A united blend of spice, sweet and moist with fun texture that leaves boredom to no tongue.
You Need:
Duck Breast
Sweety, goopy stuff (Emily used a jammy marmelaide)
A little salt and pepper
Rub some of that sweet goodness on the duck breasts. Place them skin side to the grill and cover. When they shrink up and brown and are firm to touch, pull them off.
Delicate, sweet goodness all snug in its own little wrapper.
You Need:
Masa … the ol’ “golden cornflour”
Dates
Azuki Beans (sweetened red beans)
Banana Leaves
Buttah
The masa part:
Quite simple really. Pop some masa in a bowl, like a cup or so. It’s like making pancakes with Bisquick, you add melted butter until the consistency is compactable were you to make a tamale. Add the azuki beans.
The wrapper part:
The banana leaves are long, long LONG. Carefully tear them into squares, they’re just wrappers so no need to be particular.
The tamale part:
Grab a hand full of masa mix, stick a date surprise in the center. Grab some more masa mix to form a cute, little, rectanglish thingo. Pop that down in the center of the banana leaf square and wrap ‘er up. Usually pull one side over, tuck in the bums and roll to the other side. A tamale is born. So cute and impressive.
Pop that on the grill for a bit and flip once. You want it to be steamy warm. Good job. Grab some champagne, girlfriend.
Sure it’s a tit freezing day in Seattle. Sure finding charcoal amongst candy canes, fruitcake and brass plated golf tees can be trying. But leave it to Emily, our master chef of the day, to wrangle the crowds scouting out banana leaves, choice duck breast and put out a 3-D cookie with style.
Shopping List:
Duck Breasts
Marmalade for a some slimy, sticky sweet breast rub action
Banana Leaves
Masa
Azuki Beans (sweetened red beans)
Carrots with their tops on, modest
Green Onions (Scallion, Spring Onions, same shit)
Butter
Dates
Something fizzy and fabulous to drink
The fancy beans and banana leaves were picked up at our local Asian grocer de especial Uwajimaya. A place so fine you can pick up what’s for dinner and still leave with some Cream Collon and Totoro books.
To warm things up a bit, Emily lit the coals and cracked open Kirkland’s finest champagne.
Rachel popped by as well and a champagne taste off commenced. Veuve Clicquot vs Costco’s Kirkland Signature Champagne. Kirkland was up first.
Shockingly nice. Good bubble. Another sip is well deserved. Both Rachel and Emily sported the frown nod for Kirkland’s finest. Veuve Clicquot next, huh, a bit bitter. Nice, but how much nicer than Kirkland? Worth extra change for the privilege of advertisement? Both seemed to be solid bottles of mass produced, non-vintage champagne. One bottle starts at forty bucks while the other a mere twenty.
Then the duck was on. Duck fat doing it’s duck fat thing agitated the coals and we had ourselves an impressive flame.
Carrot girl handed our master chef the carrots and the grill was lidded. After a rest and a failed attempt at a foil bird, the green onions were on. The flames are hot, so don’t go for a refill. Minus a few casualties, the onions were perfect. The sweet tango of duck, caramelized carrot and grilled green onions danced in the mouths of these girls as the morsels were eaten –no- devoured and washed down with a fine bottle of generic champagne.
Quick shoe break as the Endless shipment arrived (free overnight shipping oh maw gaw!! If loving Endless is wrong GIRL, I don’ wanna be rightah) and it’s on to dessert.
Emily quickly whipped up some dessert tamales with sweet red beans and a surprise date all snuggled with masa then bundled and tucked in a banana leaf. After a little sit on the grill, these little babies came out steamy hot and melted in the mouth. Another impressive concoction to dazzle and amaze your friends. And easy to boot!
Rachel’s inner chocolate daemon scouted out some frozen brownie bites. This led to grilled brownie done two ways. Version one, straight up brownie on grill action. Version two, hey! banana leaves! … let’s stick some in here!
The straight up brownie was warm and tasty, but quite dry. The banana leaf version was warm, moist yet had this banana leaf overtone that impersonated green tea. Not this girl’s style.
Okay, so the duck breast, carrot, green onion combo plate converged on a Grand Canyon at sunset color, the taste was FABULOUS. Emily closed down the fall barbeque season with sass. And in true Girl On Grill Action™ form, she walked in the door and it was on.
This charcoal chimney thing is really simple and nothing to fear. I’ve photographed two gals who have never done the chimney before. On their first try, the charcoal came out perfect. It’s really the only way to light charcoal. The chimney works without fail.
Quick steps:
1. Remove the top grill of the barbeque
2. Put the charcoal in the top bin in the chimney
3. Put some wadded up newspaper in the bottom part of the chimney
4. Stick the thing in the grill
5. Light the paper and wait
6. When it starts flaming and the charcoal appears white, it’s ready
7. Grab some tongs and a pot holder to avoid burning your hands
8. Grab the handle with the pot holder and the little metal flippy bit with the tongs and carefully pour into the grill
9. You now have white, hot charcoal for you to play with
White Hot Charcoal
Meet Jennifer our very first Girl On Grill Action™ grill girl of the month. Jennifer is not much of a beach fan, but acquiesced to aesthetic pressure. Jennifer doesn’t enjoy long walks on the beach or hot, sandy burgers with beans.
She is fairly straightforward with her grilling. Full on meat with bun as garnish is her style. Pop it on the grill and grill the beejeezus out of it. With enough sauce and a nice pair of shoes, everything tastes fantastic. Wash it down with some Sprited vodka and you’ve got yourself a good time. Even better, a great meal.
Here’s a little concoction she whips up. Take it away Jennifer …
I do actually have a fave BBQ thingie. I call it Ghetto Grillas! Sometimes all you can afford and/or find in a pinch is the prepackaged beef patties, the carni-quivalent of Government Cheese. No need to despair because you can do like I do! Let those bad boys defrost in a bowl, break em up, and squash them with a package of Lipton Onion Soup. Even the lowliest of supermarkets have these freeze-dried powder packets, or some generic facsimile.
Grill to your lil heart’s desire, and prepare to fall over from the deliciousness you’ve created with such humble ingredients!
Grilling pizza seems an odd concept to grasp at first, but once you do it, there’s no going back. Rachel whipped up some lovely pizza. Here are the bits and pieces she laid down.
Pizza One:
Figgy, Cheesy, Hamness
This was the best pizza of the three. Maybe even the best pizza I’ve ever had. I don’t even like figs unless they’ve been Newtoned and still it was yummy. It was more complicated than the other two only in that you had to mix stuff into the Ricotta, no biggie.
You need:
Some ripe figs
Blue Cheese
Ricotta
Fresh basil
One little bit of a Garlic bulb
Prosciutto
Cut the figs in half. Done with figs.
Chiffinade the basil ( or “Bah-zil” for the commonwealth ). Itsy bitsy the Garlic. Then, smoosh the Garlic with the basil with a bit of salt. Mix the pasty stuff in with the Ricotta. That’s your sauce. Put that on first and pile the rest on top.
Pizza Two:
Simple, basic pizza with a little punch.
You need:
Fresh mozzerella
Basil
Tomato Sauce
Cappicola (this is the punch)
Nothing fancy here. Lay down the sauced. Invite the ham to join in. Pop on the mozz and basil, presto.
Pizza Three:
A little something for the veg heads. Rachel took advantage of the heat and grilled up the veggies first, then readied the dough.
You need:
Eggplant
Some pretty looking pepper (or capsicum. We’re here for you Australia)
Pesto
Balsamic vinegar
Fresh mozzerella
Debitter the eggplant with a little salt, pepper (or “salper” as an old friend used to say) and vinegar. Rachel got a little carried away with the quick pour vinegar and still it was lovely. Grill ‘em up and set aside. When you’re ready to top, pesto first, veg then cheese. The grilled veggies were AMAZING. I thought it would take awhile to get soft and flavored, but oh no, it was quick. I love heat.
Pizza on the grill, that’s right. You’ve heard it at parties. It sounds fancy. It sounds fun. More importantly, it’s EASY. Amaze and dazzle your friends and give them an anecdote for the water cooler (or dentist or proctologist whatever). Rachel did it. She bought a pile of stuff that sounds good, a wad of pre-made dough and let impulsive, gut driven mastication take over.
Shopping List:
Pre-made pizza dough
Something saucy
Something melty
Bits and Pieces … go with it, you know what to do and if you don’t
Dough:
The quick and easy way to do pizza is to lean on your local yuppie marts, your Trader Joes, your Metropolitan WankMarts … whatever, they’re out there even in Kansas (I love you Kansas, don’t get me wrong). There you will find pre-made pizza dough. It’s like under two bucks. You can let the dough get to room temperature and massage it with a little flour as to avoid a sticky ball. Trader Joe’s dough tends to be sticky. Rachel brought frozen dough, but with a little microwavic coercion, it was cold but malleable and still got its pizza on. Rachel picked up dough from Delaurnti. This is an Italian yum yum wet dream. They have everything you’d ever need; even cute, little jars of Nutella. Located in Seattle where they throw the fish.
Grilling Pizza:
First, fluff your grill. Get it nice and hot.
Roll out or toss the dough. Rachel was a roller, she tried tossing dough, but giggled uncontrollably.
Have your pizza toppings, sauce and the rest ready and near. Then …
(Rachel runs to get the toppings. Silly Rachel)
Place the dough on the grill and cover. Don’t walk away, this bit is quick. After a quick conversation about how you really need to get that new Britney album because sure she’s having some moments, but she still has amazing producers, give it a peak. At brown and an apparent crispness, give it a flip.
Dress your pizza. Cover and wait for the melting to happen.
That’s it. Ah yeah, that’s it. Serious.
Playing with coals:
Rachel played around with direct and indirect heat.
1. Charcoal in a nice pile in the middle for both sides.
Result: a bit burnt on the second side
2. Charcoal in the middle for the first side. Then scooting the charcoal to the side for the second side.
Result: yummy crunch, dare I say perfect?
3. Indirect heat for both sides. That is, charcoal scooted to one part of the grill for both pizza sides.
Result: okay, but took longer. With our girl Rachel, this was a bad technique as she kept opening the lid to check if it’s done yet. Is it done yet? How about now? With her lovely Oxford accent and snapping tongs. Oh yes, smart and sassy this one is.
Three pizzas were made and three pizzas were eaten lickety split. There is no going back. The fling of pizza and the hot grill is the kind of magic only elves are capable of.
This was a straightforward, simple concoction. A little protein and a little after sweet. We didn’t even use a full chimney. However, a hotter grill would have been quicker and slightly tastier.
Menu:
Shopping List:
Ground Lamb
Fresh Parsley
Pears
Onion
Egg
Chevre
Salt and Pepper
Walnuts
Balsamic Vinegar
Ketchup
Mini Pita, Whole Wheat
Champagne, please don’t go cheap (or something non-alc, fizzy and fancy)
Girl On Grill:
A quick scrub of the grill. It was a happy August barbecue when last this beast was used, so it needed a little clean. This girl hadn’t scrubbed before, but with a little pep talk, manage to persevere.
We had this puppy prepped, hot and cooking within an hour. Chop some parsley, light the chimney, have some champagne, make some burgers and it’s grill time. Once the little burgers achieve shrinkage and get all brown and firm, you can eat them many ways.
Tamra popped them in a warmed mini pita with some red leaf lettuce and chevre. Or some prefer to say it with ketchup. The parsley, onion, egg thing unites the ground lamb to take on any vehicle.
The pears were even easier. Of the three we tried, the whole pear was by far the best. Sweet, juicy with texture like buttah. Nothing says fall like snuggling in to a warm pear after your friend made you barbeque in sub fifty Fahrenheit.
Lil’ Bo Peep lost her sheep and finally got around to find them. Still holding a grudge, got pissed one night and made lamb burgers.
Ground Lamb
Parsley
Onion
Egg
Salt
Pepper
Here’s a simple one, easy to shop for and you get all medieval with the egg.
Forplay:
– Chop the parsley leaves, uh. Choppin’
– Chop the onion into itty bitty bits
– Standby egg
It’s on:
1. Throw down the ground lamb and get dirty.
2. Make a cute little volcano to dazzle your friends.
3. Put the egg in the hole. Ta da!
(good time to ask friend for a sip of champagne)
4. Squidge the volcano, continue to massage until everything is well mingled.
5. Sprinkle parsley on top. Work it.
6. Set in the onion play some more.
7. Make small patties and place on a plate ready for the grill.
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Once cooked, the vehicle for eating these babies are limitless. We popped the bugerettes in a mini, whole wheat pita with a dab of chevre and some red leaf lettuce. Though a high risk for being sassed, a few drops of ketchup is also yummy.
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Girl On Grill Action 
