The Lazy Genius Podcast - #26: The Lazy Genius Grills

Episode Date: June 19, 2017

1. Get grilling ideas from Pinterest. The Lazy Genius Grills Pinterest Board 2. Check out what you heard in the episode. grill mats - the magic, washable contraptions that keep your food from falling through long tongs - please don't burn your hands 12 Grilling Mistakes You Don't Have to Make from Serious Eats This podcast is hosted by Kendra Adachi and executive produced by Kendra Adachi, Jenna Fischer and Angela Kinsey. To learn more about listener data and our privacy practices visit: https://www.audacyinc.com/privacy-policy Learn more about your ad choices. Visit https://podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Hey podcast friends, this is Kendra, and you are listening to the Lazy Genius podcast. Here, I'm going to help you be a genius about the things that matter and lazy about the things that don't. Today's episode, episode 26, The Lazy Genius, grills, or barbecues, depending on where you live in the country. So here's the pitch. Summer is the perfect time for grilling. We all know this.

But why does it feel so hard to get started sometimes? it feels like there are some people that have this amazing skill at the grill, but we have to keep going back inside over and over again because we keep forgetting things. The food is burned or like gross doesn't taste like anything or sticks to the grill. And let's be real y'all, our makeup is a disaster at the end because there's just so much sweating, so much sweating. Sometimes it just feels too hard. But we still want to do it, right? We still long to do that in the summer. It just feels right. We want to be geniuses about it. So today in the playbook, we're going to talk about the only three rules you need to know

about grilling, what to actually put on the grill, and then how to clean it up without wanting to throw the grill away and just start all over. Now let me give you a quick disclaimer. So the grill can do a million things. But for the sake of today, we are only going to talk about the most basic approach, okay? No smokers or heat zones or cooking a pork shoulder all day. that is a different conversation and one that really will never fully understand until we get comfortable with the basics anyway. So just know those things are not happening.

We're just going to grill. Simple grilling, okay? So let's get started. Now the most lazy genius way for you to think about the grill is to pretend it's a giant stove because it kind of is. It's just one with direct heat from an actual fire. So anything that you'd feel comfortable cooking on your stove, you can cook on the grill. and we're going to talk about some specifics in just a second. But first, there are three grilling rules to know.

And if you remember these, you will pretty much know what you're doing. Or at least fake it enough to get by. Okay, rule number one, preheat your grill. Okay, turn the gas on because if you have a charcoal grill and have to get it started with one of those chimneys and stuff, you probably have zero need for this episode. You're already good at grilling. Okay, so, but if you have a gas grill, turn on the gas, set the burners on high, close the lid, and walk away. Okay?

This does a couple of things. First, it gets the grates hot. Every time you open the lid, you lose heat, okay? But if the grates are super hot, if they're preheated, opening and closing, it won't hurt your cooking as much, all right? Also, preheating your grill is the laziest way to clean. clean it. Whenever I grill, I don't clean it right after I'm done. Okay, there's really no point. Because the best way to clean a grill is to get it super hot to basically cook off all the stuff that got stuck on and then scrub it off with a grill brush. Okay? Well, I just made dinner. Okay? I've already

turned off the grill because my family's hungry. I don't have time to wait for the cheese to turn to charcoal and scrape it off from the cheeseburgers I just made. So what I do is the food will just sit there and slowly turn to charcoal as the grill kind of cools down. Okay. But then the next time I preheat the grill and that heat hits those grates for a really long time, that heat finishes the job. And he cooked on food is basically ash by the time I get there. And it scrapes off so easily with the brush, okay?

You also save on gas that way because you're really only running the grill for when you're preheating and cooking. Okay. So basically each preheat is cleaning. from the time before. So it's such a lazy, genius way to clean. Okay, so rule number one, preheat the grow. Rule number two, use oil or die. I mean it, you guys. If you put any food, I don't care how well your food is oil and greased. If you put food on a naked grill grate, without any oil on the grate, it will stick. End of story. And sticking is one of the most frustrating parts of grilling, right? So let's

please, let's just avoid the sticking, if we can. You have to oil the grill. Okay, so here is my favorite way to do it. I pour some canola or vegetable oil. I usually don't have vegetable oil in my house. I only buy canola, but either works great. Pour some in a bowl, okay, like a quarter cup, not a ton, not like you don't need to fill the bowl, but it needs to be more than like a drizzle. So like about a quarter cup or so in a bowl and then throw a paper towel in the bowl, okay? And When the grill has been preheating for at least five minutes, even up to 15, if you want to just really get it fiery. If you have a temperature gauge on the outside, then you can kind of know if it's already maxed out, then you're kind of all set. You can be done.

But once it's preheated, I'll go out to my grill. I'll go ahead and scrape the cheese ash off the grates, you know, clean it from the last time. And then use a pair of long tongs. Don't use short ones that you use regularly in your kitchen. you will pay the price, trust me on that one, use a pair of long tongs to rub that oil soaked paper towel across the grates. Okay. So doing it on such a hot grill, it sets it in a way that a cooler grill won't. If you try to oil a cool grill, it's not really going to work very well. Now, here's a thing, though, you don't want to oil the grill until you're ready to put the food on

because otherwise the oil is just going to burn off. It won't. It won't. make it as non-stick as if you just oil the grill and then put the food straight on. So rule number two, use oil or die. In grill terms, you will die and your food will die. Oil the grill, oil, or grill, oil, or grill, oil, or grow, oil, or the grill. You will never regret doing it, I promise, but you will almost certainly regret it if you don't. Okay? So rule number one, preheat the grill.

Rule number two, use oil or die. And rule number three, stop fiddling. with the food. The reason, I'm sorry I sound angry, but stop filling with the food. The reason that your food sticks on your grill or anywhere else, really, is because it hasn't cooked enough to release itself from the surface of whatever you're cooking it on. Okay? You can help make the separation.

You can help that separation along by developing a crust on your food. Okay? You get that crust with fat. and with time. Okay. So if you, A, don't oil your grill and leave off the fat part, right? And then B, keep fiddling with the burger or the piece of chicken or whatever. So it doesn't have time to create a nice crust like grill marks.

That meat will stick to the grill, okay? It's like when you try and tear your three-year-old away from his Halloween bucket. All right, it's all clingy and dramatic and it all ends in tears, okay? but if you leave the food alone, you give it a chance to develop that crust, which also tastes amazing, by the way. And it makes it so easy to flip food and move it around from the grill to the plate. Okay. Now, there is one really big exception to rule number three. Okay. And that is if you're cooking something with a really high sugar content, like the best example would be chicken coated in barbecue sauce. Okay. If you leave barbecue chicken alone, then the sauce is just going to burn and like in a flash,

like so fast. Okay. That kind of has to be babysat, high sugar content things. They need to be babysat a little bit. They need to be moved around every couple of minutes. Okay. So guess what? You'll need to do excessively. Oil the grill. Okay. If you have to fiddle, make sure it won't stick. All right. So oil the grill like a lot. And with a high sugar content, you do, need to move the things around. But otherwise, stop moving your food. Just stop, stop, stop. Okay. So those are your three rules. If you know those three rules, honestly, it's going to change your grilling game. Okay, it's going to simplify things a little bit for you. You're going to feel more comfortable. So start with those three rules and see how it goes. Okay. Now, let's go back to our favorite way

to think about the grill. So we can talk about what to put on it. All right? It's just a giant stove, y'all. It really is. So if you would cook it on the stove, you can probably cook it on the grill. Now, there are obvious contenders, right? We all know. Burgers, hot dogs, steaks, chicken. There's also fish. You can put meat on skewers.

zucchini, onion, cherry tomatoes, bell peppers, corn, cabbage. Don't not grow cabbage, y'all. It is so good. Eggplant, shrimp, pizza, bacon. The possibilities are beautifully endless for what you can put on the grill. and if you have, um, that's the word cruciferous? Is that the right word? Cruciferous vegetables, like crunchy vegetables, like broccoli and Brussels sprouts and stuff like that. Um, those actually need a little bit of time to cook all the way through. So if you steam them first to cook them like

mostly all the way and then put them on the grill, boom, like you're all set. Okay. Now, you might be thinking, Kendra, all that food is going to fall through the grates, the flakes of the fish and the broccoli florets and those little onion circles. You're right. You're very right. But let me tell you what you need. You need a grill mat. All right. I will link to this in the show notes. They are the best things ever. The show notes for this episode are the lazy genius collective.com

slash lazy slash grill. With a grill mat, you get the same flavor, the same heat. Even the grill marks, sometimes depending on the map that you use, without anything falling through the cracks. It's just this teeny layer that conducts the heat the same way. It all works the same except it just keeps things from falling through the grates. It is the best, okay? Such a good thing to have.

So totally go get a pack. They're reusable. The ones I use that I wing to in the show notes, they're reusable. They are dishwasher safe, which is crazy. They're not expensive at all. Go get some. Basically, if you think you can grill it, you can probably grill it, especially if you have a grill mat because things are going to fall through the cracks.

yippie. Okay. Now let's talk about a couple of typical grilling questions. Okay. First, when do you close the lid? I struggle with this question for the longest time. And guess what the answer is? Pretty much always, y'all. Like, pretty much always. I know that like shows and movies and stuff have everybody, you know, hanging out by the open grill, flipping burgers and drinking beers. But for the most part, if there's food on your grill, it should be closed. Now, you might be thinking, but doesn't that, like, steam the food instead of grill it? Um, not exactly. Steam doesn't happen, but a closed grill, it does provide, like, consistent heat, kind of like an oven, you know? And so that's going to make sure that your food cooks really well and evenly. Now, the exception to this might be if you're trying to sear a piece of meat, if you're really trying to get like a really crusty jar or something. Um, and if you're, If you put the meat down and immediately, immediately close the lid, try to say immediately close

the lid four times fast. If you put the meat down and you try to close the lid like right away, you'll get a sear but maybe not one as strong as you would like. So what you could do if you really want a sear on your meat is you can leave the girl open for like a minute or two, right, to get that sear going to develop that crest and then close the lid. But pretty much just close the lid. Aw isn't something we need to travel for.

It's something waiting for us in everyday life, whether in a city street or a moment with a work of art. I'm Dacher Keltner, host of the Science of Happiness podcast. Join me for Cities of Aw, a special series on how our public spaces can spark awe, wonder, and enhance the quality of public life. You can find us wherever you listen to your podcasts. You need heat to cook. And an open grill loses heat. Well, let me be clear. A gas grill loses heat.

I learned this in an article that I will also link to in the show notes that a gas grill, this is so crazy. A gas grill gets cooler if you open it. Makes sense, right? You're like letting out the heat. But if you open a charcoal grill, it actually gets hotter. It's something scientific with like the coals and molecules. I'm terrible at science.

I have no idea. either way, opening the grill makes the heat inconsistent. That's the point. It might make it too cold. It might make it too hot, but it does make it inconsistent and harder to manage. Okay. So if you'll just keep it closed, set a timer if your internal grill clock is broken like mine usually is, and then just open it only when you have to. Okay. Now, second question, why does my food taste more like fire than food. Honestly, y'all, it's probably more about your seasoning than about the fire. Okay. So, okay, salt. I'm going to talk about salt again. I know. I talk about salt all the time. I love it so much. Salt makes everything taste more like itself. Okay. And if you forget to salt something that you

then put over a flame, the flame is going to think it's in charge. And it's going to impart its flavor into your food without any seasoning to balance it out. Okay. So definitely salt your food. So it tastes its best. And then the grill flavor also tastes its best. It kind of brings out the best of everything. So if it tastes too much like burn, it might just be that you didn't salt it enough because if you don't see like, you know, sometimes you'll eat food that doesn't have like a lot of burn marks. You know, it doesn't look like it's burned, but it kind of tastes just like fire. You might just need more salt. Okay, so third and final question. How long am I supposed to cook stuff?

Okay, this is why this question is hard because it's so varied, right? Sadly, I wish I had some quick rule of thumb, but you just need to trust your common sense, all right? Like a thin, watery vegetable, like a slice of zucchini, is going to cook way faster than a half pound hamburger, right? You know this. So my suggestion really, if you're wondering how long to cook something, it's just not to guess. Google it. Google how long to grill shrimp or how long to grill a rabbi or how long to curl zucchini. Note the time, cut that time in half, you know, for like when you flip it, and actually use the timer.

What I do is I set a timer on my phone. Like once I put the food on the grill, I set a timer on my phone and I put the timer in my pocket. So rather than like leaving it on the counter of the grill, that way I'll hear it. whether I'm by the grill or inside getting cheese for the burgers or whatever I'm doing. And then when your timer goes off, technically it's the internet's time of telling you it's time to flip the thing, right? So before you flip it though, just look at it. Does it look cooked up around the edges?

Like if you're cooking a burger, is the outside rim of the burger cooked? Have the vegetables. They gotten brown around the edges and started to lose some of their moisture. like if they do, then you're ready to flip. Basically, you just want to make sure that the food is cooked about halfway, right? Because it technically should be at this point. So kind of use the internet to give you a starting point and then use your eyes to gauge it. If it doesn't look like it's halfway, maybe set your timer for another minute or two,

close the grill, and then come check it again. Okay? With a little practice, you'll start to know what to look for. Okay, so we've talked about the three rules of grilling, right? we have talked about some ideas of what to cook and for how long. Let's finish up with a little discussion on cleaning. All right. So I've already told you how to clean the actual grill, right?

That's the easy part. Just during preheating, let it all burn off and scrape it off. Done deal. But then there's like the plate that had raw hamburger next to the plate with the cooked hamburgers. And then there's that oil bowl that I told you to get and the tongs that are like big enough to lift a horse. It basically feels like you moved your entire kitchen outside as the worst. So here's how to skip all of that madness. Are you ready?

All you need is a giant sheet pan like cookie sheet covered in foil. That's all you need. I've got lots of reasons. Ready? Reason number one. You can just throw the foil away at the end of the cooking without having to wash any dishes. I mean, you guys. Amen.

Reason number two. It's a giant surface. that can fit a lot of things, which means like fewer trips in and out of the house, which is one of my least favorite things about grilling is I just keep forgetting things. If you have a really big surface, rather than like having four or five plates that you're juggling, like a waiter or something, it's so much easier. Reason number three. What you can do is build a little foil dam to kind of keep raw meat from everything else.

Okay? So like just make a little foil plate for the raw stuff Put it on top of the foil covered sheet pan already And then throw it out once the food is on the grill You know what the raw food is off its little foil plate Then you can just throw that away And then you have the entire sheet pan clean for the cooked foods And you don't have to like contaminate and all that gross

Reason what was that reason number three reason number four So once everything is cooked and place back on the foil pan, guess what you can do, you guys? You can just gather up the corners of that foil and pull it around the cooked food and it like keeps the heat in, which is so fantastic. Now, you might not want to close it up all the way so it doesn't start steaming, but gather it up just a little bit to keep some of the heat in and keep it warm. So great, so great.

And then your last reason, did I mention no dishes? It needs another reason. It needs another mention, okay? So get a foil pan. Get a foil pan. This is such a great way to handle grilling without having so many dishes. And if you want to go super hardcore, what you can do is cover two sheet pans and foil and stack them on top of each other. And then you have a second one as a backup if you need to take some food in sooner than you thought, you know,

like if some of your food is done quicker or something like that. Or if those, you know, those little cafeteria trays trays on either side of your grill. just aren't offering enough room for you and some stuff needs to go back inside, you just have another surface for easy transport, right? Just load up one of the pans, take it inside, and you still have one out there, which is really nice for the food that hasn't been finished yet. Okay, so last thing.

I would be such a jerk, man, if I didn't tell you my all-time favorite things to cook on the grill. Number one, shrimp. Holy goodness, I love grilled shrimp. It is so majestic. It deserves some kind of. kind of metal and it cooks super fast so um that is one of the bonuses as well you just want to make sure that your your grill is oiled really well and that your shrimp is seasoned really really well

and then have like some sort of it's so good with lemon juice at the end or some sort of creamy sauce or something magic magic magic um it's also the easiest to cook them some people like to grill them with um the shells still on i usually take the shells off mine just because i think it's a little bit easier, and then I put them on wooden skewers. You just want to make sure any time you use wooden skewers on your grill, that you soak them in water for a little bit first, so they're less likely to burn right away. Okay, so favorite thing is shrimp. Onions, number two, love cooking onions on the grill. They get charred, but like almost like smooth and creamy. They're so, so good. Again, they just need to be oiled really well. Oil the grill,

but also oily onions, like drizzle on oil as well and salt. and all the things. Zucchini, same thing. I keep trying to convince myself that I love zucchini, but I don't really. I mean, it's fine. But when it's on the grill, man, it is so good. And one of the easiest ways I think, other than cutting like rounds and putting them on skewers, is to just slice them in like planks almost, you know, like in slices, long slices.

Those are real easy to flip for zucchini. Salmon. Oh, my goodness, you guys. I do this just quick marinade of miso paste, soy sauce and miran. Miran is like a sweetened rice wine, but you could also use sugar. It just needs a little bit of sweetness in that paste because it's very like earthy and stuff. And then I'll grill the fish on my grill mat. My kids even ate it.

I'll link to a post I wrote about that a week or two ago. My kids ate it. It was the work of wizards. I have no idea what happened. So be sure you check that out. And finally, hot dogs. Okay, you guys, I mean, you're like, sure, Kendra we know, grow hot dogs. But grilled hot dogs are massively underrated.

And they're just super delicious. Also, if you're feeling extra adventurous, what you can do with the hot dog buns is you can kind of pan-fry them in butter. I'm not joking. I'm completely serious. You can put a cast iron skillet on the grill to do it, or you can just use a regular skillet, like on your stove inside. But what you do is you put just like a generous tablespoon of butter in a kind of a medium hot skillet. You don't want it to be like super hot. And you don't want it to be super low either.

Like that's why I said medium, I guess. But you want enough butter to kind of like coat the bottom of the pan. But it doesn't need to be soupy. It doesn't need to be like a thick layer of butter. And then you put the buns with the cut side, like the open side down into the butter. And just let them sizzle for a couple minutes. y'all you will not be sorry well you might be like a little bit sorry

but it's super super worth it okay so I hope that this episode about grilling is really encouraging to you and like gives you kind of the encouragement and the bravery to go outside sweaty makeup and all

and grill a dinner for your family like put the whole thing on the grill I grilled bread like buttered bread the other day with some of our stuff that we had on the grill. And it was delightful. Um, if you have any personal grilling tips or foods that you love to cook outside, anything like that, share those in the comments of the show notes. Again, that is the lazy genius collective.com slash lazy slash grill. And all the resources I talked about will be there too. And I also have a Pinterest board of some really gorgeous grilling recipes on the internet. So definitely be sure to check

that out. Okay, before we go, let's share the lazy genius tip of the week. I kind of already mentioned it, but it works in so many contexts. You guys, please consider all the ways that a pan covered in foil can save your life. You can roast food in the oven. You can, like we said, transport grilled items to and from the house. You can use it to be cookies. You can use it as like a home base for like all your sticky and dirty utensils when you're cooking lots of things at once. A pan covered in foil is a life say bar. You guys, you could be such a lazy genius in the kitchen if you do that. Okay. Amen and amen. Okay, you guys, that's it for today. Thanks so much for listening to this podcast. I will see you next time. And remember, let's be a

genius about the things that matter and lazy about the things that don't. See you next week. Have you ever felt like you were living just a B or B plus life? It's so dangerous to live that more dangerous than a B minus or a C plus life because when you're living a B or B plus life, you don't change it. You think it's good enough. Is it? I'm Susie Welch. I host a podcast called Becoming You. People think, okay, an A plus life is not available to me, but there is a way. We are all in the process of becoming ourselves. Listen to Becoming You wherever you get your podcasts.