosswise, working from tip to root end and being sure to keep the fingers of your guiding hand curled.
6. For creamed garlic, mince the garlic very finely, then turn the knife with the flat side of the blade to the cutting board. Gently hold down the tip of the knife with your guiding hand and work your knife hand wrist up and down, crushing the minced garlic into a paste. Some people like to add a pinch of salt to the minced garlic before creaming, as it seems to bring out more juice and make the paste form more quickly.

chopping

Chopping into irregularly shaped pieces involves a different way of holding the knife. A good food to practice on is fresh parsley leaves.

1. Pile washed parsley leaves in the center of your cutting board.
2. Place your guiding hand on the tip of the knife and hold it down gently - the idea is to keep the point on the board, but allow the knife to move.
3. Raise your knife hand up slightly higher than the pile of leaves and bring it up and down quickly and repeatedly.
4. When the pile is too spread out to chop efficiently, carefully scrape it back together with the edge of the knife and continue chopping until the desired degree of fineness is reached.

Tools: the chef's knife

There are an awful lot of kitchen gadgets out there that promise to make your life easy, but if you were to ask me what gadgets I own, I'd be hard pressed to name more than five. And I'm including the peeler, zester, garlic press, and melon baller in there. some would call those tools, not gadgets, so I'm not sure I can really name more than 2 or 3 in my kitchen! The fact is, most kitchen tasks can be performed with a few good knives, or even (with a bit of skill) with just one - a great chef's knife.

Owning a good chef's knife is vital to being a good cook - as "spendy" as they are (expect to spend upwards of $100 for truly good quality), good knives are a must, so take some time researching and asking questions before you buy, and make sure to hold the knife and even try it out before committing. Once you start paying attention to how the knife feels in your hand, its weight, its balance, its length, you'll find that you prefer certain characteristics. For a lot more information on choosing a good knife (and one that suits you in particular), visit Cooking.com.

My own preference is for a 10" Wüsthof with a full tang, which means that the knife blade is not simply attached to the handle but forms a part of the handle as well - this gives the knife better balance and reduces wear and tear on the wrist.

The first purchases you make should be a high quality chef's knife and the stone and steel to keep it honed. Next, learn how to use the knife safely, and how to keep it sharp. Yes, a dull knife really is more dangerous than a sharp one! Look into a knife skills class - many culinary schools, community colleges, department store kitchen sections, and culinary supply stores offer them.

In future posts, we'll take a look at how to use the chef's knife to perform most basic cutting tasks.

 

Braising

Colder weather brings on a yearning for "warm" dishes - such as stews and chilis - many of which usually are made by the braising method.

Braising is defined as cooking with low heat in a covered dish with a small amount of liquid, often for extended periods of time. This may be a pretty straightforward definition, but the variations are numerous.

Most often, the braising process is started by quickly searing the item(s) to be cooked in hot fat, then deglazing the pan (pouring in a bit of liquid, most often wine). This allows you to scrape up the little bits of food that have adhered to the pan and whose caramelized flavor will lend a depth and sweetness to the finished product. Often, at the end of a recipe, the braising liquid is further reduced to create a sauce for the dish. While this sounds complicated and time-consuming, the majority of time for a braised dish is the cooking, not the preparation or finishing. And braises are the ultimate "do-ahead" dish: most taste better after a night or two in the fridge!

You will want to use a heavy pot with a fairly tight-fitting lid for braising. A too-thin pot will burn the dish too easily, and cooking in nonstick pots for a large amount of time is not advisable. There are two ways to braise: on the stovetop or in the oven. Clearly, for the oven, you will need a pot that is ovenproof - no plastic handles!

Because of the longer cooking time involved, braising is ideal for

• harder vegetables (think carrots, turnips, potatoes, in fact most root vegetables)
• tougher leafy vegetables, such as kale, collards, turnip greens, etc.
• cubed, finely diced, or ground beef, pork, lamb, etc., where just a bit of liquid would be sufficient to cover the meat; leaner, coarser-grained cuts of meat (ribs, chuck, shanks, brisket, flank,...)
• cut up poultry, usually on the bone: legs and thighs work better than breasts in braised preparations

The braising liquid can be varied ad infinitum and can be a single ingredient or a mixture of:

• water
• stock or broth (homemade is best, of course!)
• wine
• tomato juice or sauce

You will need to cut your food so that the pieces are of a uniform shape and size in order for them to cook in the same amount of time (and they'll look prettier that way, too!) If you are braising vegetables, you will need to add them at various times or cut them so that they cook in the same amount of time For example, carrots will cook more slowly than potatoes, so to braise them together, cut the carrots small and thin and the potatoes in larger chunks, or cook the carrots until almost done, then add the potatoes. Eggplant and zucchini will cook in relatively the same amount of time, so they can be cut to a similar shape and size.

The most basic steps to braising are as follows (not all steps will be in all recipes):

1. Prepare your ingredients to a uniform shape and size;
2. Coat the individual pieces with seasoned flour, shaking off any excess;
3. Sear (brown the outside of) the pieces in hot fat, removing them to a bowl when browned;
4. Deglaze the pot with a small amount of liquid, scraping up the browned bits;
5. Return the food to the pot, add enough liquid only to cover about 3/4 of the way up the food;
6. Bring to a boil, immediately reduce to a simmer, then cover and braise over low heat or in a low oven (325 F is usually the highest) until the food is so tender that it offers no resistance to a knife or skewer. For red meat, this can often be up to 3 hours.
7. Finish according to the recipe - this will often involve removing the food and keeping it warm while you thicken the sauce.

 Coming next week: ratatouille (the dish, not the critter) - the ultimate vegetable braise!

 

 

Fruit purée

Summer fruit is flooding the farmers' market now - sadly, in Michigan, the season is very short, so I've been looking for ways to keep some of those fruits for later use. Puréeing fruit is a wonderful way to store summer flavors for later (and it's a good way to use up fruit that is either a bit underripe, a bit overripe, or just plain ugly - my kids somehow think that if a strawberry is ugly, it won't taste as good as a "perfect" one!)

Most berries can be quickly rinsed, gently blotted dry, then tossed in the blender until smooth. If you're using "seedy" berries, such as raspberries, you may prefer to run the berries through a food mill to eliminate most of the seeds.

Stone fruits, such as cherries, peaches, and nectarines, should be washed and pitted before puréeing. If you prefer to skin the peaches first, you can drop them in boiling water for 30 seconds, then slip the skins off before pitting and puréeing.

Fruit purée, stored in airtight containers, will keep in the refrigerator for up to a month and in the freezer for up to 6 months.

3 Step Breading and Oven "Frying"

What’s not to love about breaded and fried food? Well, besides how unhealthy it is…. However, if you only eat this sort of food occasionally and make it at home, it really isn’t that evil. Breading keeps foods moist and adds some crunch and interest to them. It is most often used for deep fried foods, but with a bit of tweaking, you can have that fried food crunch with much less fat (and also keep the house from reeking). And your kids will once again be able to eat chicken nuggets (if that’s something to aspire to?) In fact, this is a cooking project most kids will happily join.

3 step breading

The classic breading technique uses 3 steps: dredging in flour, dipping in liquid, then dipping in crumbs. You can alter these 3 ingredients to suit your taste and food preferences—flours other than wheat can serve in step 1; non-dairy liquids in step 2; gluten-free crumbs in step 3.

This can be a somewhat tedious process, and there will be some gooey moments when you forget which hand is which, but set up as below, decide on your wet and dry hand, and let’s get started.

In French, mise en place means “everything in place”—it’s a good habit to acquire if you don’t have it already: when all your ingredients and implements are in place, you won’t have to pause in the recipe midstream. It’s particularly important in this technique because once you get started, stopping involves a lot of hand washing and you’ll really get slowed down!

You’ll want to have:

1. Your food item—chicken strips, zucchini or eggplant rounds, onion rings, etc.—all clean and patted dry as necessary. Fairly thin/small items are best.
2. 1 shallow bowl of 1 c flour (whole wheat, all purpose, rice, spelt, … anything goes) mixed with 1/2 tsp salt and 1/4 tsp pepper;
3. 1 shallow bowl with 1 egg and 2 T milk or water whisked together;
4. 1 shallow bowl with 2 c crumbs (bread, cracker, unsweetened cereal…);
5. 1 plate or sheet pan on which to place the breaded food.

Line these items up in the direction you like to work, left to right or right to left? Next you should decide on a dry and wet hand—sounds funny, but it’ll save you a lot of goop! If you work left to right, I suggest designating the left hand dry and the right hand wet; if you work right to left, the right hand should be designated dry and the left wet. These instructions will be for those working left to right:

1. With your wet/right hand, pick up the food item and place it in the bowl of flour without touching the flour.
2. With your dry/left hand, sprinkle then coat the food with flour, turning it until it is evenly covered; shake off the excess over the bowl and drop it gently into the bowl of liquid without touching the liquid with your hand.
3. With your wet/right hand, gently turn the food in the liquid; let the excess drip off over the bowl and drop it gently into the bowl of crumbs without touching the crumbs with your hand.
4. With your dry/left hand, coat the food thoroughly with crumbs, gently shake off the excess over the bowl, then place on the prepared plate or sheet pan.
5. Start over from step 1.

These instructions may seem overly complex, but if followed, your hands should stay relatively glop-free. If you mess up and your fingers get gluey, be sure to rinse in cold water, as that will remove the starchy mass more quickly than hot water would.

oven “frying”

Deep fat frying makes for delicious, if very unhealthy, food. Oven “frying” gives you a decent imitation of deep frying with much less fat. The keys are to use a really hot oven and a bit of fat with a relatively high smoke point.

1. Preheat the oven to 425ºF (400ºF convection) and place a heavy sheet pan or glass baking dish in the oven as it preheats.
2. Shortly before or just after the oven is ready, put 2 T fat (I like to use 1 T butter and 1 T olive oil) into the pan.
3. When the oven is hot and the butter (if you’re using it) is melted, tilt the pan around to coat it completely with fat, then quickly place the food on it in a single layer and return it to the oven.
4. Keep a close eye on the food—cooking times will vary greatly, but a good estimate for small items (vegetables, chicken strips) is 5-10 m on the first side. When the crumbs are nicely browned, turn the food and return to the oven.
5. When both sides are evenly brown and the food is cooked through (the best test is to cut a piece open), remove from the oven and serve.

variations

If you plan to bread larger items, like pieces of chicken on the bone, brown the breaded skin side (whether you kept the skin on or not) first, then turn the piece, reduce the heat to 325ºF (300ºF convection) and finish the cooking at the lower heat.

make ahead

The breaded food is best cooked right away, but you can also refrigerate it up to 6 hours or pop it in the freezer between layers of wax paper in an airtight container, where it can stay up to 6 months. If you have time to make this sort of food ahead, it’s well worth it to take advantage of the setup, make at least a double batch, and save yourself the mess next time around!

learning more

• Making sure that the excess flour, egg, and crumbs are shaken off the food will keep the final coating even and will keep flour out of the egg and egg out of the crumbs.
• The reason to use this somewhat complicated process instead of simply dipping food in flour or crumbs is that each layer serves as a surface to better hold onto the next layer: most food that you will “fry” is moist enough to adhere flour to it, but not crumbs; egg sticks nicely to flour; and finally crumbs stick better to food that is wet, not just moist. 

Download 3 Step Breading and Oven Frying

Grilling 101

Now that spring is finally here (or is it?), we're pondering breaking out the grill. We certainly can't grill as much in Michigan as we did in California: two of last fall's dinner parties had my husband out grilling in the rain under an umbrella - guess we need to remember to have a plan B now! But just as we are acclimating ourselves to a more seasonal eating style - gorging on what is in season until we're sick of it, looking forward to what's "in" next - grilling has become something we have been looking forward to since about the middle of the winter. Somehow, broiling - even with a great convection broiler in the oven - just isn't the same. Grilling is a great option for days when heating up the entire kitchen just isn't appealing, and food from the grill looks and tastes very different from that prepared by other methods.

Most people have a strong preference for charcoal or gas grills, and naturally, both have advantages and disadvantages. In my opinion, charcoal grills make for more authentic smoky flavors in food, but I find a good gas grill infinitely less trouble. Whichever type you prefer, the following tips and tricks apply.

What to grill

Grilling works best with small cuts of meat or fish and thinly sliced vegetables. Because grilling is a dry heat method, you may want to add a bit of fat to food, especially to lean cuts of meat and most fish: brush or rub it with olive oil or include oil in the marinade.

If you want to grill thicker foods (pieces of chicken on the bone or chunks of potato, for example) you’ll want to plan ahead for different heat areas on the grill: one area should be very hot, another should have a lower heat or no heat at all. On a gas grill, simply reduce the flame under one section of the grill; with a charcoal grill, heap the coals to one side, rather than in the center.

Be especially careful with foods that are naturally high in sugar (bell peppers and sweet potatoes, for example) and those that have high amounts of sugar in the marinade or sauce (most bbq sauces) - these will burn easily on the outside while the center remains raw.

How to grill

Whether you use a charcoal or gas grill, plan for enough time to preheat the grill to a very high heat. Once you have the initial grill marks made (more on that below), you’ll usually need a lower heat to allow the food to cook through without drying out.

For thin cuts of meat or fish and sliced vegetables, place the food on the hot grill to get the grill marks, then reduce the heat or move to a cooler section to finish the cooking process.

For thicker cuts, you can make the grill marks (cooking with direct heat), then move the food to a section of the grill where the heat is very low or completely off and cover the grill. This way you can allow the food to cook through without completely charring the exterior (cooking with indirect heat). This method is also preferable for foods high in sugar.

Grill marks

If you've ever wondered how chefs get those beautiful, perfectly diamond-shaped grill marks on their food, the wait is over and you're about to learn how to do it yourself.

1. Facing the preheated grill, imagine you are looking at a clock—the analog kind: 12:00 is the top of the grill, 6:00 the bottom, etc. For ease of introduction, I'm assuming that you have an elongated shape, like a chicken breast or a lengthwise slice of zucchini. If you're grilling a circle, like a burger or round of eggplant, play along - it'll still make sense.
2. Place your food lined up along the 10:00 to 4:00 axis, then part way through the cooking process on the first side, turn the food to line up along the 2:00 to 8:00 axis.
3. When you turn your food, line it up from 10:00 to 4:00 again, then once again, part way through the second side's time on the grill, turn the food to line up from 2:00 to 8:00.
4. Voilà - you should have perfect grill marks AND two sides to choose from, just in case one turned out better than the other - serve with the best side up!

 Download Grilling 101