Grill up. Cooking for family and friends on your back patio requires nothing more than a simple charcoal grill, such as a Weber or Expert Grill, says Jarrad Silver, chef-owner of Silver and Sons BBQ, a food truck operation that plans to open a brick-and-mortar location in Bethesda later this year. He advises using only hardwood lump charcoal—skip the chemical-packed briquettes. Ignite the charcoal with a chimney starter; it will need 20 to 30 minutes before it’s hot enough to cook over. Don’t want to invest in a grill? There are free-to-use grills at several local parks, including Wheaton Regional Park, Aberdeen Local Park in North Potomac and Meadowbrook Local Park in Chevy Chase.
Create zones. Ed Reavis, co-owner of Money Muscle BBQ in Silver Spring, recommends shifting your coals to one side to create a hot zone, leaving a cooler zone with no coals on the other side. This allows you to cook over direct and indirect heat.
Accessorize properly. Roxie Hardy, owner of Hardy’s BBQ food truck in Bethesda, loves using tongs to handle meats on her grill. They enable her to get a firmer grip on items of various sizes. Burgers are her one exception. She flips them with a spatula. Don’t forget to have a meat thermometer on hand. And always have a fire extinguisher at the ready in case your grill catches fire. To prep the grill and help prevent food from clinging, Silver suggests waiting for the grill to get hot, then pouring a little vegetable or canola oil on a wad of paper towels and using tongs to brush the oily swab across the grate.
Support your local butcher. The Organic Butcher of Bethesda, Butchers Alley in Bethesda and Potomac’s Chop Shop Butchery all have knowledgeable staffers who can help you figure out what cut of steak or other proteins you want to cook.
Make five-star burgers. Form a patty with quality meat and season it on the outside with salt and pepper, handling the meat as little as possible. Hardy advises cooking burgers over indirect heat—the cooler zone you set up—so they don’t char or dry out. And only flip a patty once, she says, because repeated flips can tear the meat or break up the burger.
Turn out succulent steaks. Liberally season steak with more salt than you think necessary and lots of freshly ground black pepper. If you want to add another layer of flavor, Silver suggests first rubbing it with an oil infused with garlic, herbs or spices. He starts steaks over the hot zone to get a nice sear on the meat, turning the steak 90 degrees before flipping it to create crisscrossing hash marks. Only sear each side for a few minutes, then finish cooking the steak over the cooler zone. After you take it off the grill, let it rest for five to 10 minutes before slicing so the juices distribute throughout the meat.
Don’t forget vegetables. Silver suggests using a metal basket to grill smaller and thinner produce—such as cherry tomatoes, asparagus and mushrooms—so they don’t slip through the grates. Reavis likes throwing sheafs of romaine lettuce on the grill, which he uses to make a char-kissed Caesar salad. And Hardy is a fan of cutting 1-inch-thick, cross-sectional slices from a head of cauliflower, seasoning them with salt, pepper and whatever spices strike her fancy, then grilling them over the hot zone for a few minutes per side before moving them to the cool zone to cook until they are tender all the way through.
Leave it as you want to find it. While your grill is still hot, use a metal brush to thoroughly clean the grate. Wait for it to cool a little, then flip it over and brush the underside. For a final cleaning and to ensure that you remove any hazardous metal bristles that might have come detached from the brush, Hardy sprays both sides with water—no need for any detergent—and wipes them dry with paper towels. Wait for used charcoal to cool completely, then put them in a lidded metal can or wrap them in tinfoil, and dispose of them in your trash.
This story appears in the May/June edition of Bethesda Magazine.
