There are many times in a young person’s life when they are faced with a seemingly insurmountable task, an Everest if you will. My Everest was manning the grill for a family cookout; and I have a rather large extended family on my mother’s side. My mom grew up in a house with six brothers, one older and five younger; and from this family sprang up numerous others. With my six uncles, six aunts, twenty eight cousins, and two grandparents, each family gathering becomes a circus. This particular gathering was a Memorial Day barbecue held at our house. We decided to have each family bring their own meat product to grill, and my mom so graciously volunteered me to grill it all. Now don’t get me wrong I love grilling, but grilling for this large a number seemed like a lot of work.
When all the families arrived, the meat was put in a large cooler. It amounted to six steaks, twelve brats, and an unforgiving number of hamburgers and hot dogs. My task was set; to grill all this meat to perfection and I must have it all done around the same time. I decided to start the steaks and brats first, since they would take the longest. Steaks must be cooked at a low heat for a long time, so the steak juices remain, making the steaks much more tender and juicy. Brats also must be cooked for a longer period of time so they can be cooked thoroughly without breaking the casing. After I put the steaks and brats, on I let them cook for awhile before flipping them. My general rule of thumb is to only flip steaks three times, this ensures both sides get cooked evenly and both sides have a good appealing texture and color.
About half-way through the cooking of the steaks, I put the brats on the upper rack to get them out of the direct heat. This made room on the grill for all the hamburgers. Since hamburgers are not as thick as steaks they don’t take as long to cook and you are usually able to get by on a medium heat. People usually think hamburgers are like steaks where they only need to be flipped three times, but in my experience I have found it is best to flip hamburgers more than that. Because hamburgers are usually made of lean meat they create more grease, and the grease falls into the grill making small grease fires that spurt up and kiss the burgers making them tougher to cook. When the burgers are just about done I take them off the grill and put them into a side-tin with a small amount of grease in it. The side-tin is on the side burner which is set on medium-high, and this will keep the burgers hot and juicy till they are ready to be served.
When the burgers are off and their remnants of grease and ground beef are left on the grill it is time to put the hot dogs on. The grease from the hamburgers is extremely helpful in the cooking of the hot dogs. The little fires that spurt up from it help to crisp the outside of the hot dogs while the insides are being cooked. Finally because the grill is already piping hot and hot dogs don’t take long to cook, they are all done in a matter of minutes. When I eventually got all the perfectly grilled meat onto two platters to carry them in, everyone was waiting eagerly in the kitchen. The time it took to plan out this grilling expedition and to carefully carry out the plan was a long and dirty job. But I had done it, completed my task, scaled my Everest, and the well-done’s and thanks I got through mouthfuls made it well worth it.
