One Man, One Pan: The Weber Grill for bird
7 April 2006If you're new here, you may want to subscribe to my RSS feed. Thanks for visiting!
If you are creative and imaginative there are dozens of ways to prepare the two eternal mainstays of the Purposefully Primitive Performance Eating philosophy: lean protein and fibrous carbohydrate. By developing an arsenal of methods, recipes and assembling certain culinary tools, you are able to create delicious foods that you look forward to eating. When you prepare your own food you control your nutritional destiny. By learning how to inject taste into “diet food” the trainee is far more likely to adhere to the eating game plan. As readers of this blog-site are aware, lean protein and fibrous carbohydrate are foods virtually impossible for the human body to convert into body fat. This is true for a variety of reasons: lean protein, protein devoid of saturated fat (as much as possible) is surprisingly resistant to conversion into body fat. Fibrous carbs (carrots, lettuce, cabbage, green beans, broccoli, bell peppers, onions, spinach, salad greens etc.) require nearly as many calories to break down, digest and emulsify as they contain. Lean protein is highly sought after by a body that is weight trained with the brief ferocity we recommend. Optimally some lean protein is consumed every three waking hours. When a body regularly subjected to intense weight training is fed small amounts of fat-free protein at regular intervals throughout the day, the amino acids are extracted and gobbled up hungrily. Muscles subjected to high-intensity weight training crave the regenerating amino acids protein contains. Amino acid is the raw material, the fuel required to initiate and accelerate the healing, repair and growth process. Fiber can be eaten in unlimited amounts provided you not fall in the trap of covering fiber veggies in butter, commercial salad dressings and the like. Purposeful Primitives make lean protein and fiber the backbone of their approach to nutrition and derive 70 to 80% (or more) of total daily calories from protein and fiber.
Starchy carbohydrates are also included in the PP eating game plan but starch is consumed less frequently and in smaller amounts. Starch carbs impact different folks in different ways. Many people are carb sensitive and even small amounts of potatoes or rice cause them to swell like a balloon being filled with helium. The carb-sensitive need keep starch consumption to a bare minimal. Refined carbs, manmade carbs such as bread, pastries, chips, processed foods, junk food, candy, trans-fatty acid laden frozen food mixtures and the like all need be eliminated. By eating substantial amounts of lean protein and fiber, hunger never rears its ugly head. Habit force is a powerful thing; cravings spring strongest from the depths of hunger. By never allowing ourselves to become hungry (optimally we consume a portion of protein and fiber every three hours) cravings are less likely to take root. Hunger cravings drive a person to an eventual binge. As my Old Amigo training partner (alas, gone on to the Happy Hunting Ground) used to say, “Alright Marty, now that all the ‘throat clearing’ and windups are over – what exactly is it that you are trying to say? Here’s the deal of the day: If you have a place to use it, a Weber Grill is an indispensable tool for adding succulent variety to the preparation of lean protein foods. Flash grill poultry, beef, seafood, lean lamb and ultra-lean pork tenderloin by laying the food directly onto a grill set a few inches above a bed of white-hot bed of coals. Slow roast foods; smoke-infuse them using the ‘indirect’ method. Foods take on succulent flavors when cooked long and slow using smoke.
You can buy a Weber at the local Wal-Mart in a variety of sizes. I use the standard full size grill and I believe the new version is around $70. I’ll confine this posting to poultry. Buy a whole bird: a chicken or turkey. I like to Weber Grill a turkey on a lazy Sunday while I’m hanging outside helping Stacy do her Zen Garden yard work. To roast a medium-sized turkey takes 2-3 hours. No matter, once the Weber lid is dropped down, you’re done! For 2-3 hours it sits untouched. I place a meat thermometer probe deep in the thigh of the bird. When poultries internal temperature reaches 170-degrees, the bird (be it chicken or turkey) is done to perfection. The meat thermometer lies outside the grill and a long steel ribbon connects the probe to the digital readout display. You can buy one of these for $15 at any Mall Kitchen specialty store. It takes all the guesswork out of the preparation equation. Mine even has a little alarm that beeps when my program target temperature is reached. That way if I’m lying on the hammock reading Tolstoy stories about Cossacks in the Urals in 1800 I get snapped back to reality when the alarm goes off and do not overcook the bird – the single greatest preparation mistake. An undercooked bird is uneatable; an over cooked bird is unappetizing, dry and tasteless. Here’s the exact minimal preparation method for grilling a turkey or one or several whole chickens. Following the sequence suggested will save time. In addition to purchasing a Weber Grill, purchase a chimney charcoal-starter from Lowe’s or Home Depot: ten or fifteen dollars buys a metal cylinder that holds charcoal briquettes. Drizzle olive oil on newspapers or a wad of balled-up paper towels. Place the oiled paper source underneath the chimney loaded with charcoal. Light the paper and go on about your business. In fifteen minutes, depending on wind conditions, the coals will turn white hot.
Retrieve the bird from the frig and place the whole thing in the sink. Remove the wrapper and be sure and remove the packaged neck and organs from the cavity. Rinse the bird inside and out. Set it on end and let it drain for a few minutes. Set a baking sheet of platter next to the sink. While the bird draining, check the coals: when they’re white dump them out of the charcoal holder onto the Weber grate in two equal sized piles; two semi-circles on either side of the round grill. I use a steel garden rake to push the white hot coals to their final resting place. Drop wood chips (hickory, apple, mesquite) over the white hot coals. Soak these chips – available at Lowe or Home Depot for a few bucks a bag – in a pan of water ahead of time, say fifteen minutes. Place a tin pan or homemade foil pan in between the separated coals now covered with wet wood chips: I use a 9×14 aluminum pan available for less than a buck at any grocery store. The “drip pan” catches the juices from the roasting bird. The coals form two semi-circles, the drip pan sits of the rack nestled between the hot coals. Now place the second grill, the grill on which the bird will sit, overtop the smoking coals. Place the bird on the grill breast side up. Shut the lid and walk away – come back in 2-3 hours and its time to eat!
The bare minimum is to salt and pepper the bird inside and out. The bird prep variations are endless but let’s stay minimal – never stuff a bird and grill it as stuffing prevents smoke from circulating inside the cavity. You may rub olive oil or marinade onto the skin and then sprinkle the moistened skin with an endless variety of spices and herbs. I like Paul Prudomme’s poultry dry rub, kosher salt and maybe some chipotle rub. The most basic method is to clean the bird, grease the bird with a little oil, salt and pepper, add a few spices and place the bird onto the grill positioned over the drip pan. I place the meat probe into the thigh and place the readout in a table adjacent to the grill. The top is finally set in place right on top of the flat metal probe ribbon. The grill starts smoking right away and the fragrant smell oozes from the vent holes. Keep all the vent holes wide open. You’re done now. Go about your business and check the digital readout periodically. When the temp gauge hits 170, remove the smoke-infused bird and let it sit on a platter for a full 10-minutes. As you eat the moist, smoke-drenched bird think this thought: “I owe you one Marty.” It’s that easy and tastes that good.
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