Wednesday, January 20, 2010

I am the Worst Griller on the Planet

This might not be blog-worthy and I don't have photos of my latest, scandalous incineration of meat to post and it may be out of place when everyone else is posting about Scott Brown's crushing victory in MA last night, but I am the worst when it comes to grilling.

Yesterday, I stopped by Sausage King, an iconic San Diego butcher shop run by a German couple who emigrated here and opened it right about the time the gunshots stopped echoing around the Reichstag. I bought 8 knockwurst and 8 bockwurst. I brought them home and proceeded to throw them into a pit of lava.

At least that's what it looked like.

I've got that grilling book, The Barbeque Bible and I tried to follow its suggestion for sausages, but my fire must have been too hot or something like that because half the recommended time per side for the little sausages turned out to be three times as much as they could stand. The end result was exasperated hilarity from all.

Sigh. I may need to actually do practice grilling when no one is around to get this thing right.

6 comments:

Jedi Knight Ivyan said...

Three words: George Foreman Grill

Anonymous said...

Real sausages will shoot off geysers of hot fat, which flare up to great effect. I've actually gotten things to spiral out of control until the wurst exploded.

The trick is to get the whole grill hot, then shut off the middle burner (or dig a hole in the charcoal) and cook the wurst there, out of reach of actual fire.

While bratwurst are very grill-worthy, many of the more delicate wurst should be boiled instead. If you do grill them, be very gentle (lower, indirect heat). You want to heat them, not char them.

Indirect heat is the secret of grilling. I learned that from the Weber book on grilling, which has lots of good recipes as well.

K T Cat said...

Thanks for the tip. It was clear from the incineration of those on the direct fire that I should have done them indirectly. I hadn't thought of boiling them, although the way I'm going, I'd probably still manage to char them beyond recognition while boiling them.

Wollf Howlsatmoon said...

I cheat.....boil first, then lightly brown 'em on the grill.

Yummy

K T Cat said...

That's another great idea, wollf. I boil chicken before I BBQ it and that works great. I'll try that with sausages next time.

Niall Mor said...

KT, just think of what happened as a metaphor for what happened to Martha Coakley's campaign! :)