RACHAEL RAY

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Kebobs are a great thing to serve any time you are grilling. One the best things about kebobs is that they are fully assembled and marinated and only need to be placed on the hot grill to cook. You can layer in vegetables, sausage, or smoked ham to your hearts content as they will only serve to enhance the flavor of the kebob. And in case you get any complaints about not serving any vegetables, you can point to the pieces of pepper or onion separating the cubes of meat and declare your commitment to a balanced diet.

Kebobs take to marinades and dry rubs really well. The meat soaks up the flavor, which is further enhanced by the inclusion of a few slices of onion, pepper, of fennel.

Here are a few tips to ensure your kebobs come off the grill with aplomb.
- Don’t pack the kebobs too tightly. This will prevent the marinade from reaching all sides of the meat and will make it difficult to cook them through without burning the outside. Leave a bit of daylight between each member of the kebob—it’s always better to assemble a few more skewers.
- Soak all wooden skewers for at least an hour before grilling to keep them from burning. Added protection can be provided by wrapping the bottom with a layer of aluminum foil. Use tongs to turn the kebobs as the wooden skewers, unless they are the thick, sturdy kind, will start spinning idly inside the meat like the clutch in a stripped gearbox.
- Cover the top of the kebobs as they are cooking with some spray oil. Position the nozzle close to the meat so as not to promote flare ups. This will be very instrumental in keeping the kebobs from sticking to the grill.
- Remember, even though the meat is cut into pieces, we’re still talking about cooking something that’s ¾ to 1-inch thick, so adjust your cooking time accordingly. Chicken, pork, and shrimp kebobs all need to stay on the grill until the meat is just cooked through.
- For grilling wider pieces of meat vegetables, or some large shrimp, thread two skewers placed ½ inch apart through everything—this will give you a lot more leverage and control when you are turning the kebobs.
- Try to cut the meat into the same size pieces so they will all get done at the same time. If you are layering in vegetable pieces, make sure they are the same size as the meat—a protuberant slice of onion or a monster mushroom will keep your laboriously marinated pieces of pork from making contact with the grill.
- To remove the kebob from the skewer, place a fork at the end closest to the bottom and pull the skewer out from the meat. Holding the skewer and trying to pry off the kebob often results in a perfectly cooked piece of steak flying away as if catapulted from a slingshot and land ignominiously on the ground.
- Dispose of the wooden skewers by placing them in an empty liter pop bottle. This will prevent them from piercing your garbage bag and allowing stuff to leak out that you probably don’t want leaking out.

Don’t forget!  Enter Mario’s Ultimate Grilling Challenge for a chance to win a VIP weekend and the ultimate tailgate party with Mario and pal Rachael at Texas Motor Speedway on November 2nd!

Smoking is the process of cooking something over indirect heat, for an extended period, part of which flavored smoke is introduced from chunks or chips of hardwood. You will need a charcoal grill or a smoker for smoking. If you have a smoker, follow the instructions, or just do it like you usually do.
The Wood - The chips or chunks of hardwood can be hickory, cherry, oak or some combination. The most important step is making sure to soak them so they don’t just flare up and burn out.

The Dry Rub - Once you discover how much flavor you can impart to your meat with a dry rub, you will start looking for ways to dry rub your cereal in the morning. There are as many rubs as there are serious barbecue experts, especially since having your own rub formula instantly makes you an expert. The simplest rubs are salt, pepper, and paprika. You can enhance that with garlic powder, onion powder, sugar, cumin, herbs.

The soak - Brining chicken and pork will make it come out plumper and juicier after you finish smoking it. The basic recipe is1 cup salt and 1/2 cup sugar to 1 gallon of water. Make sure the salt and sugar are completely dissolved before adding the meat. Refrigerate for at least 12 hours and up to 24, though some down-home recipes call for a longer soak. Rinse the meat well and pat it dry before smoking.

Don’t Over-smoke - Not too much smoke. You can over-smoke your food, in which case you will wind up with a slab of hickory ribs flavored with the merest hint of pork. There doesn’t have to be a steady stream of smoke coming from the grill.
The Charcoal - You only need a small pile of briquettes for your smoking heat. The key is adding to them every 40 minutes or so to keep the heat steady. The hinged flaps on the newer Webbers make this process a breeze.
Drip pan - A rectangular aluminum pan with an inch of water is placed on the coal grate under the meat. This catches dripping fat and helps prevent flare ups.

Don’t forget!  Enter Mario’s Ultimate Grilling Challenge for a chance to win a VIP weekend and the ultimate tailgate party with Mario and pal Rachael at Texas Motor Speedway on November 2nd!

Pretty much anyone who can tell time and grip a pair of tongs can grill a steak. But chicken is a whole different ballgame. With steak you just follow the mantra of “turn it before you burn it.” But with chicken you need to give individual attention to each piece of chicken. Otherwise you’ll wind up with a platter of half-burnt and half-raw meat, which is not only unappetizing but unsafe to eat.

Here are some tips to help you grill succulent chicken with a high degree of success:

- You will need to keep a close eye on the grill so all the chicken cooks evenly. Ten minutes into cooking, you could easily discover two legs are on fire and, on the other side of the grill, two others barely have any color. Here’s where you need to be proactive and do the obvious, which is shift the undercooked chicken to the place of greater heat and vice versa.

- Always start the chicken bone side down. This will get the cooking underway, but will keep the skin, which is more prone to charring, from being burned. I always cook chicken with the skin on as the fat in the skin bastes the chicken as it cooks and picks up much more flavor from any basting sauce you might use.

- Add the basting sauce toward the end of cooking. Most people are under the mistaken impression a grilling sauce is like a marinade and that the longer it is in contact with the meat, the better. But most grilling sauces burn pretty quickly and will only serve to leave your chicken charred and black, looking and tasting like a used tire—and we all know the value of a used tire. So be patient with your basting brush and only coat the chicken during the last 7-to-10 minutes of cooking.

- Always use medium to medium-high heat for barbecuing chicken. This means one even layer of charcoals on the coal grate. This will help avoid flare-ups and cook the chicken through without burning it. If you get a severe flare-up, cover the grill cover for a minute—the lack of oxygen should put out the flames.

- Always use separate plates, containers and utensils for raw and cooked chicken. Don’t make the mistake of bringing the chicken to the grill on a platter and then using that same platter to bring the cooked chicken to the table. Anything that comes in contact with the raw chicken, cutting boards, knives, platters, needs to be washed well before using again. Also any marinade the raw chicken sits in should be discarded.

- Dark meat takes longer to cook that white meat. This is why it’s best to cook the chicken in pieces, so you can remove the breasts before they overcook while the thighs and legs are finishing up. The dark meat is done if the juice runs clear when the thigh is pierced through to the bone. But don’t be afraid to just cut into a thigh to check to see if it’s no longer pink—you can always cover over the spot with some barbecue sauce.

- One way to help make grilling chicken foolproof is to only cook one section of the chicken. That way all the pieces will be done at the same time, making your grilling job that much easier. If you are going to do this, I heartily recommend cooking chicken thighs, as they have, for me, the most flavor and because they are a little fattier than breasts, stand up better to the heat of the grill.

Grilled chicken recipes on rachaelray.com

Don’t forget!  Enter Mario’s Ultimate Grilling Challenge for a chance to win a VIP weekend and the ultimate tailgate party with Mario and pal Rachael at Texas Motor Speedway on November 2nd!

Yes, you can grill pizzas and they are delicious. Here are some grilling tips from our friend, Mario Batali:

Grilled Pizzas –

You can buy pre-made raw dough at a pizzeria or a grocery store to make this recipe even faster and easier. If you decide to make the dough, keep in mind it needs to sit in the fridge overnight. As for the sauce, I love plain tomato puree with a little salt in it. But you can use store bought sauce if you like—just don’t get too fancy. With good pizza, less stuff makes it easier and better (that maxim sounds profound in Italian).

Makes two 10-inch pizzas

For the dough (skip this if you bought the dough):
1 packet dry active yeast
1 tablespoon honey
1 1/2 cups warm water
3 3/4 cups unbleached flour, plus 1/2 cup to work with
2 tablespoons salt
4 tablespoons extra-virgin olive oil, plus 4 tablespoons to work with

For the topping:
1/4 pound mozzarella cheese, grated
2 cups tomato sauce
1/4 pound ham, sliced thin and pulled into pieces
1 teaspoon dried oregano
2 tablespoons grated Parmigiano-Reggiano or Parmesan cheese (optional)

1. To make the dough: In a large bowl, combine the yeast, honey, and water and stir until well mixed. Let the mixture rest until foamy, about 3 minutes.
2. Add the flour, salt, and 4 tablespoons of olive oil and stir until well mixed and the dough starts to pull away from the sides of the bowl. Turn out onto a floured cutting board or other clean work surface and knead until firm, 4 to 5 minutes. Form the dough into a ball, which should be about the size of a softball.
3. Coat the sides of a large, clean mixing bowl with 2 tablespoons olive oil. Place the ball of dough in the bowl. Cover with plastic wrap and set aside in a warm place, shielded from direct sunlight, until the dough doubles in size, about 1 hour. (This can happen quickly if it’s hot out, so keep an eye on it.)
4. Punch the dough down with your fist so it deflates and divide it in half. Roll each half into a ball and place on a 11-by-17-inch greased baking sheet. Brush each dough ball with a little oil and cover carefully with plastic wrap. Keep cold in a refrigerator or ice-filled cooler overnight.
1. When you are ready to make your pizzas, prepare enough coals for a medium-hot fire or set a gas grill to medium-high. Arrange the coals so one side of the grill is hot and one side medium-hot, or, if using a gas grill, preheat one side hot and the other medium.
2. Line up the topping ingredients so you can easily get to them once you’re at the grill.
3. Dust the work surface with a little flour and place one of the dough balls in the center. Press with your fingertips to create a thin, roughly 10-inch round flat crust. (If it is not perfectly round, do not worry. Also, this is not pizza dough that you can throw like in the movies.)
4. Carefully pick up the dough and place on the hot side of the grill and let it cook for 1 minute without touching it. If you move it before it sets, the results will be disastrous!
5. Using tongs, carefully loosen the dough from the grill and slide it to the warm side. Continue cooking until golden brown on the bottom and the top is just set and dryish looking, about 2 minutes more. Carefully flip the crust with tongs and put the uncooked side on the hot side of the grill and cook 1 minute more.
6. Again carefully slide the dough to the warm side of the grill and immediately place half of the grated mozzarella on it. Spoon dollops of tomato sauce over and around the cheese, reserving half of the tomato sauce. Do not worry about trying to cover the whole surface of the pizza.
7. Sprinkle the ham and oregano and grated cheese, if using, over the sauce.
8. Cover the grill and cook 2-3 minutes more, until the cheese is melted and the sauce is bubbling. Carefully remove the cooked pizza to a plate or board, cut into wedges, and serve (or, cover and keep warm while making the second pizza).
9. Repeat with remaining ball of dough and ingredients to make the second pizza.

Don’t forget!  Enter Mario’s Ultimate Grilling Challenge for a chance to win a VIP weekend and the ultimate tailgate party with Mario and pal Rachael at Texas Motor Speedway on November 2nd!

A perfectly ripe tomato is a beautiful thing. Unfortunately, tomatoes need to ripen slowly under a hot sun and have a short season. So, while a fresh tomato sauce made with ripe tomatoes may be perfect in the summer, it is always better to use high-quality canned or packaged tomatoes during the off-season. I like two types: canned San Marzano tomatoes and Pomì, packaged in shelf-stable pint containers.
Pear-shaped San Marzano tomatoes are a type of Roma, or plum, tomato. The real thing is grown only in San Marzano, near Mount Vesuvius, outside of Naples. They are available here in specialty markets and some supermarkets (check the label carefully to make sure they are real San Marzanos from Italy) or can be ordered through www.sanmarzanoimports.com. I recommend buying these canned tomatoes and crushing them by hand for sauces, rather than buying crushed canned tomatoes. If you can’t find plain San Marzano tomatoes, buy the cans that include a basil leaf or two and discard the basil. Pomì tomatoes, sold in most grocery stores, are simply delicious. You can buy them either chopped or strained or pureed; I often use the strained tomatoes for topping a pizza when I don’t have a homemade sauce on hand.

Howdy folks. Hopefully you’ve read the news about my Ultimate Grilling Challenge and entered to win. If you are a burger fan, here are some essential grilling tips that should ensure perfect burgers every time:

Here are some essential tips that should ensure perfect burgers every time:

Meat – I like ground chuck  for my burgers, which is about 20% fat. It makes a nice juicy burger, but there’s not so much fat that it overwhelms the flavor of the meat. You can also go for ground round, which is 15% fat. Anything leaner and you’ll probably wind up with a pretty dry burger, even if it’s perfectly cooked.   I would suggest checking out the great selection from Allen Brothers (www.allenbrothers.com)

Size – Burger size matters. Too big, the outside burns before the inside is cooked. Too thin, it will cook through before it gets a chance to be medium- rare. The optimum size is 6 ounces of meat shaped into a patty about 3/4 inch thick and 4 inches across.  This means you need 1 ½ pounds of meat to make 4 burgers.

The Grill -  When it comes to heat, a grill is not an even surface.  There are hot spots and less hot spots, and you need to know where they are. If some burgers are cooking faster or flaming up, move them to a cooler part of the grill so that all the burgers are done at the same time. Build a medium-hot fire in a charcoal or set your gas grill to medium-high and keep the cover closed while cooking.

Cooking – Cooking a burger is as easy as, well, cooking a burger. There are just a few simple rules you need to follow.
- Make sure the charcoal is hot or that your gas grill is sufficiently preheated.
- Don’t mash the patty—assemble the meat in the classic hamburger shape by handling it as little as possible. The less-tightly the meat is packed, the juicier will be the results.
- Don’t pat the burgers while they are cooking. Just leave them alone as they cook. They know what to do. Just keep your eye on the clock and turn them one time only.
- If you are making cheeseburgers, get the cheese on as soon as you turn the burgers—you don’t want to have to sacrifice a perfect burger to get the cheese appropriately melted.
- Salt the burgers before grilling—do not mix the salt into the meat, which will overwhelm the essential flavor of the meat.
- Have the buns and condiments ready, the drinks chilled, and the table set before you put the burgers on the heat. That way when the burgers are at their peak, you have everything set to go.

Bun to meat ratio: When it comes to the bun, I go with the idea that the bun should not overwhelm the burger. Some people like their burgers on rolls the size of monster truck tires. Personally I prefer a classic hamburger roll as fresh as possible. I think their the perfect size and their non-descript flavor doesn’t compete with the burger.

Stay tuned for more tips for the grill coming up soon! In the meantime, you can visit me anytime at mariobatali.com

and don’t forget to sign up for my Ultimate Grilling Challenge!