Customer Reviews

Mastering the Grill: The Owner's Manual for Outdoor Cooking

5 star:		(23)
4 star:		(3)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

It opens with a great educational section that breaks down EVERYTHING pertaining to outdoor grilling. From various meats, what each cut is good for.. how to prepare each cut (for all major meat types..seafood, beef, pork, poultry, and even veggies/fruits)....... spices (what works with what and why).... technical information on types of grills and ways to get the most performance out of your grill.

THEN it dives into the recipes. Each of the 300+ recipes is very well laid out with detailed instructions on how to use each type of grill (gas, charcoal, or open fire/smoker) including details like how to arrange coals, where to position meat, etc. It not only tells you how to prepare each dish, but explains in clear easy-to-understand language why things are done the way they are...often down to scientific levels discussion protein chains and whatnot. Very educational.

The recipes themselves are remarkably diverse.. they include gorgeous full color photos of many of the dishes. They have sections on beef, poultry, seafood, pork, veggies, desserts...etc.... plus a large section loaded with dozens of various rubs, marinades, brines,etc that are used within the book (always clearly referenced within a recipe).

Can't recommend it highly enough for everyone from the casual griller to even more hardcore folks.

I never grilled before, and really wanted to learn. By chance, I heard one of the authors on the WHYY radio show, A Chef's Table. What I heard from the author on that show impressed me, and so I got the book two days before July 4th.

This book is as thorough and consistent as an academic textbook. Recipes are detailed, consistently presented, and are appropriate for gas or charcoal grills. There are useful how-to's scattered throughout the book (such as "How to butterfly meat") that are invaluable to a novice like me.
At the start of the book is an expansive section on all the different cuts of meat and their properties, and the chemistry behind grilling.

Over the course of 3 days, I tried 10 of the recipes, and they were all huge hits. The burger recipes were amazing and especially simple to prepare. This book has a good mix of grilling 'staples', like burgers, wings, and steaks, as well as some great exotic dishes, such as vietnamese pork lettuce wraps and tandoori chicken.

This is the best cookbook I've ever bought. Do your guests a favor and pick up a copy!

Do you like to cook on the grill? I mean REALLY get down and dirty barbecuing like you were born to do it. Oh yeah, baby! Then THIS is the book for you. Authors Andrew Schloss and David Joachim don't play around and mean serious business with this hands-on grilling cookbook. With vibrant photos of their sensational BBQ recipes, each page of this book provides helpful hints about how to maximize your grill to make the perfect dish. Temperature recommendations, full ingredients listing, cooking directions, estimated preparation/grilling time, and recommended grilling equipment is provided for each recipe. Fire up the grill and let this book help you become the BBQ king in your neighborhood!

Before I explain how great this book is, I want to mention my credentials.
I have worked in Technical Support for 9 years, and I am constantly looking at technical documentation. The price range of equipment I support spans a gap bookmarked by $7,000, and $30 Million, and it is produced in various nations, mostly: the US, Germany, Italy, Japan, Spain, England, Check Republic, and Taiwan. I say all of this to explain my familiarity with the range of quality one may see in technical documentation. It is a big range, and the best documentation really helps me do my job well. The worst, well it is really useless. .

. . . Now moving away from work and onto fun . . .

After a long week at the job there is nothing better than spending time with friends, grilling and relaxing at each other's homes. That is where this book comes in.

"Mastering the Grill" is the best documentation I have ever seen on grilling. It is written in an academic, yet totally understandable style. It covers things one doesn't even realize they need to know, but they do. It thoroughly covers subjects such as Grilling equipment, grilling techniques, ingredients, what flavors go well together, and many recipes.
I particularly like the ingredients section, which goes over all of the cuts from Beef, Veal, Pork, Lamb, Poultry, and Fish, as well as Produce, Cheese, and Bread. The meat section is very detailed and shows you where on the animal the cuts come from, and what each cut is best used for among other details.


This book is Awesome . . . When you buy one of these, you will want to get them for all of the guys you need to buy gifts for. I have already purchased 1 for a friend, 1 for me, and I plan on buying about 5 more for friends and family this Christmas.

I read this book like I read most cookbooks: I consider them to be guidelines or inspirations for flavor combinations. This book provides a good introduction to the science of grilling as well as over 500 recipes. Honestly, I'll never make one of the recipes exactly as written but they inspire some good ideas. There's a whole section on rubs, brines and marinades which is very usefull. On the other hand, I dont need 30 hamburger recipes.

If you're tired of charring food when your wife asks you to grill, and if you're tired of the same old barbecue sauce or marinade, this book is for you! The authors expertly lead men, their intended audience, through the science of grilling, so that men better understand the various techniques -- before, during, and after cooking -- that can make grilling real fun. The section on brines and rubs is excellent excellent excellent, though a word of caution: I've found that I get better rubs using these recipes if I cut the salt and sugar down to half or even less. Follow the directions, but don't be afraid to experiment. This book will change the way you grill forever.

In addition to my copy, I have purchased three as gifts, and recommended this book to others. Without exception, all of my friends that use this book have raved about the ease of following the receipes as well as the quality of the finished product.

I have two dozen Grilling cookbooks, and this is by far the best. The book is well written and the recipes are great. The chapters on grilling science provide you with the information you need to be an expert griller. Once you read them, you will realize that any great grilling you did in the past was an accident; you can't consistently grill well until you fully understand the science of grilling. The only thing better than the book is the hands-on grilling class that the authors offer several times per year at COPIA: The American Center for Wine Food & the Arts in Napa, CA. I attended the 5-day hands-on grilling class in 2007 and was among the first to earn the Certified Grill Master designation. If you can't swing the cost of the hands-on grilling class in Napa, the book is the next best thing. If you can afford the class, sign up. The class is intense and will be the best grilling experience you'll ever have. And it includes a copy of the book.

Do you enjoy using a grill? Or do you aspire to begin grilling? Want to expand your storehouse of grilling recipes? If yes to any of those questions, this book is a treasure. It is massive and a bit unwieldy, but its contents make up for that. I first learned of this book when the authors were guests on the Food Networks "Emeril Live." Emeril introduced the two authors and then proceeded with an hour of grilling. After that, I felt the need to acquire this volume.

The upfront stuff, in some ways, is really important. I sort of bumble along on my gas grill, learning by doing, using recipes that I like, experimenting on different ways of cooking. But I really only know a handful of ideas and techniques (Including some simple maxims as some things need to be cooked on the side without flame; others are to be cooked directly over the flame). The authors assert that there is something unique about this book (Page 10): "In this book, we approach the grill from the perspective of science and mechanics. Our goal is to impart an understanding of what occurs during grilling, so that you can make better-tasting grilled food."

Introductory sections in Chapter 1 discuss the type of grills that can be used (from hibachis to gas grills and so on), how grills work, grill cleaning and maintenance (oops; I learned that I should do a better job cleaning the grill grates), requisite grill tools (I have a bunch, but could probably add some additional items, based on their discussion).

Chapter 2? "Mastering Your Technique." This explores what I always thought of as exotica, mastering the fire, the science of heat transference (conduction, convection, and radiant heat), grilling techniques (e.g., indirect versus direct grilling, and so on), and mastering temperature (judging doneness and making sure that one let's what is grilled "rest" at the end). Resting? Goodness. I take the food right off the grill and on to my family's/guests' plates. Not good! Grilled food (and other typed of cooked foods) should rest a bit, so that you don't get parts that are too dry. I am now trying to be a batter cook and let the meat thus cooked "rest" for 5-10 minutes.

Chapter 3 looks at the different foods that you can grill and a boatload of information about each.

Finally, the piece de resistance! Recipes! There are a lot of these; the text notes about 300 of them. They are divided into sections on burgers and their like; steaks and chops; roasts, ribs, and slow food; major, complex cooking projects; vegetables and side dishes; fruit, dessert, etc.; marinades, glazes, rubs, and the like.

The one downside of a number of recipes is that they take a great deal of upfront work and are complex. I prefer interesting but simpler recipes. However, for those who want to experiment, there are plenty of opportunities to do so with the recipes in this book. A few quick examples of recipes.

Buffalo blue cheese burger: Based on hot Buffalo wings. I'm interested, since I used to enjoy visiting the Anchor Bar in Buffalo, home of the chicken wing! Create a hamburger by mixing together ground chuck, celery seed, onion, garlic, blue cheese in a bowl. Then, separately, melt butter and mix in hot sauce (e.g., Tabasco Sauce). Put the hamburger patties created from the hamburger mix on greased grill grate. Cook. Put burgers in the hot sauce, coat, and eat with knife and fork (although I might be inclined to put the resulting burger in a nice Kaiser roll!).

With steaks, there is a nice looking recipe for Porterhouse au poivre that captured my interest. Or Tandoori chicken with Vidalia chutney (a little more complicated than I'd like, but boy does it sound yummy!), grilled summer vegetables with brown-butter vinaigrette, grilled maple-crusted apple rings. . . .

This is a terrific resource for those who want to go beyond simple grilling without really knowing what you are doing (that's been me!). Some of the recipes are over the top, I think, but these will doubtless appeal to some who are likely to be rewarded for their efforts. Worth a look!

The book is comprehensive, yet frustrating.

The print is very small. Even with reading glasses it's STILL small.

The font size is probably 8. No kidding. Not even 10. And the side-notes, which are often very important, are even smaller.

Cookbooks should be informative...but equally ENJOYABLE TO READ.

Besides the tiny "fine print" font size...the overall layout is ugly, awkward and uninviting. The main section of each page is very close to the spine. This has the effect of making the print sort of "disappear" into the spine.

The main section on each page is pushed toward the spine, in order to make room for the tiny side notes. They should have put the notes underneath the main text. There's a reason they're called FOOT notes.

Adding to all the visual annoyance...the book is heavy like a brick. It's hard to use while standing, or passing it amongst friends, or using while cooking. The heavy weight would make sense if there were a lot of high quality photos...but the recipe-to-photo ratio is pitiful.

The table of contents...like most of the book, is thoughtful, but misses the mark yet again. There's plenty of unused empty space on the contents page, which could have been used for larger print. Each recipe section is prefaced with the word "Mastering", so the type of cuisine isn't immediately apparent when scanning the page. The word "Mastering" is used 19 times in the contents. The authors evidently have some kind of compulsion to master.

The first 90 pages are excellent and very informative. This section covers the different cuts of meats from various animals. Flavoring. And grill methods and "theory". One qualm...they number the cuts of meat, yet the corresponding numbers are not found in the within the text that explains them.

Flaws and all, I still recommend this book. I recommend it as a serious book. But not as an enjoyable "cookbook". Reading it is more akin to doing homework. Even "studying" it on a desk is not pleasant because it's so unwieldy and small printed. I don't mean to harp on it, but typing this tiny CANNOT be enjoyed in ANY context. I don't care if HEMINGWAY wrote the recipes.

Each recipe is prefaced by a short conversational explanation, which gives background and "color" to each recipe. With these prefaces (too short by the way), and the side-notes, you never feel like you're flying blind.

Many cookbooks, (especially grilling and BBQ books) are full of thoughtless, cliched, hot air. Many of them are published as an afterthought just to make money from a celebrity name. Those books read like they were thrown together as the "author" was getting primped for his next TV shoot. I would avoid any of the Steve Raichlen or Bobby Flay BBQ/Grilling books.

NOT so with this book. The authors put extreme care into the substance of what they're conveying. They truly care about food and they care that YOU are enlightened. They are not merely "masters" (which are a dime-a-dozen really) they are intelligent, articulate masters. They just blew it when it came to style and layout.

You will need the following to use this book:

1. Reading glasses AND a magnifying glass.

2. A brick to flatten the pages so the words aren't lost in the spine.

3. A crane to maneuver it around home and grill.

4. A bottle of Valium to sooth your frustration.

Does this sound fun? Educational yes...but fun?

My suggestion for possible future editions would be to lesson the number of recipes, so space can be expanded for longer recipe prefaces, more pictures, and larger print.

What a blown opportunity. It could have been great.

It's like being in love with a beautiful...frigid woman.