Grilled it...

If smoking is low and slow, grilling is turning and burning, the antithesis of smoking.  Here we want high heat on at least 1/2 the grill and most items we will be cooking fast.  This can be the exact same piece of equipment that we smoke with too.  Just like an oven we can control the temperature and use it in different ways.

Ok tonight the wife wanted grilled stuff.  Chicken and fish.   Chicken has always been my grill nemesis, but as the Lady requests, so the Lady gets.  So off to the store.  I got a smallish roaster chicken and some Mahi Mahi (dolphin for those that don't know and yes it is a fish a porpoise is a mammal).  In addition to that I knew I would have some extra heat so I grabbed some turkey Italian sausages, summer squash, a couple of tomatoes and some oranges.

Prep work
Cut the backbone out of the chicken with poultry shears and flatten the chicken.  You want to also cut off the last joint in the wing and tuck them under and tuck the drumstick under as well.  At that point I place some fresh sage leaves (just picked from out deck garden) under the skin of the chicken, stalt and pepper both sides and drizzle with olive oil.  Then foil and put in the fridge.

Mahi Mahi has a blood line running down the middle of the filet by the skin.  This gets pretty bitter so cut it out (I did this with my awesome sushi knife (nothing better for cutting fish).  I then salted and peppered my fish and threw in some thyme sprigs (also from the deck garden), oiled them and foiled them. Toss in the fridge.

Sausage needs no prep so forget about that for now.

The summer squash cut in half and I seeded them (you don't need to but I don't like the texture of the seeds.  Salt and pepper & lightly oil.

Tomatoes and oranges.  Cut into 1 inch slices with both ends open.

Now to the fire.  First of all NEVER use match light or charcoal lighter fluid.  Both add basically petroleum distillates to your food.  That's not good eating.  Use a chimney charcoal starter one sheet of newspaper (or old bills that are in the shred pile) a match and about 10 minutes and you have a great fire.  Once the top coals have some white ash on them dump the chimney full of your charcoal into the grill and spread it out.  Here you can go as is or add more fuel on top and wait another 5 minutes (be careful to not smother your existing fire, leave room for O2 to get in).  Today I used briquette charcoal (instead of lump hardwood charcoal my usual) because I wanted a fire that would last longer.  Lump tends to burn much hotter than briquettes but it will burn out long before the  briquettes will.  As I was cooking a chicken and multiple dishes I went for the longer burn.  I did pick an all natural briquette with hickory in it though to avoid the petroleum taste as well as adding a little hardwood smoke.

Once your added coals are showing white ash you are ready to grill.  At this time take that bronze brush you got with your grill tool kit and brush down the top of the grill.  The heat will have converted any old debris to ash and you can just brush it off.  If you try it when the grill is cold good luck. 

Ok I cooked the veggies first.  Tomatoes throw on for about a minute a side, here you want a bit of smoke and some grill marks, any more and the tomatoes will just be mush, not a good side dish.  The summer squash give 3-4 minutes a side, you want really good charring from the grill and the heat in the squash will finish the cooking so don't worry if it's a bit hard when you take it off the grill.  The Orange you definitely want to do at about the same time as the squash.  This will concentrate and caramelize the sugars on the outer part of the orange and give you the good flavor that you cannot get elsewhere.

Next came the fish and the sausage. The sausage I got a good char on each side and moved to the cooler part of the grill.  The Mahi Mahi being a firm fish I took a chance.  Instead of using a fish basket on the grill I left the skin on the filets and placed the seasoned oiled fish on the hot part of the grill.  I left the fish skin side down until I could see that moisture was coming out of the top of the entire fish.  I then turned it over for about 30-45 seconds to finish the top.  Thanks to both oiling the fish and the high heat (about 600 degrees) nothing stuck and they came off perfectly.  The sausages took about 8 minutes after I browned them to fully cook and I removed them and served the family (the baby boy was hungry and fussing by that point).

The chicken I messed up on.  I put it over the hot part of the grill to get the skin cooking and had a huge flare up (from oil and chicken fat hitting the coals and flaming up high).  I was inside for this serving the gang so by the time I got out the chicken skin was covered with oily soot.  This tastes horrible so I was fretting.  After a few dozen choice cuss words I flipped the chicken on the cool part of the grill and squirted out the flames.  I closed the lid and set the damper so that the heat was about 500 degrees and went in to eat.  I check the chicken about every 10 minutes and it was cooked in about 30.  The good part was that once peeled the chicken tasted great but the skin (which the wife loves was a total loss).  So learn from my lesson.  ALWAYS pay attention to your fire.