Rotisserie Chicken

Just made a chicken for the 1st time using my rotisserie and the infrared back burner.

Turned out great! Skin was a perfect, crunchy brown, and the meat tender and moist.

Real trick to this is to brine the chicken overnight first.

Here's how it went:

Started with a 4 lb. roaster. Wash well with cold water. Trim off any extra fat around tail.

In a stockpot or other large vessel, add 1/2 cup kosher salt, 1/2 cup brown sugar, 10-15 peppercorns, 2-3 large garlic cloves - mashed. Add just enough hot water to stir and disolve salt and sugar. Take a couple lemons and jest the skins into the brine mixture. Then, halve the lemons and add to mixture. Place chicken in the stockpot and add cold water to just cover. Place in refrigerator overnight.

Next day, remove chicken and rinse well with cold water and pat dry with paper towels.

At this point, you can do all sorts of prep for the chicken, such as adding butter and rosemary under skin, in cavity, etc. I decided that since this was my first attempt with the rotisserie and infrared that I would keep it simple. All I did was spray a little canola oil spray on the chicken, season well with kosher salt and ground black pepper, and add 3 nice sized garlic cloves to cavity. I then tied the legs and wings up well with butcher twine.

I preheated the left and right bottom burners on the grill at medium heat. I left the center bottom burner off. I centered the chicken on the rotisserie bar, placed on grill, and started the rotation. Using aluminum foil, I made a "drip catch" and placed under chicken on grate to save on clean up later. I then fired up the infrared burner in the back. I started out on high and checked every few minutes. After about 20 minutes, it appeared that the skin might be getting done a little too fast, so I backed it down to about half. I took a couple readings with my instant read thermometer, and at about 1 hour, it read 170 F when inserted into the thigh. Done.

I removed the chicken and let it set, tented with aluminum foil for about 20 minutes.

It was the best tasting rotisserie chicken I've had yet!

Rosemary Garlic Lamb Chops

Rosemary, garlic, and lamb—does it get any better than that? The red wine that is poured onto the chops during the cooking process adds yet another layer of flavor.
Serves: 4
2 lbs. center-cut lamb chops

2 cloves garlic, minced

1 Tablespoon minced fresh rosemary

1 Tablespoon extra virgin olive oil

Salt and black pepper

Red wine for pouring on the chops (1 cup roughly)

1. In a medium bowl, combine chops, garlic, rosemary, and olive oil. Cover with plastic wrap and refrigerate for several hours. 2. An hour before grilling, remove the chops from refrigerator and allow them to warm up.3. Season chops with salt and pepper. Grill on the infrared burner over moderately high heat. Every 1-2 minutes, pour some wine over the chops (don't worry about flame up - one of the nice things about the infrared burner is that it is so hot that drippings will varporize almost instantly, imparting additional flavor to the food). Grill for 5 minutes (maybe 7 minutes for thicker chops) and flip, continue to pour wine and cook about 5 more minutes.

This recipe is courtesy of Charbroil.com for TEC Infrared.

Link to their recipes is:

http://www.charbroil.com/consumerwebhome/RecipeResults.aspx?search=148

How's it work again?

Essentially, an infrared burner uses a standard gas (LP or natural gas) burner and focuses the flame through a ceramic tile that has thousands of tiny holes. Rather than just heating the air above the standard burner, the ceramic tile condenses the heat and converts it into infrared energy. There is still loss of energy (heat) from the ceramic tile through the air, but this method allows much more to reach the food (say from around 450 F to around 900 F).

Cooking with this high radiant heat also helps keep food from drying out since it relies less on hot air to cook and more on direct infrared energy. (Think of the difference between drying your wet hands over hot coals (radiant) versus with an electric hand blower.) This helps the food to carmalize nicely without over-cooking or drying out.

We're just beginning to understand and appreciate how this all works, and what wonderful things we can do with food that we've not been able to do before. I'm looking for help with your experience with this new technology and any tips or recipes we can add here.

Infrared Grill Recipes

This is my first ever blog. And this is my first ever post in my first ever blog!
As my mission is to build a large, impressive cache of recipes for the infrared grill - I'll start with one of the most basic. Steak!
In this case, New York Strips, about 1" thick.
Allow the steaks to come to room temperature (I leave out about an hour).
Season however you like. I usually rub both sides with a little olive oil.
Then I season both sides with Kosher salt, coarse ground black pepper and garlic powder.
I add some red pepper flakes to one side only.

Prehead the infrared burner for about three minutes (that's all it takes, really!).
Then, with a watch with a second hand, I start grilling.
90 seconds - then rotate 90 degrees and don't touch for another 90 seconds.
Then flip over - 90 seconds - rotate 90 degrees - 90 seconds.
That's three minutes per side for a beautiful medium rare NY strip with wonderful seared marks on both sides.