This post is a little unconventional -- I didn't really cook something out of Bittman, or really anywhere at all -- but I still feel like it's on-theme.
This week, most of the snow melted. I'm pretty sure that means it's summer (or at least getting there) so on Monday I decided this would be a good weekend to fire up the grill. By Thursday, of course, the Saturday forecast had been updated to project 50F and almost certain rain, but by that point it was too late to turn back. Saturday afternoon, as the damp drizzly afternoon rolled in, I fired up the grill.
I had prepared the grillables beforehand, of course. I tried a few familiar things and a few new ones. There were, as might be expected, a mix of successes and failures (but I'll get them right next time!).
I grilled a few sausages. I remembered to parboil them first, which I have never done before. That's where you boil them for about 15 minutes, ideally in beer or some other non-water liquid to keep from leeching too much of the flavor out (I used water) to ensure that they're cooked through. Then when you put them on the grill you're just browning he outside. Trying to cook through the whole sausage on the grill without torching the outside is a lot trickier.
I also marinated veggies in a few different ways. Kebabs I have done before, though not quite like this. Pineapple, onions, and peppers are the usual suspects. I often accompany them with chicken. This time I decided that the sausages would probably be plenty of meat so I tried something new: whole garlic cloves. These all got soaked in store-bought Italian dressing for a few hours, skewered, and cooked for a few minutes on each side until they started to look done. They were a hit, as always, but the garlic wasn't right. It cooks a lot slower than the rest (which really only need a few moments on the grill to be done). The outside of the garlic was done, and the cloves were good even a little undercooked, but next time I'll do all of the garlic on the same skewer to get them a little more done.
I also did some potatoes and sweet potatoes. Surprisingly, the internet advised significantly different approaches to grilling each of them. The sweet potatoes I peeled, cut into discs, and soaked for a few hours in olive oil and lemon juice. I threw them on the grill and ground some salt and pepper over them. They cooked fast -- maybe only a minute or two on each side for those on the hottest part of the grill.
The potatoes were a little more trouble. I cut them into half-inch cubes and parboiled them for about twenty minutes. I then soaked them for a few hours in olive oil and rosemary. I made the mistake, which is obvious in hindsight (and in fact I just didn't make this same mistake with the sweet potatoes moments ago) of pouring the entire bowl of potatoes on the grill rather than using the tongs to place each of the fifty cubes on the grill one at a time. The problem is that there was also about a quarter cup of olive oil in the bowl when I dumped it out... directly over the hottest coals. It flared up, of course, covering my potatoes in sooty blackness. Not burned -- just blackened. The less-afflicted ones still tasted pretty good, but needless to say they were not a hit.
Now, this batch of veggies was particularly exciting because I remembered to collect the veggie trimmings for stock. Papers and stumps from the garlic and onions, bell pepper seeds and stems, sweet potato peels, and so on all ended up getting saved. I also chopped up and added the rutabaga that's been sitting in my fridge for ages (after cutting off the gross-looking parts) and the tray of mushrooms that were abandoned here the other night; none of us are big mushroom fans so they were unlikely to get eaten.
I added water to this mix and simmered it for just over an hour. It would have liked to cook down a bit more, I think, but I had places to be.
After that I used a fine wire sieve to pull out the chunks of now-mushy vegetables and throw them away. The stock will get frozen, I think, because I haven't got an immediate use for it. But it sure smells good!
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