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Grilling is such a popular way to cook that sometimes it's easy to forget the basics that help produce delicious dinners. Outdoor grilling adds irresistible flavors and aromas to a variety of foods.
Foster Farms hopes you have a wonderful summer entertaining friends and family. Here are some grilling and entertaining ideas from Jerry Anne Di Vecchio, a San Francisco based grilling expert and former editor for Sunset Magazine, to help kick-start the fun.
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Jerry Anne Di Vecchioconsultant, author, editor, teacher
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- For healthier and tasty grilled dishes, try Foster Farms fresh chicken with your favorite sauce, marinade or try one of our great-tasting recipes.
- Use Foster Farms lean ground chicken or ground turkey instead of ground beef for delicious, moist patties.
- Use Foster Farms chicken or turkey hot dogs instead of beef hot dogs for mouth-watering flavor with less calories and fat.
- Try grilling vegetables along with your entrée. Grilled vegetables are delicious and they can add antioxidants to your diet that boost your immunity and neutralize potential toxins. Make shish kebobs with bell peppers, sweet onions and mushrooms. Other good choices on the grill are zucchini, corn, and/or eggplant. Just remember to place your kebobs on the outside of the grill as vegetables cook more quickly than entrees.
- When cooking a Foster Farms fresh whole turkey on the barbecue, allow 3/4 pound uncooked meat per serving, or at least 1 pound if you want leftovers.
- For ultra-tender, ultra-fast poultry cutlets for the grill, place Foster Farms boneless, skinless chicken or turkey breasts between sheets of plastic wrap and pound meat with a flat mallet until evenly about 1/4 inch thick.
- To manage small pieces of Foster Farms chicken on a grill, lay the pieces side by side and thread a metal skewer through each end to make a fence that you can turn easily.
- Clean the grill before each use.
- Clean with a wire brush to remove any old residue.
- If using a charcoal grill, start fire 30 minutes beforehand so coals will be red-hot and coated with gray ash.
- If using a gas grill, preheat about 15 minutes before cooking. Set temperature on high and keep the lid down.
- Lightly brush grill bars with vegetable oil or use nonstick cooking spray to prevent food from sticking.
- Foster Farms whole chickens and turkeys cook up perfectly, but sometimes unevenly because the meat is different thickness on the bones. Done temperatures at the thickest part of the breast is 170°, while the thickest part of the thigh is about 185°.
- Don't place cooked food on the same platter that held raw food.
- Thaw food completely before grilling to prevent uneven cooking.
- Thaw food overnight in the refrigerator or defrost in the microwave.
- Only defrost in microwave if you do not plan to marinate the poultry. These foods must be cooked immediately once thawed in microwave to prevent contamination.
- Make sure poultry juices don't drip onto other food.
- Bring poultry to room temperature before grilling. Be careful not to let it sit out more than 30 minutes to prevent contamination.
- For a fresh twist chose a flavored salt — sea, red, smoked — and another kind of pepper such as green or white peppercorns or Japanese sansho instead of plain salt and black pepper.
- Try some aromatic smoking woods instead of a traditional marinade. Use apple and cherry for their fruity fragrance, grapevine for its bit of tang and hickory with its distinctively sweet, rich character.
- Before marinating, trim any excess fat to reduce flare-ups on the grill.
- For convenience, place food and marinade in a large plastic food storage bag to marinate. Press air out of bag, and then close securely.
- Coat food completely. Turn bag over occasionally while marinating so flavor will be even throughout.
- Refrigerate if you're marinating for longer than 30 minutes.
- Prior to grilling, remove food from the marinade. Drain and blot off excess liquid with paper towels.
- The holes in the bottom of a covered charcoal barbecue are drafts. Open them for maximum heat and partially close them to reduce heat. To snuff heat, close drafts completely.
- For charcoal barbecues, you can make a smaller bed of hot coals, but it should surround or extend 3 or 4 inches beyond the dimensions of the cooking food.
- When cooking with charcoal, scatter an extra 10 briquettes onto fire grate for every 50 briquettes used. This helps to maintain even heat.
- When cooking foods over indirect heat you can also grill other foods over direct heat at the edges of the grill.
- To speed up the temperature-taking process, set your thermometer stem in hot tap water before inserting into Foster Farms fresh poultry on the grill.
- When drippings catch fire, use long tongs to at once move foods to an area on grill with no heat beneath, or onto a platter until flames die. To snuff flames, cover the barbecue briefly.
- Use tongs, instead of a fork, to avoid piercing the chicken. Piercing causes natural juices to leak out and can cause dryness.
- For larger pieces of meat, or to cook meat to greater doneness, cook over indirect heat with grill lid on.
- Cook chicken until juices are clear and there is no more pink near the center or the bone.
- When grilling vegetables, place them on the outer edge of the grill over indirect heat as vegetables cook more quickly than entrees.
- Make sure you have enough outdoor lighting for evening events.
- Create extra seating by moving some throw cushions into the backyard.
- If using tablecloths, weight them down; beach stones are always a good option.
- Make centerpieces with natural elements, such as shells, starfish and driftwood.
- Garnish platters with rosemary, an herb that won't wilt easily in the sun and is a natural pest repellent.
- Burn citronella candles at the edges of your entertaining area to keep the bugs away. (Have bug spray on hand as well.)
- Create a themed cookout…maybe go Caribbean with Jamaican music, limbo contests and umbrella drinks.
- And no matter what happens…remember grilling out is all about fun!
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