How to Build a Fire: And Other Handy Things Your Grandfather Knew (21 page)

10
Cooking
•  •  •

Learn to wield a knife and spatula, and you’ll never go hungry
.

Be Butch
•  •  •

“A good cook improvises and always makes it better. He makes it looks easy and does it in such a way that the aroma is through the room so you’re hungry before you even start.”

—F
RANK
W
ALTER

H
OW TO
B
UY
M
EAT

Step 1:
Know where it came from. If you can, steer clear of animals who’ve spent their entire lives in crowded and confined industrial feed-lots. They’ve likely been fed the cheapest food possible, which often means they’ve also been pumped full of hormones, antibiotics, and other drugs to counteract their lousy diet. What’s bad for them is bad for you. Instead opt for pasture-raised animals, which are better tasting, healthier, and less harmful to the environment.

Step 2:
Choose the grade. After the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) deems the meat safe to eat, it may also, at the farmer’s request, slap a quality grade on it, too.

Beef:
USDA Prime means it’s going to make your mouth water. Thanks to the abundant marbling of fat throughout the meat, it’ll be tender, juicy, and flavorful. Fire up the grill! USDA Choice is second best. It’s a little leaner, which means it won’t be quite as juicy as the Prime, but it’ll still be mighty fine. USDA Select has much less marbling, which means it’ll be less juicy and flavorful. Still, if you have the time to dress it up and marinate it for a good while, you can make it into something decent.

Pork:
Pigs are graded on a pass–fail system, and all the fresh cuts in any grocery store are deemed “acceptable.” The failed “utility”-grade cuts are only used in processed products and aren’t for sale to you.

Chicken:
Look for a grade A rating, which means it’s of the highest quality. If your butcher is trying to sell you grade B or C, run away. Fast.

Step 3:
Choose your cut. The tenderness of the meat largely depends on its location on the animal, and the animal’s age. The less-exercised muscles, like those along the back or ribs, will generally be tastier than the frequently used muscles, like the rump, shoulders, and legs. Here’s a quick rundown:

Beef:
The most tender cuts include filet mignon, tenderloin, T-bone, porterhouse, sirloin, and rib eye, all from the back. You’ll need to do very little to these cuts to make them taste good: Add some salt and pepper and cook them over dry heat, which means on the grill, in a good cast-iron skillet, or under the broiler. Flank, skirt, and hanger steak—all from the belly area—do well on the grill, too, especially if you marinate them first. Tougher cuts include rump roasts, brisket, round steaks, shanks, and pot roast. To make them swallowable (and delicious), just cook them with moist heat, which will help break down the tissue and make it more tender. Braise them or toss them in a stew.

Pork:
Ham is the heinie of the pig, and you know how good that tastes. Bacon comes from the belly. And almost everything else tender and delicious comes from the loin: tenderloin, chops, cutlets, and baby back ribs.

Chicken:
Whoever named whole chickens is kind of awesome because the chicken’s name tells you exactly how you should cook it. “Broiler-fryers” are seven- to ten-week-old babes, weighing under 3½ pounds, and you should broil or fry them. “Roasters” are a few weeks older and a few pounds bigger, and, duh, you should roast them. Chicken breasts, which are white meat, are the leanest, most tender cuts of the bird. The fattier dark-meat drumsticks and thighs are cheaper, but you can do great things with them, like fry ’em up.

Step 4:
Do your own inspection. Even if you’ve found a cut of meat with the right grade and at the right price, give it a good once-over to make sure it lives up to what’s advertised. Check the sell-by date, look for holes in the packaging, and lastly, examine the meat itself.

Beef:
It should be bright red, not gray. If it’s sitting in its own juices, that probably means it wasn’t stored at the proper temperature, and you should walk on by.

Pork:
Look for a grayish-pink color with relatively little fat on the outside. The bones, if there are any, should be lighter in color.

Chicken:
Color can vary from bluish white to yellow, and the skin should be cream-colored to yellow.

More Handy Tips

• Meat should never be stinky. If you catch a whiff of something foul, and you know for a fact that it wasn’t you or the guy standing next to you, throw the meat away.
  
• Consider buying meat directly from your local farmer. Some will let you buy a whole, half, or quarter of a cow or pig; if you have the storage space in your freezer, you can ask the farmer or your butcher to cut it and wrap it for you, and you’ll be set for a good long while. Too much? Go in on it with your neighbors or friends.
  
• Freeze your meat, if you don’t plan on using it right away. Beef steaks and whole chickens will last a year. Chicken parts will be good for nine months. Pork chops will hang on for four. Ground beef or stew meat is good frozen for three months. Ham is good for two, and bacon for only one. But seriously, who can make bacon last any longer than one weekend?
  

Get Fired Up
•  •  •

“I certainly have learned not to turn my steaks over too much. Turn them only once. That keeps the juicy juices in.”

—B
OB
K
ELLY

H
OW TO
G
RILL A
S
TEAK

Step 1:
Buy good meat. Invest in a prime-grade, well-marbled (read: juicy), 1- to 1½-inch-thick cut, like a rib eye, Porterhouse, T-bone, or strip steak. Because the steak is going to be the centerpiece of your meal, don’t cheap out. Even if you’re a godly grill master, there’s not much you can do with a lousy piece of meat, except marinate the heck out of it and pray it doesn’t taste like your shoe.

Step 2:
Grab an ice-cold drink and wave to your neighbor. He’s going to be really jealous really soon.

Step 3:
Fire up your grill. If you don’t have a chimney starter, available for a few bucks at any hardware store, go get one now. Then stuff the bottom with loosely crumpled newspaper, pour charcoal briquettes in the top, remove the cooking grate from the grill, set the chimney on the bottom grate, and light the paper with a match. When your briquettes are glowing red and covered in ash, dump them onto the grate and, using tongs or a shovel, arrange them into a pile that’s a bit higher on one side than the other. Replace the cooking grate, open the vents on the lid, cover your fire, and let it swelter for about five minutes.

Step 4:
Season your steak. Pat your meat dry with a paper towel, then brush it with olive oil and sprinkle on generous amounts of kosher salt and cracked pepper. A teaspoon per side should do it.

Step 5:
Grill it to perfection. Using a pair of tongs, transfer your steak onto the cooking grate above the highest, hottest coals. Wait two minutes until those mouthwatering char lines appear, then rotate it clockwise by a quarter turn. Wait two more minutes, then flip it and repeat. Unless you want your meat to still be mooing when it’s on your plate, let it finish cooking, but over lower heat. Lift it up with your tongs and set it on the grate above a single layer of coals for a few more minutes until it cooks to your desired doneness.

Step 6:
Give it a rest. Once your steak is cooked, set it on a clean plate and let it rest for five to ten minutes, so it can get juicy and you can grab another drink before you sit down. Sprinkle with a touch more salt and serve.

More Handy Tips

• Let your steak come to room temperature before seasoning it and setting it on the grill.
  
• Cooking with lighter fluid may be fun, but it makes your food taste like chemicals. Skip it, if you can.
  
• Grill grates are easier to clean when they’re hot. If yours are crusty from your last meal, scrub them down with a wiry brass brush after you light the grill but before you lay your meat on the grate.
  
• For goodness’ sake, try not to catch anything on fire. Keep your grill at least ten feet away from your house and any trees. If your fire should get out of control, smother it with your kosher salt and shut the lid.
  
• Use a meat thermometer to test doneness. To be totally safe, you’re technically not supposed to eat any steak that hasn’t reached an internal temp of 145 degrees. However, if you’re willing to risk it for a juicer, more tender steak, then pull it off when it reaches 130 degrees. It’ll be a perfectly pink medium rare.
  

Smoke It
•  •  •

“We had smokehouses. We smoked everything. We’d bring home six or seven wild turkeys, and we’d skin ’em, clean ’em, and hang ’em in a smokehouse and smoke ’em. That was a staple. For years, drying food was the only way to preserve it. It’s still good today!”

—B
ILL
H
OLLOMAN

H
OW TO
M
AKE
B
EEF
J
ERKY

Step 1:
Befriend your butcher. Buy 1 to 1½ pounds of lean top round or flank steak, and have him slice it into ¼-inch-thick strips. Or take your meat home, pop it in the freezer for an hour or so until it firms up, and slice it yourself using a sharp knife. Just make sure you cut off any and all fat, which will spoil your jerky.

Step 2:
Mix your marinade. In a bowl, stir together 1½ teaspoons of salt, ½ teaspoon of cracked pepper, 2 tablespoons of brown sugar, ¼ cup of soy sauce, 2 tablespoons of Worcestershire sauce, 2 to 4 cloves of crushed garlic, and, if you’d like, a dash of Liquid Smoke.

Step 3:
Season your meat. Lay your beef strips in a glass or ceramic dish, pour the marinade over the top, cover, and let sit in your refrigerator for four to six hours—or, even better, overnight. Then the flavor will really soak in.

Step 4:
Dry it. Preheat your oven to 140 degrees. While it’s warming up, remove your beef from the marinade and pat each piece dry with a paper towel. If you don’t have dehydrator trays, lay the slices of beef close together on cake racks, set on cookie trays. (That way air will be able to circulate on all sides of the meat.) Place it in the oven, set your timer for three hours, and check on it then. You’ll know your jerky is done when you bend a piece and it cracks, but doesn’t break in half. If it’s not there yet, let it cook longer. Depending on its thickness, it could take up to ten whole hours or more, so find something to do around the house for a while.

Step 5:
Crank it up. Not to be too terribly gross, but this quick step will wipe out any nasty microorganisms that call your meat home. During the final ten minutes of drying, turn your oven up to 275 degrees.

Step 6:
Cool and store. Once your jerky is done, pat it dry with a paper towel and let it cool. Then toss it into a glass jar or sealed plastic bags. It’ll keep at room temperature for two weeks, longer if you store it in the fridge.

More Handy Tips

• Slice your meat with the grain for chewier jerky, and across the grain for a snappier, more brittle jerky.
  
• Make up your own marinade. Start with a base of soy sauce, salt, and pepper. After that, add whatever you like to taste. Some ideas: honey, lemon, garlic, brown sugar, Tabasco, whatever looks good to you.
  

Head the Table
•  •  •

“Presentation matters. Make it look good.”

—J
OE
T
OTH

H
OW TO
C
ARVE A
R
OASTED
B
IRD

Step 1:
Choose your longest, most impressive-looking knife, and hone it. The sharper your blade, the less likely it’ll appear that a caveman cooked your Thanksgiving dinner.

Step 2:
Position the turkey breast-side up, drumsticks pointing toward you, and snip off any strings.

Step 3:
Remove the legs. With your knife along the body, blade down, slice through the skin that attaches the leg to the body, down through the thigh meat, and finally through the joint, where the bones meet. (Don’t saw through any bones, Hannibal. You’ll make a mess. Just use the tip of your knife to sever the joint.) Set the leg and thigh aside, and repeat once more unless you bought a one-legged bird. (If you did that, hopefully you got a discount.)

Step 4:
Poke that crazy-long, two-pronged fork that you’ve probably never used and that came with your knife set into the wing to secure the bird, and then turn your knife blade parallel to your work surface and make a horizontal cut in the bird, just above the wing and below the breast.

Step 5:
Poke your fork into the top of the bird, place your knife halfway up the breast, and slice down until you meet your horizontal cut. Place that piece of meat on a serving platter, and repeat, working your way up the breast to carve thin slices.

More Handy Tips

• Let your bird rest for fifteen to twenty minutes before carving to seal in the juices.
  
• Sneak a folded paper towel between the turkey and the plate. It’ll keep the turkey from sliding around.
  
• Separate the drumsticks from the thighs before serving to prevent fights at your table.
  
• Trim off the wings, if anyone would like those, at their joints with poultry shears.
  
• If you have any questions while carving, and your grandfather isn’t around to call, try the Butterball Turkey Hotline at 1–800–BUTTERBALL. Seriously. It’s open weekdays from 10
  AM
  to 7
  PM
  (CST), and operators will answer all your birdbrained questions for free.