What can I grill that will take me forever?

May 9, 2012 9:05 PM

Wife gone for the weekend: What is the most complex, time consuming recipe you have tried for any type of meat/fish/poultry on a grill?

I love to grill and I have the entire weekend to myself with no work to be done and would like to try something really complicated (and good) on the grill. Anything that can be done in a weekend would be great or something that takes ten minutes to grill but hours to prepare would be great too. I want to do something out of the ordinary. I have grilled plenty of steaks, tenderloins, fish and chicken and have smoked plenty of briskets, ribs and boston butt's. I have a full range of spices in my cabinet and live within walking distance of a Whole Foods so any manner of crazy ingredients are fine. I would like the overall process to be time consuming. I find the prep and actual grill work cathartic. Also, I would prefer stuff that you have actually tried rather than just a link to a recipe page. Family recipes and the like would be awesome.

So throw your craziest shit at me, I wanna grill it.

posted by holdkris99 to food & drink (14 answers total)

A whole pig. Underground.
posted by dr. boludo at 9:11 PM on May 9, 2012 [2 favorites]

Whole pig, Rotisserie!
posted by Sunburnt at 9:13 PM on May 9, 2012

A really extravagant kebab-party could be awesome. Invite some friends, tell them to bring beer and kebab ingredients, and then have everyone mix and match and spend a few hours in the afternoon grilling, talking, and eating.
posted by Strass at 9:19 PM on May 9, 2012

Cochinita pibil is not the most complicated thing ever, but it takes some time if you make your own achiote paste. After marinating, the pork is wrapped in banana leaves before going on the grill. I've made it with pork chops instead of pork shoulder, following the recipe above for the paste.
posted by oneirodynia at 9:21 PM on May 9, 2012

Barbacoa
posted by nickrussell at 9:41 PM on May 9, 2012

Also, we mashed up technique from Scott's 8-hour BBQ Brisket with Bobby Flay's coffee rub and a hoppy beer baste (just beer as a bit of the rub comes off; salting and peppering brisket when coals were added, for good measure) for indescribably delicious results.

It was rounded out with focaccia bread baked on the grill as well. No secret here, standard recipe, baked for 20 minutes. The brisket had not been basted for about half-hour before the bread went on, and we did not baste whilst the bread was on.
posted by nickrussell at 10:16 PM on May 9, 2012

- What kind of grill are we talking about - charcoal/hardwood or gas?

- How many people do you want to serve in the end?


I really need to know. I LOVE fussy food. Especially fussy meat. Heat control and smoking ability play a factor here.....
posted by jbenben at 10:41 PM on May 9, 2012

Are you sitting down? How about a Turbaconducken?

You'll need to convert recipe from oven-baked to low fire grilled.
posted by artdrectr at 11:35 PM on May 9, 2012 [1 favorite]

Rosvopaisti is a popular Finnish version of the underground roast, although it's really a cooking method rather than a recipe. In this Flickr set you'll see it demonstrated with a relatively small lamb roast; it's also possible to roast an entire animal of your choice (although pork is said to be the easiest, and very lean meat such as game may need some fatty stuff such as bacon to keep it from drying). Here's a video in which the guy has actually built a neat little underground oven of sorts with bricks, but just any kind of largish rocks will do too for the pit. His trick of using wire mesh as the final layer of wrapping is handy, though. First heating the pit properly requires several hours already (which you can use to marinate the meat if you wish), and the roasting itself (with the fire still going on top of the pit) takes I think about 1-1,5 h / kg.

In the more primitive method, the (unskinned) carcass was simply covered with an inch of wet clay in stead of wrapping it up with foil and paper the way people do nowadays; as the clay dries it's supposed to form a hard ceramic crust around the roast which you can just break and remove in the end. The hair (or feathers) supposedly stick to the clay crust so you don't need to remove them beforehand. (Disclaimer, I've never made this using the old method though, so this is just hearsay and for all I know, it might result in a horrid mess.)
posted by sively at 1:47 AM on May 10, 2012

The ne plus ultra of wife's-away outdoor meat preparation is Alton Brown's Turkey Derrick. Be sure to get the spinning beacon light.
posted by apparently at 6:58 AM on May 10, 2012 [1 favorite]

I vote the shooter sandwich.
posted by beccaj at 7:57 AM on May 10, 2012

I have a charcoal grill with a side smoker attachment thingy
posted by holdkris99 at 11:23 AM on May 10, 2012

Really I am just cooking for myself, but can eat left overs forever, so a large piece of meat would be just fine
posted by holdkris99 at 11:24 AM on May 10, 2012

Smoking a whole turkey can be time consuming and fun. Just a simple salt rub on the outside and keep the temperature steady (which an be a challenge on a cheap smoker). Awesome leftovers for days.
posted by sharkhunt at 1:24 PM on May 11, 2012