big-green-egg

It’s really easy to do twice-baked potatoes on the Egg, especially if you have like three hours to kill. Which, sure, sometimes. Take your nice big russets. Put some olive oil on the outside, and whatever spice you want. I used some hickory garlic rub and that was nice. Wrap them in foil, and kick ’em into the Egg at 400 degrees for an hour. Turn them every 20 or 30 minutes. I did a WoW instance during that hour and I didn’t worry about the temperature once and it all worked out okay. ...

(Green is the meat temperature, purple is the grill temp.) Our second run at pulled pork was wildly successful. We used a different rub (hickory garlic, very tasty) but I think the big differences were in cooking technique. First off, I foiled the pork butt at around 150 degrees. This is where you wrap the thing in foil with a half a cup of water or apple juice in it. As the chart below shows, this more or less eliminated the stall while the moisture from the meat evaporates. ...

Quick notes: Planked wild salmon from Schaub’s, which is not an everyday kind of treat but man it’s good stuff: soak the cedar planks, let them heat up for 4-5 minutes at 400 degrees, put the salmon in skin down for 20 minutes. You cook these longer than salmon right on the grill because it’s effectively indirect heat. Burgers: 500 degrees, 2 minutes on either side, close the dome and bottom vent, let them sit for 4-5 minutes to finish up. First time out I put the cast iron half moon in when I put the burgers on, which sucked away a lot of heat, so they were a tad rare. Next time we’ll skip that bit.

We got a Big Green Egg. (Darry Smith, Eggs By The Bay, sold it to us. Great guy, highly recommended.) Pricy, but cheaper than an iPad and we’ll be using it longer, so no qualms about the purchase. Neither Susan or I have any grilling experience. We’ve done three meals, all of which turned out perfectly from a cooking perspective. I am not great at marinades yet but that’s a different question. The Egg is stupid easy to use. This weekend we embark on a pork butt as our first smoking attempt. ...