Saturday, June 20, 2009

Photo Food Blogging

Barbeque Basket Grill, starting with a picture of the finished product.
The Finished ProductWe're going to try some photo-blogging; not giving a recipe, but providing pictures of the process of making one of our favorite one-dish meals. This is a mixture of meats and vegetables, all grilled together on the barbeque. The dish is flexible, as one can throw in whatever ingredients one has on hand or strike the fancy of the moment.

The BasketYou start with a basket like this one. I don't know where you get these; we got this at Bed, Bath and Beyond quite a few years ago, and they don't carry it any more. There are some so-called "baskets" that are sheet metal with holes punched in them, but I don't think they would work well; I think you want to look for one made of wire mesh. This one is 11" by 14" in size, but size isn't critical. You do want one that is pretty deep, though.

Start your grill to preheat, if you are using charcoal or a gas grill with lava rock. You want a pretty hot fire.

The VeggiesNext you want to chop some veggies into smallish pieces. As you can tell, we like mushrooms. Note to self, next time don't cut the Zucchini in half lengthwise before slicing it. That's a bit of a sore point, my wife hates Zucchini and has to sort of "eat around it" when I put it in. Use sweet onions, Vidalia or whatever your store has that is equivalent; the onions are not going to get all that thoroughly cooked and anything other than sweet onions will be a fail.

You can use whatever vegetables you want, but you should not use any vegetable that is at all fragile. You will be stirring this mixture in the basket and anything which is not very sturdy will just come apart and make a mess. Tomato and eggplant, for instance, are definitely out.

Toss VeggiesPut the cut-up vegetables in a bowl, add a generous amount of olive oil and then sprinkle with whatever herbs you like. I use Oregano, garlic power and just a bit of Thyme. Toss that well in the bowl and let it sit for a minute to allow any excess oil to drain off.

Spray the basket well with cooking spray (please don't do this anywhere near the grill) put the basket on the grill and dump the vegetables into it, being careful not to pour any drained olive oil (which will flare up) in with them. There may be some initial flare-up anyway, so have a squirt bottle handy to quench it.

I know we haven't mentioned any meat yet; the vegetables take longer to cook than the meat does. I realize that sounds counterintuitive but, trust me, I've done this before.

Prepare MeatWe'll let the vegetables be cooking while we cut up the meat in smallish pieces. We're going to be a little busy, because we need to periodically stir the vegetables; about every couple of minutes or so.

For meat, I usually use a mix of beef and chicken; you could use either one alone if you like. You could also add some shrimp, but you'd want to add it to the grill basket a little after the other meats to avoid overcooking it. Season to taste with garlic power, salt and pepper, and you can now drizzle a little bit of barbeque sauce on it; not too much. Barbeque sauce is really good on meat, but too much will overwhelm the vegetables. Stir that up to coat the meat with sauce. I usually leave the bbq sauce off at this point and drizzle it over the mix in the basket when I add the meat.

Shaping UpToss the meat into the basket, drizzle a little bbq sauce if you didn't add it to the meat earlier, and mix it in with the vegetables. Kitchen cleanup can be done while this is cooking; a good cook cleans up the mess that he makes in the process. Just don't forget to keep stirring the basket; about every 4-5 minutes after you've added the meat.
Ready to GoOh, yum, this is ready to go as soon as the chicken is cooked all the way through. The beef, with pieces cut the same size as the chicken, will be medium rare. (If you want them more done cut them smaller.) Be careful when dumping this onto a platter: that basket is hot.
Finished ProductAnd there we have it. Enjoy.

2 comments:

  1. Thanks! Now to find a basket.....
    (Is it my imagination, or does that barbeque sauce look like it cam e out a bottle? If so, what brands/flavors do you use?)

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  2. bruce3:41 PM

    grilled zucchini is great, Kathy doesn;t know what she's missing. Oh well... Throw the eggplant on the side, not in the basket. Red (purple) onions work well, I do them all the time. I've put them straight on the grill and have used one of those flat basket thingiesyou just flip over. Oh, that basket looks an awful lot like a deep fryer basket you could get at a cooking supply or restaurant supply store. Good post, I'll have to try this soon.

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