View from the Cheap Seats is kind of an extension of the newsroom. Whenever our three regular reporters, Calvin Daniels, Thom Barker and Randy Brenzen are in the building together, it is frequently a site of heated debate. This week: What is your favourite thing to grill?
Stick ‘em up
There are so many things one can do with a grill, it is hard to pick a favourite.
Last year, I tried some new things that were quite successful, such as maple salmon on a cedar plank. Delicious.
You can’t go wrong with steaks but since I learned to do them right on the stovetop, I almost prefer them that way.
One thing I will not do on the barbecue is ribs. The grill is fine for finishing them after they’ve been slow cooked for several hours in the oven.
My go-to grilling recipe is my pork tenderloin kebabs. There really is no other way to get that perfect crunchy char on them.
I marinate cubes of tenderloin, whole mushrooms and chunks of zucchini, peppers and sweet onions in a nice teriyaki sauce then skewer them and stick them on the grill until the meat is medium-rare.
-Thom Barker
It’s about the sauce
Picking a favourite food to grill on the barbecue is an interesting process. Renting a place I don’t barbecue often. It has been a few years to be honest.
There is a plan to do a couple of fish over an open fire this summer, which should prove interesting as I experiment with flavours, but that is something to write about in my fishing column which you can find weekly in these pages.
As for a more familiar BBQ I imagine many lean toward a steak, one cooked nice and rare.
But I grew up on a farm where we raised hogs, and so I lean toward a good pork chop. It comes down to how you go about making a BBQ sauce.
I’d probably start with a few peeled apples pureed in a blender, then start adding some things, ketchup, a drop of molasses, some smoky paprika, a minced onion, a little cilantro, a dash of cinnamon, yep that should work.
Paste some nice pork chops that are slow cooking on the BBQ, serve with a bakers spud, and corn on the cob, and you have it.
Of course I might opt for a hot dog too. There really is nothing like a BBQ dog on a bun.
-Calvin Daniels
Prep prep prep
I really didn’t have to think that long about what my favourite BBQ recipe was. For me nothing beats a good BBQ’d steak. Except a 100 hour BBQ’d steak.
What is a 100 hour steak? Well sir, it’s the best dang steak this side of Kobe, Japan!
You take any cut you’d like (for me it’s as lean a cut as I can possibly find), cut up some garlic into pointy spikes and impale the meat to get that Ukrainian flavour right up in there.
Then put the steak in a bowl, season it with salt and pepper (just because it’s what you do), then pour some soya sauce, some water, some brown sugar, lemon and lime juice, salt, pepper, cut up bell peppers (or something more spicy if that’s how you like it) and any other seasoning you may have at your disposal. Personally I use everything I find in the pantry to get a slightly different taste each time.
Then you put some saran wrap over the bowl and wait it out for surprise, surprise, 100 hours.
After that, BBQ it until you reach your desired style.
As for what it goes well with, slice up some potatoes, season them with seasoning salt, normal salt and pepper, wrap them in tinfoil and toss them on the grill as well. Once your steak is done your potatoes will be as well.
-Randy Brenzen
