This is interesting, but I subscribed for your comments and opinions on politics. Those used to appear several times a week, but now seem much less frequent. What should I expect in the months to come?
Yup, we just went through (are still going through?) a phase of people worried about the government taking away their gas stove for climate change reasons.
Say what you will Josh, but I've tried every method of preparing a steak you can name, and the consensus best results are produced by reverse-searing on a Big Green Egg (which explicitly doesn't allow fat to drip into the fire box, btw, and I keep it damned clean), and finishing on a cast iron skillet. I may live in the boonies now, but it wasn't so long ago that I was eating at Peter Luger's, Sparks etc pretty regularly. My meat compares favorably for sure according to those who've had both.
Frankly, I'm struck by the lazy strawmanning in this post, but then again, as an erstwhile Manhattanite, I totally understand the instinct to rationalize living in a cramped box you're paying out the nose for, so if believing the electric range in your apartment is the ultimate way to cook keeps you sane, well, so be it.
I agree that the reverse sear is the best way to cook a steak. But isn't the big green egg just acting as an oven in this circumstance? Why not use your indoor oven for the roast phase of the reverse sear?
Despite really enjoying the ritualistic aspect of grilling, I sympathize with the perspective that a lot "grill nerds" treat this stuff as a science when a lot of it is at best art (by which I mean to say subjective/personal preference). The oven works fine and in fact I gave that a try early on (also have done sous vide which is quite nice). I'd even go as far as to hazard a guess that, if the cook time was shorter, the end results would likely be not too dissimilar.
That said, a thick steak sitting over a charcoal (and possibly part wood) fire for an hour and a half will pick up flavors it just isn't going to in an oven (and that a burger isn't going to pick up in a ten minute cook either, for that matter).
In my mind, that's really the downside of the sous vide method. It will be the reverse sear's equal from a "cooked perfectly every time" perspective, but it just doesn't have that flavor, not even after searing after the grill.
Grilling hamburgers and hot dogs is good for mixed age group parties. They're very simple and you can pump out a lot of them on a big grill. If you're having a nice dinner party with adults and you're someone who likes to cook, then your suggestions sound great but for everything else, grilling meats is fine
I appreciate that Josh does not like grilling, but David Chang was not saying that grilling is bad. In the opening Josh quotes David as saying: “Would you agree with me that the grill is a piece of shit?” Immediately after asking this, David Chang follows that up with "It is amazing for everything else. It is amazing for literally everything else, but it is not good for cooking burgers."
I can appreciate this. Griddled burgers ARE better, and smash burgers are not my preference. It is also true that many people do not clean their grill properly, and there really isn't a good excuse for someone not doing this. It comes down to a lack of education on a tool you own, but that is not exclusive to the grill. I personally don't love a gas grill, but for me a charcoal/wood grill can be the best cooking tool for MANY items. I use large charcoal from wood or even better, actual wood as a fuel source for said grill. Additionally, as with any cooking method, the cook needs to have an understanding of how to control heat. Temperature zones are a must (a more difficult thing to do with a gas grill) and proper cooking requires constant attention and movement of your food items. (I have never had an issue with not enough room to move my food items around, but I also do not over crowd my grill). I do not think that many baked meats, particularly marbled meats have the same flavor if you cook it on the stove or in the oven (even when broiling it); that doesn't mean these methods are bad, but not as good as if properly grilled. I would also point out that pans and griddles can be added to the grill top to get the advantage of the grill while avoiding items slipping through the cracks and/or keeping the juices from dripping down. I make a really nice soft shell crab that is cooked on the grill, but I put it on a cast iron griddle to cook it.
I hope the food items Josh cooks this weekend are delicious, I am sure they will be. I am currently planning to cook NOLA BBQ Redfish on the half shell, on the grill, with a side of ensalada de repollo and I can promise it will not be soot covered.
I completely agree with Blaine Cavena's comment, "This is interesting, but I subscribed for your comments and opinions on politics. Those used to appear several times a week, but now seem much less frequent. What should I expect in the months to come?"
Also, when can we expect to start getting substantive podcasts again? The cocktail story was somewhat interesting, but I don't drink. I am far more interested in your takes on modern society and current events.
Imagine telling Aaron Franklin that his stuff sucks and his rig is dirty. People have been cooking over fire for as long as there have been people. It's good.
The factual question this post gets wrong is the essence of the debate. The flavor generated by fat igniting is what generates grill flavor. If you don’t specifically like that flavor, the listed downsides here are a good reason not to grill. If you like the flavor, it can be worth dealing with the downsides.
Some smaller/contextual disagreements:
* Burning fat smoke is different from wood smoke, but that doesn’t make it bad. Anecdotally, a number of barbecue joints cooking on offsets go out of their way to add fat to the firebox for the grill flavor. That flavor is also part of the appeal of reverse flow offset smokers.
* Not having anywhere on the grill to move the meat is just silly. That’s a big part of the basis of two zone grilling.
* As a home cook, I can get as good to better sear/Maillard reaction on my grill as with my induction stove/cast iron setup. There’s less metal touching the meat, but the grill is considerably hotter as I have a bin to hold the coals close to the grate. If I had a commercial setup, I might feel differently.
* Just like not everyone likes grill flavor, not everyone likes smashburgers. It’s fine.
It's sort of hilarious to me how personally some folks seem to have taken this piece. And just to offer a counterpoint to those who wish this had been "political" content, some of us subscribe primarily for the "other" pieces. I appreciate Josh's political commentary a lot, but the idea of wanting any writer to write about one thing and one thing only... I can't conceive of feeling that way, much less of TELLING them that. These non- (or tangentially) political pieces offer insight into the rest, and vice versa.
Also, it's summer. It seems like a lot of the writers I read on Substack have shifted to a lighter publishing schedule for the season. As is their right, and as they should!
Though, if you’re going to do that, you’ll probably be happier with an outdoor griddle (or at least an outdoor stove eye), since you’re circumventing the grill function anyway.
For those of you who are concerned about flare ups caused by fat falling off meat I highly recommend getting some Grill Grates (grillgrate.com). I bought them last year for my Weber Spirit 210 and they are game changers. I get some great looking grill marks and even when flareups happen they don't affect cooking much.
These days I use my grill at least once a week when it's not freezing cold outside. Josh is correct that it's harder to control the temperature but just like anything else in cooking if you use a tool or appliance often enough you understand the peculiarities and can act accordingly. Give me a decent thermometer and I'll grill up the juiciest chicken breast you've ever had. With some chimichurri to serve.
The best part about the grill: easy cleanup. That matters when you're walking downstairs at 8:30 PM after putting the kids to bed and you don't have pans and the stove staring at you in need of cleaning.
Ironically James Beard himself was quite a proponent of grilling. His first books were all about it, complete with instructions on building a grill with cinderblocks.
Josh I wish I read this before last weekend. My family and I were graciously hosted at a beautiful beachfront house on Long Beach Island, New Jersey.
We offered to prepare dinner one night as a thank you. I was making roasted zucchini, delicious roasted potatoes (recipe from The Food Lab), and grilled salmon.
I decided to spring for the fattier and more expensive King Salmon-- four pounds of it, enough for the 10 adults. While I was just finishing the potatoes, I oiled the grill grate so the fish wouldn’t stick, tossed the filets in olive oil and seasoned with salt and pepper, and placed the 10 5-6oz filets skin side down on the grill. I set the heat to medium after preheating on high.
I set a 5 minute timer and walked back into the kitchen. Three minutes later, someone yelled “Fire!” And I ran out to the deck faced with an inferno, billowing black smoke. I killed the heat, shut off the propane tank and closed the lid, thinking I’d just have to wait for the fire to die out. After 2-3 minutes with the inferno raging on the grill, someone finally brought out a fire extinguisher which I used to put the fire out and ruin $120 worth of food in an instant.
America’s Test Kitchen has a nice grilled salmon recipe. The crux there is to do most of the cooking over indirect heat with just a quick sear over the coals. It’s likely not worth the effort, but grilled salmon sans fire can be done.
Thanks! And I’ve done it before, usually for just my own family of three, so I have more grill space to work with to manage flare ups, use indirect heat etc. The issue this time was cooking for a large group, the grill was completely full, and I didn’t think to cook them in batches or do anything else to mitigate the sheer volume of animal fat that would be produced by four pounds of fish.
That makes complete sense. Batches definitely get hard for anything you want to cook below medium / medium well, and even medium gets rough if you don’t have a way to hold your food at 140.
I think this take is winning me over. I will say there are non-burger-burning things you can do with outdoor cooking that are legit, such as smoking. A summer staple for us is smoked chicken on our Big Green Egg. The egg can also get to temps that my oven can't get to, e.g. for pizza, although I haven't tried that yet.
This is interesting, but I subscribed for your comments and opinions on politics. Those used to appear several times a week, but now seem much less frequent. What should I expect in the months to come?
In fairness, depending on where you live, I'd argue that telling people that grilling sucks can definitely be political.
Yup, we just went through (are still going through?) a phase of people worried about the government taking away their gas stove for climate change reasons.
I've been wondering the same thing.
Say what you will Josh, but I've tried every method of preparing a steak you can name, and the consensus best results are produced by reverse-searing on a Big Green Egg (which explicitly doesn't allow fat to drip into the fire box, btw, and I keep it damned clean), and finishing on a cast iron skillet. I may live in the boonies now, but it wasn't so long ago that I was eating at Peter Luger's, Sparks etc pretty regularly. My meat compares favorably for sure according to those who've had both.
Frankly, I'm struck by the lazy strawmanning in this post, but then again, as an erstwhile Manhattanite, I totally understand the instinct to rationalize living in a cramped box you're paying out the nose for, so if believing the electric range in your apartment is the ultimate way to cook keeps you sane, well, so be it.
I agree that the reverse sear is the best way to cook a steak. But isn't the big green egg just acting as an oven in this circumstance? Why not use your indoor oven for the roast phase of the reverse sear?
Despite really enjoying the ritualistic aspect of grilling, I sympathize with the perspective that a lot "grill nerds" treat this stuff as a science when a lot of it is at best art (by which I mean to say subjective/personal preference). The oven works fine and in fact I gave that a try early on (also have done sous vide which is quite nice). I'd even go as far as to hazard a guess that, if the cook time was shorter, the end results would likely be not too dissimilar.
That said, a thick steak sitting over a charcoal (and possibly part wood) fire for an hour and a half will pick up flavors it just isn't going to in an oven (and that a burger isn't going to pick up in a ten minute cook either, for that matter).
In my mind, that's really the downside of the sous vide method. It will be the reverse sear's equal from a "cooked perfectly every time" perspective, but it just doesn't have that flavor, not even after searing after the grill.
David Chang said that grilling is bad for burgers, but still good for chicken, fish and corn. So it wasn’t a blanket, grilling is bad.
Grilling hamburgers and hot dogs is good for mixed age group parties. They're very simple and you can pump out a lot of them on a big grill. If you're having a nice dinner party with adults and you're someone who likes to cook, then your suggestions sound great but for everything else, grilling meats is fine
I appreciate that Josh does not like grilling, but David Chang was not saying that grilling is bad. In the opening Josh quotes David as saying: “Would you agree with me that the grill is a piece of shit?” Immediately after asking this, David Chang follows that up with "It is amazing for everything else. It is amazing for literally everything else, but it is not good for cooking burgers."
I can appreciate this. Griddled burgers ARE better, and smash burgers are not my preference. It is also true that many people do not clean their grill properly, and there really isn't a good excuse for someone not doing this. It comes down to a lack of education on a tool you own, but that is not exclusive to the grill. I personally don't love a gas grill, but for me a charcoal/wood grill can be the best cooking tool for MANY items. I use large charcoal from wood or even better, actual wood as a fuel source for said grill. Additionally, as with any cooking method, the cook needs to have an understanding of how to control heat. Temperature zones are a must (a more difficult thing to do with a gas grill) and proper cooking requires constant attention and movement of your food items. (I have never had an issue with not enough room to move my food items around, but I also do not over crowd my grill). I do not think that many baked meats, particularly marbled meats have the same flavor if you cook it on the stove or in the oven (even when broiling it); that doesn't mean these methods are bad, but not as good as if properly grilled. I would also point out that pans and griddles can be added to the grill top to get the advantage of the grill while avoiding items slipping through the cracks and/or keeping the juices from dripping down. I make a really nice soft shell crab that is cooked on the grill, but I put it on a cast iron griddle to cook it.
I hope the food items Josh cooks this weekend are delicious, I am sure they will be. I am currently planning to cook NOLA BBQ Redfish on the half shell, on the grill, with a side of ensalada de repollo and I can promise it will not be soot covered.
I completely agree with Blaine Cavena's comment, "This is interesting, but I subscribed for your comments and opinions on politics. Those used to appear several times a week, but now seem much less frequent. What should I expect in the months to come?"
Also, when can we expect to start getting substantive podcasts again? The cocktail story was somewhat interesting, but I don't drink. I am far more interested in your takes on modern society and current events.
Two problems with this argument:
1) You can chat with your buddies while grilling
2) Burgers and hot dogs are easy to carry around and eat, these dishes don't really work for that
This remains a good take for many but a bad take for others. Grilling is good actually. It's just harder to do well.
Imagine telling Aaron Franklin that his stuff sucks and his rig is dirty. People have been cooking over fire for as long as there have been people. It's good.
The factual question this post gets wrong is the essence of the debate. The flavor generated by fat igniting is what generates grill flavor. If you don’t specifically like that flavor, the listed downsides here are a good reason not to grill. If you like the flavor, it can be worth dealing with the downsides.
Some smaller/contextual disagreements:
* Burning fat smoke is different from wood smoke, but that doesn’t make it bad. Anecdotally, a number of barbecue joints cooking on offsets go out of their way to add fat to the firebox for the grill flavor. That flavor is also part of the appeal of reverse flow offset smokers.
* Not having anywhere on the grill to move the meat is just silly. That’s a big part of the basis of two zone grilling.
* As a home cook, I can get as good to better sear/Maillard reaction on my grill as with my induction stove/cast iron setup. There’s less metal touching the meat, but the grill is considerably hotter as I have a bin to hold the coals close to the grate. If I had a commercial setup, I might feel differently.
* Just like not everyone likes grill flavor, not everyone likes smashburgers. It’s fine.
It's sort of hilarious to me how personally some folks seem to have taken this piece. And just to offer a counterpoint to those who wish this had been "political" content, some of us subscribe primarily for the "other" pieces. I appreciate Josh's political commentary a lot, but the idea of wanting any writer to write about one thing and one thing only... I can't conceive of feeling that way, much less of TELLING them that. These non- (or tangentially) political pieces offer insight into the rest, and vice versa.
Also, it's summer. It seems like a lot of the writers I read on Substack have shifted to a lighter publishing schedule for the season. As is their right, and as they should!
Seriously, imagine telling him what to write on his own Stack. Just unsubscribe.
Just click bait.
You can also put a skillet on the grill and get the best of both: seared food outside of a hot house
Though, if you’re going to do that, you’ll probably be happier with an outdoor griddle (or at least an outdoor stove eye), since you’re circumventing the grill function anyway.
For those of you who are concerned about flare ups caused by fat falling off meat I highly recommend getting some Grill Grates (grillgrate.com). I bought them last year for my Weber Spirit 210 and they are game changers. I get some great looking grill marks and even when flareups happen they don't affect cooking much.
These days I use my grill at least once a week when it's not freezing cold outside. Josh is correct that it's harder to control the temperature but just like anything else in cooking if you use a tool or appliance often enough you understand the peculiarities and can act accordingly. Give me a decent thermometer and I'll grill up the juiciest chicken breast you've ever had. With some chimichurri to serve.
The best part about the grill: easy cleanup. That matters when you're walking downstairs at 8:30 PM after putting the kids to bed and you don't have pans and the stove staring at you in need of cleaning.
Ironically James Beard himself was quite a proponent of grilling. His first books were all about it, complete with instructions on building a grill with cinderblocks.
Josh I wish I read this before last weekend. My family and I were graciously hosted at a beautiful beachfront house on Long Beach Island, New Jersey.
We offered to prepare dinner one night as a thank you. I was making roasted zucchini, delicious roasted potatoes (recipe from The Food Lab), and grilled salmon.
I decided to spring for the fattier and more expensive King Salmon-- four pounds of it, enough for the 10 adults. While I was just finishing the potatoes, I oiled the grill grate so the fish wouldn’t stick, tossed the filets in olive oil and seasoned with salt and pepper, and placed the 10 5-6oz filets skin side down on the grill. I set the heat to medium after preheating on high.
I set a 5 minute timer and walked back into the kitchen. Three minutes later, someone yelled “Fire!” And I ran out to the deck faced with an inferno, billowing black smoke. I killed the heat, shut off the propane tank and closed the lid, thinking I’d just have to wait for the fire to die out. After 2-3 minutes with the inferno raging on the grill, someone finally brought out a fire extinguisher which I used to put the fire out and ruin $120 worth of food in an instant.
Never again.
America’s Test Kitchen has a nice grilled salmon recipe. The crux there is to do most of the cooking over indirect heat with just a quick sear over the coals. It’s likely not worth the effort, but grilled salmon sans fire can be done.
Thanks! And I’ve done it before, usually for just my own family of three, so I have more grill space to work with to manage flare ups, use indirect heat etc. The issue this time was cooking for a large group, the grill was completely full, and I didn’t think to cook them in batches or do anything else to mitigate the sheer volume of animal fat that would be produced by four pounds of fish.
That makes complete sense. Batches definitely get hard for anything you want to cook below medium / medium well, and even medium gets rough if you don’t have a way to hold your food at 140.
I think this take is winning me over. I will say there are non-burger-burning things you can do with outdoor cooking that are legit, such as smoking. A summer staple for us is smoked chicken on our Big Green Egg. The egg can also get to temps that my oven can't get to, e.g. for pizza, although I haven't tried that yet.