Good to Grill

Doug Grimes admits to owning three grills: a Weber charcoal kettle, a Wilmington brand gas grill and a Big Green Egg ceramic cooker.

But with a little prodding he admits to having a few more. First, he has a portable grill that he can throw in the car at a moment's notice. A second portable grill is available as a backup.

And what outdoor cook would be without a turkey fryer?

Grimes' is 10 years old, with a sturdy stand that is hard to find these days, and he likes to use it for Lowcountry seafood boil as well as fried turkeys.

Last but not least is the old milk-crate tobacco barn (propane) burner once used to flue-cure tobacco. It's a souvenir of Grimes' career as a tobacco buyer before he retired, and he now uses it for frying fish.

"Maybe I am a little more than mildly fanatical, although I never thought about it that way," he said. "I just like cooking outdoors."

Grimes grills 12 months a year. He'll grill more often in the temperate months, but even in cold weather he'll fire up one of his grills at least once a month.

"I've cooked when it's 5 below," he said. "When it's 5 below — or 95 or above — you just grill faster."

Grimes, 61, grew up around Kinston. He remembers his grandfather and other male relatives barbecuing whole hogs. "I'd hang out with those guys and watch them — I was probably 4 or 5 years old the first time I saw that."

Later, he watched his father grill on the weekends. "Every Friday or Saturday night he was cooking something outside," Grimes said.

His father is now 88 and no longer grilling himself, but Grimes will cook for him on visits to Kinston on the grill that Grimes gave him as a present in 1971.

Grimes even grilled on the many days spent away from home as a tobacco buyer. "Even little towns in Kentucky would have a motel, and we'd set up a little grill on the balcony," Grimes said. "It might be just hot dogs or hamburgers, but it was still better than McDonald's."

A beef lover, Grimes took two grills with him when he moved to Zimbabwe for three years to work as a tobacco export manager.

He's eaten grilled food in Mexico, Thailand, Argentina and other countries. "I've always been a fan of street food," he said. "When I was in Bangkok or wherever, I'd find the stall that had a line with like 20 people."

He has found that a love of grilled meat is universal.

"I've done it (grilling) just about everywhere I've ever been," he said. "We even had a pig pickin' in China, in Yunnan province."

Despite all of his travels — and his devotion to grilling — Grimes' tastes remain simple.

"I'm pretty basic, nothing fancy," he said. "I subscribe to the KISS theory: Keep it simple, stupid."

"Salt and pepper, a few herbs, a few spices, blackening rub," he said.

Then he paused. "It's still hard to beat just salt and pepper."

He likes to cook skin-on, bone-in chicken thighs, legs and wings over medium heat — or as high as he can get without blackening them — for 30 to 40 minutes, basting them every five minutes or so with an Eastern-style barbecue sauce. During the last five or 10 minutes, he'll turn them skin-side down to crisp the skin.

His chicken comes out better in cold weather because the grill doesn't get too hot.

He doesn't mess with white meat. "I tend to cook it too long and it gets dry and stringy."

And he doesn't bother with skinless chicken. "Why would anyone want to cook chicken without the skin?" he asked, noting that the crispy skin is the best part.

Grimes also will cook shrimp, using a recipe his wife, Melodie, came across. It's nothing more than soy sauce, olive oil and sesame oil.

His favorite rib-eye is an Emeril Lagasse recipe cooked on cedar planks and served with remoulade.

He also likes filet mignon with a bacon cream sauce.

He keeps his Weber kettle grill because he loves charcoal. It's what he usually turns to when cooking a steak.

"The gas grill I'll use if I'm in a hurry, if I got started too late or we got rain coming," he said. "Sometimes I throw a hickory chunk on the grate and let it start smoking before I cook."

His wife bought him a Big Green Egg last summer. Fueled by lump charcoal or wood, the Egg is based on ancient kamado ceramic cookers, and it's pretty much a grill, a smoker and an oven all in one.

The ceramic allows for great heat retention, making it great for slow cooking (as with pulled pork). "I'm still trying to figure this out," Grimes said. "The great thing is you can control the temperature — it has a damper on the bottom and vents on top."

He said the Big Green Egg can get down to (and maintain) below 200 degrees but also gets above 600. So far, Grimes has found it good for cooking steak super-hot and cooking ribs super-low.

"You can do some serious searing" at above 600 degrees, he said. "You can really get a good crust.

"I like crust and I like color. As long as I can get color on it, I'm OK, because color is taste."

Since he got his Big Green Egg, he has used his Weber less often. But he has no plans to get rid of it, or any of the extra grills and outdoor cookers stashed in his garage.

"I don't think there's anything unusual about this," he said. "I think it's perfectly normal."

Barbecue Sauce

This is an Eastern North Carolina barbecue sauce for pork, but Doug Grimes also uses it for basting chicken.

I gallon of apple cider vinegar

I box paprika (about 1/2 ounce), or to taste

½ small box crushed red pepper (about ¾ ounce), or to taste

1 tablespoon sugar

Black pepper to taste

Salt to taste

Mix all ingredients until well combined.

Recipe from the cookbook “From Frankie Mae’s Kitchen” by Mrs. Virginia Knott from Kinston, North Carolina.

Filet Mignon with Bacon Cream Sauce

Makes 4 servings.

4 4-ounce beef tenderloin filets

1 teaspoon olive oil

3 slices bacon, chopped

1 tablespoon butter

4 shallots, diced

¼ cup half-and-half cream

Salt and pepper to taste

1. Preheat an outdoor grill for medium-high heat and lightly oil the grate.

2. Brush the filets with olive oil, and cook on the preheated grill to desired doneness, about 4 minutes on each side for medium-rare. An instant-read thermometer inserted into the center should read 130 degrees for medium-rare. Set the steaks aside on a platter tented with aluminum foil to rest.

3. While the steaks are resting, prepare the sauce. Cook and stir the chopped bacon in a small saucepan over medium heat until the bacon pieces are crisp, 3 to 5 minutes. Stir in the butter and shallots, and cook and stir until the shallots are soft and translucent, about 5 minutes more. Stir in the half-and-half, bring the mixture to a simmer over medium-low heat and cook, stirring occasionally until the sauce is slightly thickened, about 8 minutes. Season to taste with salt and pepper, and serve over the steaks.

Recipe from allrecipes.com.

Sara’s Dried Butter Beans

This recipe comes from Doug Grimes’ aunt. He likes to serve this and the squash recipe below with barbecue chicken.

1 onion, chopped

3 or 4 tablespoons bacon drippings

1 16-ounce package small dried butter beans

¼ cup brown sugar

¼ teaspoon crushed red pepper

Dash hot sauce, or to taste

Salt to taste

Black pepper to taste

Water

5 strips bacon, cooked and crumbled

1. In a soup pot or other large pot, sauté the onion in the bacon drippings. Add beans, brown sugar, red pepper, hot sauce and salt and black pepper to taste. Add water to cover ingredients by about ¾ of an inch.

2. Bring to a boil. Cover and simmer over very low heat for at least 3 hours, or until beans are done. Check water level occasionally and add as needed.

3. Serve with crumbled bacon.

Yellow Squash

This is Doug Grimes’ mother’s recipe.

3 or 4 tablespoons cooking oil

8 or 9 medium squash, sliced

2 or 3 medium onions, chopped

Salt

1. Put oil in a large, heavy frying pan and add squash, onions and salt. Cover and cook slowly over low or medium-low heat until squash and onions are tender. Stir occasionally.

2. Remove lid and turn up heat to evaporate excess liquid in pan. Stir often, cooking until mixture is as brown as desired. Add pepper and serve.

Campfire Steaks

2 (10-ounce) rib eye steaks, preferably about 1½ inches thick

1 tablespoon olive oil

2 tablespoons Paul Prudhomme Meat Magic Seasoning or other Creole seasoning, plus more for garnish

2 cedar planks

2 cups julienne trinity (mixture of finely chopped green pepper, onion and celery)

Salt and pepper

For the remoulade:

1 cup mayonnaise

¼ cup ketchup

2 tablespoons minced shallots

1 tablespoon minced garlic

3 tablespoons minced celery

3 tablespoons chopped green onions

3 tablespoons Creole mustard

2 tablespoons chopped parsley

1. Heat a charcoal grill to high heat. Season each steak with olive oil and the 2 tablespoons Creole seasoning. In a smoking-hot saute pan, sear the steaks for 1 minute on each side. Place each steak on a cedar plank and top with 1 cup of the trinity. Season with salt and pepper. Place on grill and cook 5 to 6 minutes for rare to medium-rare. Remove from heat and let rest about 5 minutes.

2. Meanwhile, make the remoulade. In a saucepan, combine all remoulade ingredients. Mix until smooth, and bring to a simmer. Drizzle warm remoulade over the steaks. Garnish with chopped parsley and more Creole seasoning.

Recipe adapted from Emeril Lagasse, courtesy of www.emerils.com.

Melodie’s Shrimp Skewers

If using wood skewers, soak them in water about 30 minutes before proceeding with recipe.

¼ cup olive oil

¼ cup sesame oil

¼ cup soy sauce

2 pounds medium to large shrimp

1. Pour oils and soy sauce in a zip lock bag, add shrimp for about an hour.

2. Put shrimp on skewers and grill until done, 2 to 3 minutes a side over a hot fire.