Professor Bainbridge...on law, politics, religion, culture & food

Now We’re Cooking with Gas

For many years, I was a charcoal snob. I used a high quality characoal grill in which I burnt real hardwood charcoal started in a chimney, with soaked chunks of hardwoods for smoke.

In 1996, when I moved from Illinois to California as a visting professor at UCLA, however, Helen and I rented a house that had a remarkably small oven. The first year we were here, family descended upon us in large numbers for Christmas. There was no way our tiny oven could have handled a turkey of the size necessary to feed the ravenous horde. So I bought a Weber propane gas grill.

I knew I was living in lotus land when I found myself outside on Christmas morning, wearing shorts and a t-shirt, grilling the holiday turkey. It was at that precise moment when I knew that if UCLA offered me a permanent position, I would take it. There was no way I was going back to the frozen wastelands of Champaign, Illinois!

That Weber grill served me well for many years. I discovered that while gas grills never quite reproduced the precise flavors of hardwood charcoal, they had a lot of other advantages. They heated up faster. It was easier to control the cooking temperature. There were no ashes to dispose of. I worried less about fire. The warming rack gave me more cooking options, as did the ability to turn off specific burners while cranking other burners up.

Yet, my propane grill had its problems. I had one of those quick change valve propane tanks, which apparently became illegal out here in California for air pollution reasons. Hence, I couldn’t simply do a tank exchange. Instead, I had to take my tank to a propane refilling station.The nearest one to my house was run by some very strange guys with whom it was always a little creepy to deal. Plus, on more than one occasion, including one memorable dinner party, I ran out of gas in the middle of cooking.

So this summer I finally did something I’ve wanted to do for a while. I bought a new grill: A Weber S-320 NG. It’s a gas grill with a side burner. Unlike my old propane grill, however, this one runs off household natural gas. I had a plumber come out and run a gas line from my main household gas connection out to the deck. I also had him install a second connector so that next fall I can get a gas porch heater, which should extend our grilling season to year round. I had an electrician come out and install a new electrical outlet right next to the gas connection, so I can add a rotisserie unit.

After about a month of use, I love the new grill. Natural gas off your household line turns out to be much cheaper than propane. I never have to worry about having enough gas. Accordingly, when using a smoker pouch, I can let the grill preheat long enough to get the smoke really going, The side burner lets me prepare dishes to accompany the grilled meat, such as the lentils and squash mix I served with leg of lamb tonight. I can get very precise temperature control because the cover has a built-in thermometer. By wrapping a mixture of 2 cups of soaked hardwood chips with one cup of dry hardwood sawdust in a foil pouch with a few holes punched through it and placed on the flavorizer bars, I can get tons of smoke.

One of my favorite tricks is to put a smoker pouch in the grill, lay a pizza stone on the grate, and crank the grill up to maximum. Because the grill can get up to 750°, the effect is very similar to a pizza cooked in a wood burning oven.

I love it when a plan comes together.