Jeff, the A.D.D. Chef

I cringe every time I see it. It starts very innocently. Someone wants to clean their grill. They turn the burners on high and when the food residue turns to ash, they clean off the grill with a wire brush. And then, potential disaster. They pull out a can of PAM® and start spraying the grill. That’s when I step back and watch the spray go in flames as it hits the grill and, more ominously, I watch the flame go back towards the can. I haven’t seen anyone have a can of PAM blow up in their hands but it still seems like an awfully dangerous thing to do. Here’s a simple and safe way to prep your grill before you place your favorite steaks on.

The No-Aerosol Method of Prepping the Grill

Take a sturdy stick and a piece of cloth (cheesecloth is fine…I actually used an old, clean t-shirt). Wrap the cloth around the end of the stick and use a piece of string or a plastic wire wrap to hold it to the stick.

Plastic Wire Wrap Holding Cloth to Stick

Take a small coffee can or a 1-cup measuring cup, put in a few tablespoons of oil (your choice: vegetable oil, olive oil, etc.) , turn off the burners of your grill, dip the home made grill oiler into the oil and wipe it onto the grill. When done, turn the burners back to high…wait for any oil that dripped to burn off (some of the oil on the grill itself will also burn) and when the smoke clears…start cooking.

I love nice, thick juicy pork chops cooked on the grill. It’s an easy meal to make with near-perfect results every time.

INGREDIENTS

Pork Chops - at least 3/4″ thick
Olive Oil
Kosher Salt

DIRECTIONS

1. Heat your grill to a very high temperature. You want the grill to give you those nice sear marks and you want to seal in the flavor of the pork chop.
2. Place a small quantity of olive oil - just a few drops will do - on one side of the pork chop and spread it around.
3. Sprinkle some kosher salt on the pork chop and let the salt dissolve a bit.



4. Turn over the pork chop and it give it the olive oil/kosher salt treatment.
5. After preparing all of the pork chops, head over to the grill and start cooking.

I will usually cook them at a high temperature (at least 400-450 degrees F.) for a few minutes and then reduce the heat to a medium temperature (approximately 375 degrees F. on my Weber thermometer). Total cooking time is roughly fifteen minutes but it’s best to check doneness using an electronic thermometer.

NOTES:

• If the pork chops were previously frozen, you may want to defrost them in brine. See Brine Your Chops.
• Be sure your grill is nice and clean.
• How do you know when to turn over your chops? When you first put the chops (or steaks or chicken) on a hot grill they will stick firmly to the grates. When it is ready to be turned over they will loosen their grip.

The first time I discovered this chicken - a Perdue Oven Stuff Roaster - I had three work-related deadlines hanging over me which propelled me into a state of inaction¹, a sort of paralysis that afflicts A.D.D.ers. (See: Getting Beyond A.D.D. Paralysis.)

I wasn’t exactly sure what to do with this chicken. I kind of looked at the instructions, scratched my head and then grabbed the garlic salt. I figured you can’t get healthier than that. Garlic - keeps away polio and vampires² - and salt - brings out the best of most any food item³ In addition, both of these are part of that all important spice pyramid (analogous to the Food Pyramid). The other members of the spice pyramid are pepper, ketchup and hot sauce.)

After removing the wrapper, I found that the chicken’s innards were inside all nicely wrapped. I took that and tossed it. I then rinsed the bird with cold water and placed it on a platter for a moment so some of the water could drip off. Then I sprinkled garlic salt all over it. Actually, it was more like a blizzard. I turned the chicken this way and that way to cover as much of the outside with the garlic salt.

I then heated up my 3-burner Weber grill. After I pinned the needle on the grill thermometer, I turned off the middle burner, placed the chicken in the middle with the temperature pop-up thingie facing up, and then adjusted the temperature to bring it to about 325 degrees F. Then I basically ignored it and just checked periodically that the temperature remained kind of steady. About one and a half hours later, the result was this browned chicken with an extraordinarily crunchy skin. When I sliced it open, the meat was so moist that even the breast meat tasted good. (I prefer dark meat.) The kids loved it and I now had the perfect A.D.D. zone-out dinner to make. Garlic-salt it, bake it and forget it! A.D.D. nirvana…available in the poultry department of your local supermarket!

1. Hmmm….can you be “propelled” into “inaction”, i.e., an action to get into non-action? Sheesh…talk about logical conundrums. [↩]
2. Note this interesting snippet from Wikipedia: “A Christian myth considers that after Satan left the Garden of Eden, garlic arose in his left footprint, and onion in the right.” I can ignore this myth. I’m Jewish. See: Garlic [↩]
3. There are exceptions. It’s terrible with milk. Yecch. [↩]