How to Grill: The Complete Illustrated Book of Barbecue Techniques and Recipes
Despite it's popularity as a best seller, I think this book is vastly over-rated.
STRENGTHS:
* This book has lots of comforting full-color photographs for the benefit of culinarily adventerous n00bs.
* This books covers a fairly broad array of grilling recipes ... meat, fish, vegetables, fruit ... there's a little bit of something for almost everyone, which is exactly what they set out to do, in order to maximize sales. Charcoal is preferred, but this book is minimally gas friendly too ... but only if your burners are of the front-to-rear variety. If they're side to side, you're SOL when it comes to most 'indirect heat' techniques.
* Some of the recipes are actually pretty tasty, which partially compensates for some of the serious flaws listed below. One standout for me is the whole butterflied marinated leg of lamb (which I've since improved upon). Nice recipe, but too much scallion.
NITS:
* This books sacrifices depth for breadth - in other words, it covers a LOT of turf, but none of it exhaustively or well.
* This book is heavily and gratuitously padded with needlessly repetative and unnecessary fluff. Case in point - virtually every recipe says to start your grill, and then wastes a FULL PAGE repeating, over and over and over again (with the same color photos) how to start and bank a 2 or 3-tier charcoal fire, for direct or indirect grilling. Cutting out that wasted repitition would have left room for (I kid you not) at least 33% more recipes, for the same page count. Can you say "RIP OFF" ? I knew you could.
* The photographer they hired is a cheater, and a gimick-hound, and nothing irks me faster than photographs (and cookbooks that use them) that lie and deceive. Case in point - if you look any almost any of the close-ups, you will spot right away that most of the grilled items were BAKED (not grilled) off camera, and that the food photographer merely made them APPEAR grilled by branding them with hot wires, and then laying them on a stone-cold-never-before-used grill. There are, however, a few very helpful sequences ... such as the one on how to prep and grill a whole baby lamb (something I'm looking forward to attempting sometime this coming year).
* Some of the recipes are just plain absurd. I mean come on - what anal-retentive cook is going to butterfly a dozen hot dogs, stuff them with cheese and jalepeno slices, tie them closed, grill them (somehow without making a total mess), and then de-string and serve them before the cheese hardens back up again ? HELLO ?
Steve Raichlen - How to Grill - 7
Moderators: clong, Mr. Titanic
Steve Raichlen - How to Grill - 7
Last edited by Darb on Tue Aug 21, 2007 10:16 am, edited 3 times in total.
The strengths I listed helped keep it at a 7 ...
... That, plus I have a fond place in my heart for whichever mad red-neck trailer-park genius came up with the crazy idea of stuffing a half-full tall-boy (can) of warm beer up a chicken's ass, and roasting it vertically.
It works great.
The author didn't invent it, but he brought the technique to the masses, and made it popular.
... That, plus I have a fond place in my heart for whichever mad red-neck trailer-park genius came up with the crazy idea of stuffing a half-full tall-boy (can) of warm beer up a chicken's ass, and roasting it vertically.
It works great.
The author didn't invent it, but he brought the technique to the masses, and made it popular.
Last edited by Darb on Tue Aug 21, 2007 10:15 am, edited 2 times in total.
