Grill Maestro

The New York Times has a great article on the power of fire and heat with respect to cooking and throws around a few tips for us aspiring grill maestros. They tackle a problem many grillers face, which is how to get that nice crisp char on the outside while cooking the inside. Their solution? Managing and using the different heating zones on your grill!

It takes time for heat to move inward from the surface to the center, so the default method is to fry or grill or broil and hope that the browning time equals the heat-through time. Even if that math works out, the area between the center and surface will then range in temperature between 130 and 400 degrees. The meat will be overcooked everywhere but right at the center.

The solution is to cook with more than one level of heat. Start with very cold meat and very high heat to get the surface browned as quickly as possible with minimal cooking inside; then switch to very low heat to cook the interior gently and evenly, leaving it moist and tender.

On the grill, this means having high- and low-heat zones and moving the food from one to the other. On the stove top or in the oven, start at 450 or 500 degrees, and then turn the heat down to around 250, ideally taking the food out until the pan or oven temperature has fallen significantly.

Now you won’t end up with burnt on the outside, raw on the inside hamburgers!