Cheryl Alters Jamison - Good Times, Good Grilling: Surefire Recipes for Great Grill Parties

To the newest party girl in our family,
granddaughter Chloe Brooklyn Neale,
a charmer from the beginning

Cooking for friends should always be fun, but too often even a small, casual party becomes complicated or intimidating. Inexperienced cooks and hosts naturally feel some anxiety, and that may be ratcheted up by the advice coming from professionals. Every television show on entertaining, every article on the subject in a magazine or newspaper, suggests that we should fret about what we serve, the table we set, the theme we address for the occasion. We must, were told, contemplate, coordinate, decorate, create, and then officiate.

Nonsense. Its about friendship, and the sharing of good food and good timesnothing else.

This book shows how to make it easy and fail-proof, without serious planning, hassles, or time commitments. Well grill for our friends, because its a casual and lively way to entertain, and well detail how to grill the food to perfection every time. Our focus is on simple but flavorful dishes that even beginners can master, including variations that suggest ways to add signature touches of your own to wow your guests. We dont offer complex scenarios, or trendy tips, or instructions for folding napkins. Everything is about having fun with friends in a relaxed, fulfilling way.

It doesnt really matter whether you have matching silverware, a vase of flowers, a seating plan, or a freshly mowed lawn. What you do need for a successful grill party is hearty, satisfying food, the kind of fare that makes people feel special and indulged. Food should be the centerpiece of the event, not just a weak excuse for getting together. You want to stimulate appetites and spirits alike.

Forget fancy at this kind of party. Its much more important that you fixed the food and that the food fits you. If youre a pizza person, grill pizzas for your friends. Make them yourself and make them exceptional, with all the right flourishes for you and your guests. Youll feel like a star and theyll treat you like one.

Weve carefully chosen the food in this book to reflect broad and strong interests. We deliberately avoid an encyclopedic approach, focusing instead on real favorites that youll enjoy cooking again and again, and will feel proud to serve your friends. The concentration on a manageable range of dishes allows us to cover them thoroughly and allows you to learn them well.

Any cook, however inexperienced, can succeed admirably with any of the dishes. Start with the next chapter on Grilling Basics, which describes general principles of professional-quality grilling that apply to all foods. Even if youve grilled for decades, the advice will help you refine your approach or reinforce your instincts. The recipe chapters provide specific grilling tips for the individual dishes, a critical consideration because you have to grill different foods in different ways for the best results.

Many cooks will want to try a wide range of the recipes. If youre a novice or only an occasional cook, however, we suggest the approach we learned from David Fraher, a friend in Minneapolis. When we were on an extended road trip about ten years ago, the map indicated that Minneapolis was slightly less than a days detour, so we called David to see whether we could get together if we made a brief stop in the city. He invited us to his place for an impromptu grill party, promising us one of his specialties, which turned out to be terrific lamb burgers served with a seasonal salad.

When we raved about the dinner and his spur-of-the-moment hospitality, David chuckled and coyly confessed his secret about cooking for friends. I only know how to cook three dishes, he said. I have them down so well now that theyre dead simple. I can make them at a moments notice with no more hassle than a quick run to the grocery store.

Some people may prefer just one specialty, and others may opt for five, but the essence of the idea remains the same. Youre always ready to grill for friends if youve mastered a select number of simple party dishes tailored to your own personal tastes. You can turn a neighborly conversation over the back fence into a spontaneous grill-out, invite coworkers home to celebrate an office coup, or entertain in-laws who drop by unexpectedly. You know what to grill and how to grill it before you even extend an invitation, so youre prepared to party at will.

In selecting possible specialties, bear in mind the capabilities of your grill. Good food options for you may be limited by the size of your cooking grate or the intensity of heat that your grill generates. The grilling instructions that accompany all the main dishes specify the appropriate heat levels for cooking. If the grate is small, shrimp is a better choice than pizza. If you cook on a gas grill that doesnt have real searing power, chicken will come out better than pork tenderloins. If you have an infrared grill that tends to stay hot, youre always on the verge of burning vegetables but skirt steak works great.

Try out a number of the dishes that appeal to you, making sure they excel on your type of grill. Pick your favorites among them and then tweak them with signature accents, using the suggested variations to stimulate your imagination. With a little practice, youll be serving your specialties to friends for years to come.

Whether you take the specialty approach, or youre an accomplished cook prepared to grill any of our dishes, youve always got good food at the tip of your tongs. Add friends and stir gently. Its not the kind of spontaneous combustion you learned about in chemistry class, but its a lot more fun for everyone, including you as the cook and host.

The most critical success factor in grilling has nothing to do with whether you cook with charcoal or gas, marinate your food in advance, or serve your meat with a special barbecue sauce. What counts the most is an understanding and appreciation of true grill flavor. That alone can qualify someone as a master griller, regardless of the state of their grill or their skills as a saucier. If you dont have that understanding, you cant even be sure youre really grilling when you cook on a grill.

All methods of cooking, from simmering to frying, produce distinctive tastes and textures. The goal in grilling is to intensify the natural flavor of food through the chemical process of high-heat browning (known in scientific circles as the Maillard reaction). With meat, fish, and poultry, the browning and crisping of the exterior requires direct heat at a relatively high temperature. The fire must be hot enough to shrink the muscle fibers on the surface, which concentrates the flavor, but not so hot that it burns or chars the outside before adequately cooking the inside. When you get it right, the result is a robust amplification of the foods natural flavor along with a scrumptious textural contrast between the crusted surface and the succulent interior. Its an outcome characteristic of grilling, unlike anything obtained by any other cooking method except open-flame rotisserie roasting. You may want to add other complementary seasonings to the food with spice rubs, marinades, sauces, or relishes, but they should never distract from the distinctive grill taste.