Because I live in Florida, I grill and barbeque a lot. My family eats outside four or five nights a week when the weather is nice; primarily because the weather is nice but also because food tastes better when it is barbecued or grilled. I’ve lived in Florida for many years and have enjoyed barbecuing for most of them and without using any BBQ accessories. Really.
So, I’m at a friends’ home and we are barbecuing on his Weber grill and he is cooking tilapia. He is cooking tilapia in a basket. I stopped frustrating myself with flaky white fish years ago. Too easy to break apart the filets and ruin dinner. Yet here is this ingenious basket that clamps done to whatever size is necessary to hold food for the barbeque. Instead getting angry trying to turn the fish with a spatula or a set of tongs and ordering pizza after watching it break up he’s using a grill basket. The embarrassing part is this was last year. It took me that long to accept that I am not the know-it-all grill master and start looking at how some BBQ grill accessories could make my grilling better. Here are three.
barbeque basket for fish and vegetables
Grill baskets just might be the least used bbq tool that is really very useful. Fish like flounder and tilapia can fall apart as the filets barbeque. Red meats need to move around the grill to avoid the grates displacing to much heat. A sharp spatula or a fork can often damage the sear on food causing moisture loss. All of these problems can be avoided with a basket. Grill baskets usually have several different settings allowing the barbeque chef to select the size of the basket based on the food placed in it. In this way the basket can hold asparagus as easily as a 3″ thick new york strip. Using a barbeque grill basket allows the cook to grab the cool wood handle of the basket to shift the position of the food and flip the food at the grilling grates.
I had enjoyed grilling and barbecuing for many years before a accidentally had to use a grill basket when my friend got called inside to stop the children from fighting. I felt silly because this ubiquitous item was completely new to me. The grill basket was easy to use and easy to clean and for the first time in many years, tilapia was back on the menu.
beer can chicken roaster grill parts tools accessories
Chicken roasters are accessories based on the idea f broiling beer-can chicken. For those of you who may not know, beer can chicken is a process of cooking with gas that — contrary to the typical result of gas barbeque — adds a lot of flavor normally associated with charcoal-wood barbeque smoking. Beer can chicken can also be barbecued on a charcoal-wood smoker but using a gas grill really demonstrates the amount of flavor sacrificed with the convenience of gas bbq’s.
When a gas barbeque heats up to a temperature that it can cook it is by closing the hood and allowing heat to build up inside the hood. When food cooks, it heats like a broiler or a convection oven with hot air. Hot air can cause food to sweat and dries out whatever is cooking unless the barbeque is hot enough to sear the outside layer of the food and lock the moisture inside. Few barbeques have the ability to get ove one thousand degrees so most barbeques cause a lot of dripping durng heating and dripping causes flavor-loss and a mess to be cleaned later.
To counter this process with a whole chcken a beer can is used inside the cavity of the bird. Cut the top of the can off the beer can and pour some of the beer out for basting. In the half-filled beer can toss in your favorite rub or combination of spices. I use a lot of pepper and hot sauce with thyme and rosemary. As the hot ait surrounds the chicken and forces the moisture out from the outer layer, the temperature rises inside the birds cavity and the beer steams and marinades from the inside out. Baste the beer mix that was poured out to get some of the flavor and texture on the skin.
cast iron wood smoker box bbq parts
When slow-cooking a beer can chicken (I also use turkey but with a much larger beer can) I add wood smoke flavor by cooking slow with one burner fired. place a smoker box above the burner with wood soaked overnight. The chicken will get very dark from the smoke but the combination of flavors is heavenly.
Shish-Ka-Bobs can be incredibly fun and are often overlooked on a bbq. Last time I barbecued with skewers I used bamboo skewers but my grill was so hot they burned a little. Stainless is safer and has less of a chance to damage the food. Us the flat skewers because the round spike will allow food to spin and flop around too much to cook evenly. I skewer different foods and vegetables together. There are also long, thin baskets available to replace skewers for shish-ka-bobs. The various bite-sized foods pushed up against one another for barbecuing creates an interesting blend of grilling texture and flavor. When complete, slide the vegetables and meat onto a bed of saffron rice and enjoy.
shish-ka-bob skewers for barbeque grilling
My little suggestion list if you are interested in changing the way you barbeque outside with bbq grill tools and accessories as a method for learning new grilling flavors you might not know you didn’t know.
