Noah Galuten has spent years cooking alongside some of the best chefs, pit masters, and grill masters in America, so when it came time to write Grill Time, he wanted to share everything he had learned. He joined the show to share his Five Rules for Better Grilling, covering everything from why gas grills deserve more respect to the flavor advantages of cooking with wood and charcoal. We also get into the surprising power of mayonnaise, why chasing perfect grill marks can be overrated, and the one tool that will instantly make you a more confident cook. Whether you’re feeding a crowd or just trying to get dinner on the table, these are practical rules you’ll actually use.
Summer has officially arrived. The days are longer, the drinks are colder, and every meal suddenly feels like a good excuse to be outside. There’s something about cooking over fire that changes the pace of the day. Neighbors linger a little longer, friends show up a little earlier, and dinner becomes the event instead of the thing that happens before it. If you’ve been looking for a reason to dust off the grill, invite some people over, and make the most of the season, this conversation is the inspiration you need to get started.
Photo by Kristin Teig
Jacaranda’s recent opening in Los Angeles has had the culinary community abuzz with Daniel Patterson’s return to fine dining. Opened and owned with his wife, Sarah Lewitinn, this thirty-seat, tasting menu has been years in the making. Read my latest profile for Fine Dining Lovers on them, their love story and their road to opening.
Introduction
Hello, and welcome to Five Rules for the Good Life. I’m your host, Darin Bresnitz.
Today, I’m joined by Noah Galuten, whose new cookbook, Grill Time, Why You Should Be Grilling for Better, Healthier, Easier, and More Delicious Meals, is out now wherever books are sold, to share his five rules for better grilling.
We talk about how there’s no shame in the gas grill game. With that being said, nothing tastes better than smoke in food and how one secret ingredient is the key to better grilling.
Summertime is here and if you’re looking to get outside and to do some cooking, there is no better conversation for some inspiration and some rules to get your grill game going.
So let’s get into the rules.
Why Grilling Is Different
Noah, it’s so good to see you. Congratulations. Your new book has been out for a little less than a week. Grill time. Thanks for stopping by and making time for the show.
Thank you for having me, man. This first week has been so great. Summertime is here. It’s time for grilling.
What do you love so much about this season and cooking this way?
There’s so many things I love about grilling and the great thing about living in Los Angeles is you can grill 12 months out of the year. I know. I try to be nice to the people who don’t have the weather that we have.
That’s true. Grilling is just the way that I actually find myself cooking for my family the most often. It is easier, cleaner, faster, often healthier than you would do it on the stove. There’s stuff that I would never do on a stove in a million years that I will do on a grill a hundred times out of a hundred.
To cook a piece of chicken, to put on a salad, who’s pan searing? No one. It’s always grilled chicken at a restaurant. Throw it on a gas grill in the back, charcoal grill. You’ve got something instantly.
A lot of people get intimidated by grilling. It’s usually due to one bad experience because they’ve only tried it a handful of times. How do people get back on the horse after having a grilling mistake?
It’s like anything. The second time is going to be so much easier. The barrier to entry is basically having a grill. And once you have one, do it a couple times, get better at it.
Writing Grill Time
Once you find that inspiration of what to cook and how to cook it, it just makes you want to get outside even more. With so much of this type of cooking under your belt, how did you select the stories and recipes you wanted to share?
When a band has their first album, they spend their entire life creating it and then your second album is two years later and you’re trying to come up with a whole lifetime of stuff.
This was this lucky stroke of mine because my first cookbook was so much of my family cooking growing up, my mom’s food, the food that I make for my family at home.
And then I have this whole other side of grilling that I’ve been doing forever and learning from amazing mentors like Kevin Bloodsoe for Bloodsoe’s Barbecue and with Ari Colander for Seafood Stuff, Jeremy Fox for Vegetables. I got to lean all that information into the way that I cook and grill at home.
So it just spilled out of me. It came together so quickly. There was so much food that I cook all the time on the grill that I’ve never gotten to write about.
Grilling cookbooks were just different from regular at-home cookbooks. Grilling is the type of cooking practice that you can always get better at. You can always refine your approach.
Rule #1: There Is No Shame in the Gas Grill Game
Now I’ve been around a lot of chefs who swear on nothing but aged pecan wood or cherry wood or some other sort of refined—
Those people don’t cook for their kids on a weeknight is my theory on that.
I love cooking with wood and charcoal. I have an entire outdoor cooking show on Tastemade called Barbecue Smokeout I make with Kevin and Bloodso. It is an amazing way to cook and I love it.
But with that being said, a great part of my life is getting dinner on the table and being able to throw—
The Gas Grill is an incredible—
A Gas Grill, there is no shame on it. And there’s no reason that just because you can make something more delicious with Smoke or Charcoal that will take longer time that you shouldn’t just do the easier option when it’s easier.
And having limited time on a weeknight or when you’re just trying to make a quick lunch, gas is great.
Rule #2: Nothing Tastes Better Than Grilling Over Wood and Charcoal
But when you do have the time, maybe it’s a weekend, maybe it’s a holiday, your rule number two talks about this type of grilling.
Rule number two, nothing tastes better than grilling over wood and charcoal.
So I kind of break this book down into two categories, Sure Weeknight Grilling and Weekend Project Grilling. Yes, I have cooked so many slow smoked pork ribs in the thousands over my career at Bloodso’s and I’m very good at it. I’ve had it a million times, but now my favorite rack of ribs in the world—
I call it smoke grill. They do it in the book where essentially you take a classic grill. I love these PK grills. It’s a really old company that’s been doing it forever. You essentially push all the charcoal to one side of the grill, put wood chunks on top, almost like you’re doing a reverse sear like on a two inch thick ribeye.
Instead of—
You Get A Smoky Crispy Edged Rib That’s Done In Half The Time Of A Slow Smoke.
You Can’t Fake The Flavor Of Smoke.
Rule #3: Getting Char on One Side Is More Important Than Getting Char Everywhere
Rule Number Three is getting char on one side is more important than getting char.
So this comes out especially with things that are quicker cooking like a burger patty, asparagus, zucchini.
If you try to get char all over the entire thing, especially if you’re on a gas grill that’s not super firepower, doesn’t have a ton of BTUs, get that char and that coffee.
Rule #4: Mayonnaise Is the Secret to Better Grilling
There is a chef trick that I was taught years ago about how to add some more moisture and flavor and to give yourself a little bit of grace when you’re cooking on the grill, which I’m so happy because it showed up as rule number four.
Here are the haters. They know what’s coming. Guys, it’s mayonnaise. Yep.
Mayonnaise is the secret to better grilling. And all you weirdo mayonnaise people out there, you guys are worse than cilantro people because theirs is a genetic condition. You guys just can’t stop talking about how you don’t like mayonnaise.
It’s not about tasting mayonnaise. It’s not about eating mayonnaise. It’s about the chemical properties of a perfectly emulsified fat that you can use it for so many things on the grill.
The big one to me, and I learned this from my buddy Ari Colander, who’s an incredible chef, painting the thinnest veil of mayonnaise on a piece of fish or a whole fish allows it to become virtually nonstick on the grill.
It also allows you to get seasonings to adhere perfectly to it and it makes it brown better. I can cook perfect crispy skin salmon on the grill with just one flip, a little bit of mayonnaise, some salt and pepper and it’s amazing.
Anything that you can do to add extra flavor and give yourself some breathing room on the grill is a rule well used.
Rule #5: Use a Meat Thermometer
Your fifth and final rule deals directly with understanding when to take your meat off the grill. What’s your rule number five?
Use a meat thermometer. What are we talking about here, guys?
It’s the easiest game changer. There’s this masculine thing of, no, I don’t need it, I know meat, I can touch the palm of my hand, no worries. You know the exact internal temp of a pre-marinated Trader Joe’s pork?
And that’s fine.
This is a sub-rule to this rule.
Cooking it properly.
Closing
Noah, congratulations on everything. If they want to pick up a copy of Grill Time or come see you on your incredible book tour that has a lot of delicious food and great guests, where can they go to learn more?
You can go to my website for all the tour dates. I have a 21-city tour with some of the best chefs and restaurants in the country. People like Chris Bianco, Frank Piniello, Ann Kim, Aaron Franklin, Kevin Blood.
So it is a crazy, crazy, crazy lineup. I’m so blown away by the kindness of the people in our industry.
Check that out on my website. Also, anywhere books are sold.
The book already came out. So if you’re on Amazon, it’s probably 75% off the week after it came out.
Good luck out on the road and I hope to be eating food and seeing you behind a grill very soon.
Let’s go grill some meat and have some beers.
