Kicking off Grilling Season. Photo courtesy of Christina Dugan

Grilling season is back. Despite the spring rain, and the near-constant threat of afternoon storms, the smell of smoke and the char of seasoned steel grates is just too strong to deny.

I love to grill. So much that each season, when winter truly sets in, I go through a little of what I call OSGD, or off-season grilling depression. It’s like seasonal affective disorder, but you’re also hungry for foods you can’t have.

To show you how much I hate NOT grilling, I’ve taken the liberty of altering, ever so slightly, the great B.B. King song, The Thrill is Gone. B.B., plucking away at his guitar as though they were my heartstrings, couldn’t have said it better. Unless, of course, he was singing about Grilling.

The GRILL is gone
The GRILL is gone away
The GRILL is gone baby
The GRILLis gone away
You know you done me wrong baby
And you’ll be sorry someday

The GRILL is gone
It’s gone away from me
The GRILL is gone baby
The GRILL is gone away from me
Although I’ll still live on
But so lonely I’ll be

The GRILL is gone
It’s gone away for good
Oh, the GRILL is gone baby
Baby its gone away for good
Someday I know I’ll be over it all baby
Just like I know a man should

You know I’m free, free now baby
I’m free from your spell (Okay, not true)
I’m free, free now (ditto)
I’m free from your spell (double ditto)
And now that it’s over
All I can do is wish you well

Thankfully, the grill is NOW BACK. And last weekend, to kick of the grilling season, I went with perhaps my favorite grilled chicken dish of all time: Brined Chicken Thighs with Chimichurri.

Although I added in a few breasts for people who don’t like chicken bones (yes, they exist), I LOVE cooking with thighs for a few reasons:

1. They hold up well. The bone inside the chicken acts as a natural conductor of heat, but also helps to keep the flesh moist. So, if you’re distracted, or playing badminton, or whatever, you don’t have to be quite as watchful of the grill in worrying that you’ll make chicken beef jerky.

2. They are CHEAP. I bought what amounted to 34 pieces of chicken thigh for 11 bucks. These were all natural, hormone free birds, too. Not these roid freak water beasts you so often find at grocery stores. So, when you’re cooking for a lot of people, thighs go a long, long way.

3. They are kind of like the mullet of chicken – business in the front, party in the back. In other words, they are like a wing, in that you can serve them and eat them as finger foods (great for a cookout), but those that want to sit down and use a fork and knife will also find enjoyment in the meal.

So, next time you’re grilling, pay special attention to the great grill equalizer that is the chicken thigh.

On to brining.

Brining is something everyone should learn, and a basic brine is a beautiful thing. And, once you’ve found a basic recipe that you like it’s easy to expand on it using different spices. For instance, using Lapsang Souchong, I developed what I believe is the best smoked brine on the planet. Have I tasted all the brines on the planet? No. Which is why I think mine is the best. You can find the recipe, as well as the basic brine recipe for chicken (minus the tea) in my Lapsang Souchong Brine post.

Using the brine recipe, or one that you prefer, brine the chicken for at least 8-10 hours in a large container or cooler surrounded with ice, or in your fridge. A full day is preferable to allow the salt-sugar solution to permeate the chicken meat.

When the chicken is ready, fire up your grill. I add a little veg. oil to the grill when it’s hot and then take the chicken directly out of the brine and place it on the grill. I actually don’t like to rinse the brine from the chicken. But, you should at least pat the pieces dry before placing them on the heat so that you’ll get a nice char on the flesh and won’t cool the surface heat of the grill too much.

I’m always a bit hesitant to provide cooking times, especially for grilling. I can’t possibly know if you’re the slow and steady, indirect charcoal kind of person, or the “I make bullets over my 40,000 BTU gas grill on off days” type. So, I’ll go with a basic recommendation that for bone in thighs, cook the chicken about 15 minutes per side, moving often to avoid flare ups from skin fat dripping into the fire.

On to the Chimichurri. This is a sauce of Argentinean origin, which gauchos favor for use on the country’s beautiful grass fed beef. It’s also quite amenable to sausage – namely chorizo – and chicken.

My favorite thing about this sauce is that you don’t really need a recipe. Below are the base elements, but you should experiment with cumin, curries, red onion, fresh oregano (gorgeous) and other spices. As I know you’ll need at least some place to start, below are the approximations I used to pull it together.

• 2 cups fresh Italian parsley (remove stems)
• 1 cup fresh cilantro (stems removed)
• 1.5 cups extra virgin olive oil
• 1 whole head of garlic (I like a LOT of garlic)
• 1/2 cup red wine vinegar
• 1 teaspoon dried crushed red pepper
• Salt and Pepper to taste

Just throw all this into a food processor and blend up to a level of your own comfort. I like mine just a little chunky, but also love the fully emulsified sauce.

For this dish, I used the Chimichurri as my grilling sauce, but it’s often reserved for the table, where you spoon it directly onto finished meats. As I use quite a lot of garlic, I like to apply just a bit of heat to it as the chicken nears its final turns on the grill. I find this tempers the heat of the garlic without burning, too much, the parsley and cilantro. I brush the Chimichurri sauce onto the chicken with about 5-8 minutes remaining per side, and, when using a gas grill, turn off one whole side to place the brushed pieces upon so that they don’t burn.

Lastly, I place the finished pieces on a cookie sheet, cover with foil and place into a 350 degree oven. This gives the bone-in pieces a little more time to loosen up and also allows me to move on to more time sensitive dishes for the grill such as vegetables.

Serve with cold beer, grilled asparagus and grilled zucchini.

Enjoy.

Smoky and light with a touch of heat

I first read about the flat iron steak on Chowhound and was intrigued by the idea of a “new” cut of steak. The first thing that came to mind is, “this is going to become the monkfish of the beef world.” The name comes from the shape of the steak, which looks like a flat iron (surprise). There’s a fabulous description of its origins at Gourmet Sleuth.

What intrigued me the most was legend of its tenderness, despite the fact that it looks to be a cut of meat that would require some sort of artificial tenderizing. But when you see the meat, and see the long tendrils of marbling, you’ll understand why this is not so. The flatiron steak is extremely tender, and to me, one of the most delicious cuts of meat you can buy these days.

The trick is to find it from a local producer and at an affordable price. It ranges. I’ve heard of people paying upwards of 10 bucks a pound for the stuff, while, at D.C.’s Eastern Market butchers, I paid about 5. They’re meat isn’t sourced locally, but they do source from a sustainable beef producer in the mid-west. Tough to hit local, sustainable and organic at all time, but I try to do the best I can to hit one of the three.

But what to do with the flatiron? It looks like a flank, and you can certainly apply the same treatment.

I was in the mood for something, as usual these days, to make me forget about winter. Something spicy and sweet and grilled. So, I decided to try a spicy rubbed steak with some sort of salsa.

I’d purchased some powdered chipotle at world market and decided this was the time to call it to duty. Here’s what I came up with:

Smokey Rub

• 1 TBS chipotle chile powder

• 1 TBS mustard powder

• 1/2 TBS paprika

• 1 tsp onion powder

• 1 tsp cracked black pepper

• 1 tsp salt

Combine the rub below in a bowl. Then, surprise, rub it into the meat making sure you spread it out evenly. It should take on a gorgeous reddish orange color. I let this sit for about three hours in the fridge.

When you feel that it’s had enough time (it really doesn’t need it, but I’m always one for letting spices sit a bit) I removed the steak from the fridge and let it come to room temperature for about half an hour.

Now for the salsa. As always, I was in position of looking over my weekly haul from Washington’s Green Grocers, and I had an abundance of onions and clementines. I also had leftover chayote squash and cilantro from my escovietch recipe, and it desperately needed a home. So, I combined sliced red onion and chayote with the torn cilantro and peeled and chopped oranges to make a salsa. I didn’t want the onion to be too acidic with the oranges, so I actually cooked it down in a pan with veg. oil until they were just translucent. I tossed the hot onions in a bowl with the rest of the ingredients below and let sit.

Clementine, Chayote and Red Onion Salsa

• 8 clementines

• 1 red onion, sliced

• 1/2 chayote squash sliced

• handful of torn cilantro leaves, chopped roughly

• Red wine vinegar to taste

• Vegetable oil (maybe a quarter cup)

• Mrs. Salt

• Mr. Pepper

Now to the stove. Because it’s winter, and I don’t have access to a grill, I rely on a trustee grill pan. If you don’t have one, and you’re a grilling fan, they’re a must for out-of-season grilling – unless if you live in a warm climate, of course.

Heat the grill pan until its smoking hot and add a bit of oil. NOTE, the chipotle in the rub could make you cough if you don’t have good ventilation or a diesel powered oven hood. If you DO NOT, open a few windows, move the children out of the way, and wear a bandanna. Okay, maybe not that last part, but you get the picture. Just be careful with the smoke.

Add steak to the grill pan for about 3.5 minutes per side at the most. Remove from the pan to a cutting board, and let sit, tented with foil, for about 5-10 minutes. Slice on the diagonal into thin slices with a sharp carving knife or electric knife.

Place a heaping tablespoon of the salsa on top of the sliced steak, serve with white rice and black beans.

This is one of the easiest, most delicious dishes I’ve made in some time. I recommend it highly. At the very least, I encourage you to explore the wonders of the flatiron steak.

Will