The deep connection between wine and barbecue dates back millennia. In the Santa Ynez, grape vines are used as fuel and wine for marinades, sauces. Jidori-breed chicken breasts stuffed with ham and dry-aged cheese. Grilled flank steak with Pinot Noir mushroom sauce grilled. Chef John Cox from the Bear and Star restaurant smokes a whole bourbon-soaked wagyu strip loin.
The perfect grilled steak, using a range of savvy grilling techniques. Leading off is a thick dry-brined New York strip with luscious anchovy crema. Tender lamb steaks come with herb-scented Moroccan Charmoula. In today’s field trip chef Curtis Stone grills an 80 day-aged rib steak over a wood fire at Gwen Butcher Shop and Restaurant in L.A.
Fish Hits the Fire. Steven walks you through the grilling process—from whole fish to fire-roasting shellfish. Singapore-spiced halibut grilled in banana leaves. Whole fish with Indonesian flavors by Rafael Lunetta, in Santa Monica. Alaskan salmon riffs on Russian coulibiac, with a stuffing of grilled onions, mushrooms, rice and smoke. Finally, grilling fresh oysters with Asian aromatics.
Extending from California and the Pacific Northwest to Korea, Japan, and Southeast Asia. Explosively flavored grilled meats with exotic herbs and spices, chilies and umami-rich fish and soy sauce are paired with healthy vegetables—barbecue as health food. Vietnamese and Thai influences make the ultimate street food. Steven visits Jenee Kim for grilled beef short ribs.
We reinvent the cocktail party, with the power of live fire to take finger food over the top with rum and citrus-glazed jumbo shrimp grilled on sugarcane, “finger-burner” lamb chops from Spain and Smoked Nectarine Bellinis to keep conversation flowing. Sommelier Kristine Bocchino shares suggestions for three great wines to serve at the party.
Melting pot extreme, when traditional American barbecue meets authentic ethnic grilling and it’s happening across the United States and around the world. Cross-culture mashups, from California paella to a deli-inspired pork loin stuffed with pastrami and sauerkraut. Michelin-starred chef Josiah Citrin dazzles with aged, smoked-roasted duck at his restaurant, Charcoal Venice.
Rotisserie grilling or spit-roasting combines the smoky sear of grilling with the heat of roasting. Add 3 more benefits: basting, no flare-ups, and the fragrance of wood smoke. Game hens acquire golden, crackling-crisp skin. Spare ribs are given the huli-huli (turn-turn) treatment. Wings get a sweet-salty, lacquer-like glaze. Finally, a whole spinning, sugar-crusted pineapple.
The world’s pit masters, fire up grills, smokers, or wood-burning ovens for breakfast, lunch, dinner, and late night snacks. For breakfast, farm eggs grilled with Parmesan, and prosciutto. For lunch, pizzas from the Industrial Eats in Buellton, CA. Pastrami Beef Ribs make a spectacular supper, and midnight snack of smoky, salty South African Grilled Cheese sandwiches.
Long before grills, charcoal, rotisseries, and planchas, there was fire! We visit L.A.’s Chi SPACCA, for a monster pork tomahawk grilled over wood by chef Ryan DeNicola. Extreme grilling with salmon steaks, smoky, on a shovel in a blazing campfire. Caveman-style pork chops directly on blazing embers with a sizzling poblano pan-fry and decadent brownies on a cedar plank.
Since picnickers in 1869 ate food from buckboards of horse-drawn wagons, Americans have loved tailgating. Now the party goes global, with pulled lamb from a wood-burning smoker at Odys & Penelope in L.A. Honey Soy Chicken Wings on skewers and Brisket Tacos, make magisterial main dishes. True global tailgating, with a Peruvian potato salad with chili-spiked cheese sauce.
Clean bold California flavors and plenty of hot fire and wood smoke. The classic California fish taco, reimagined with wood fire-grilling. Caribbean-inspired char-grilled lobsters with orange mojo. Executive chef Anthony Endy updates the verdant South American chimichurri. Wood-grilled Castroville artichokes with charred lemon aioli bring the show to a fiery close.
If it tastes good baked, fried, sautéed, or boiled, it tastes even better grilled. Barbecue has no limits, but it does have conventions. Look back on Steven’s secrets to successful grilling. Start with layering flavors to give your food depth. Smoke is the umami of barbecue, use it to bring new dimensions to your dishes. Finally, the grill can be used for dessert.
Used on six continents by traditionalists and cutting-edge chefs alike, grilling with wood is the world’s most ancient cooking method, and, to my mind, remains the best. While propane offers convenience and charcoal burns hot, wood is the ultimate fuel. Delivering both heat and taste, wood smoke contains more than a thousand flavor-producing compounds.
Brisket is simultaneously the easiest and hardest meat to barbecue. Easy, because it requires only three ingredients: salt, pepper, and wood smoke. Hard, because unless you master the fire, airflow, temperature, the stall, the wrap, and the rest, you wind up with a mouthful of misery.
Steinhatchee, Florida, population 1500, perches on the north shore of the historic Steinhatchee River where it joins the Gulf of Mexico. What better place to tape a show on the spirited seafood-rich grilling of the Gulf Coast?
Forget about red meat and black and blue steak. Today, we’re grilling green with vegetables we love to cook over live fire, like asparagus, corn, and mushrooms, and with foods that are less likely candidates for grilling. This show celebrates meatless grilling in all its verdant glory.
T-bones? On it. Porterhouse? Got you covered. And, yes, we can handle a rib-eye. But how about upping your grill game with steaks you may not be familiar with, such as secreto or spinalis dorsi?
This show takes you back. Way back. To a time when our ancestors did their grilling in the fireplace, or on fire-heated stones around the campfire and directly on the embers. I call it primal grilling, and it’s about to make you a barbecue rock star.
I’m always fascinated by the food cultures that arise on national borders. Consider that fusion of Texas barbecue and Mexican spice we call Tex-Mex. In today’s show, Tex meets Mex as we explore how American barbecue techniques can enhance classic Mexican dishes.
You don’t need a degree in smokeology to name the big three of barbecue: Kansas City ribs, Carolina pulled pork, and Texas smoked brisket. But what about some of the lesser-known styles of regional American barbecue?
Gators fans and sports lovers of all persuasions get pumped up for tailgate parties because a good barbecue makes the perfect prelude to the game. In this show a Project Fire first: the grilled mojito cocktail. We explore how my home state of Florida re-imagines three tailgate classics. Get ready for pork shooters stuffed with shrimp, cheese and Andouille sausage followed by Miami wings blasted with fire water. And luscious, smoky hamburgers like you’ve never experienced. The secret? Lace them with chopped barbecued brisket. It’s game on at Project Fire.
The pork shoulder, aka Boston butt (named for the wooden barrels they were once shipped in), gives us Carolina pulled pork. The majestic beef shoulder becomes a Texas barbecued beef clod. As for lamb shoulder, Moroccans cook it in a fire-heated underground clay oven to make their legendary mechoui. This show explores the richest, meatiest, most flavorful cut you find in the meat department: the shoulder.
Long before there was modern fusion cuisine, people cooked Chino-Latino. It originated with Chinese laborers who immigrated to Cuba and Trinidad and elsewhere in the Caribbean to work the plantations. They developed a unique mashup of Asian and West Indian cooking—the subject of today’s show on Chino-Latino grilling.
Miami is the southernmost metropolis in the continental United States. But often my hometown feels like living in a foreign country. English is not the predominant language here, and our food culture is firmly anchored in Latin America and the West Indies. Our Miami Spice menu begins with Florida lobster grilled with rum butter baste and mango salsa, then plate-burying island spice beef plate ribs. Our grand finale? Turkey adobo with garlicky mojo de ajo.
Steak. It’s every carnivore’s dream and every griller’s triumph. Now this epic meat is about to receive the Raichlen treatment in a show that looks back on how steak has evolved through three iconic TV series: Primal Grill, Project Smoke, and Project Fire.
Grilled vegetable paella; Vietnamese beef and rice noodle salad; mystery box challenge -- tofu.
Hanger steak with mustard and caramelized onions; Cambodian steak with salads and condiments; reverse-seared porterhouse steaks with poblano crema.
Spice-rubbed baby back ribs with chipotle bourbon barbecue sauce; Korean grilled beef short ribs; mystery box challenge -- lamb ribs.
Killer Barbecue - Hold the Meat You don’t need a degree in barbecue to know that vegetables have hit the grill big time. Veggies for hardcore carnivores who crave killer accompaniments to their meats, for health-conscious grillers, and for everyone who delights in the smokiness and supernatural sweetness live fire imparts to plant and dairy foods.
Charm City ‘Que: Baltimore, the town where I grew up, boasts plenty of awesome foods for grilling. Pit beef was born here. In the seafood department you find a sweet white-fleshed fish the rest of the world calls striped bass and Baltimoreans know as rockfish. And no Charm City meal would be complete without chocolate top cookies.
Barbecue on a Budget: A lot of American barbecue began with inexpensive meat cuts, like spareribs, beef shoulder, and pork belly. With the economic insecurities brought on by COVID-19, we’re all feeling the pinch, and budget grilling has taken on new urgency. Besides, why should Kobe beef and tomahawk steaks get all the love? This is barbecue on a budget.
Sustainable Seafood: Pollution. Overfishing. Abusive labor practices. There’s a lot of negative news coming out about the seafood industry lately, and much of it breaks your heart. Today’s show celebrates seafood we can eat because it’s fished in a way that’s humane and environmentally sound. Activists call it sustainable seafood. I call it three great reasons for firing up your grill.
Social Distance Tailgating: From its humble origins on the back of a buckboard wagon to today’s high-octane outdoor foodie extravaganzas, tailgating continues to enthrall(make that obsess) American sports fans. This episode is our our annual celebration of tailgating with a global twist. The socializing may be distant this year, all the more reason to up your game at the grill.
Little Italy: When I was growing up, a trip to Baltimore’s Little Italy always meant culinary adventure. Today we celebrate Italian grilling and the food of Little Italys around North America, honoring the Italian reverence for simplicity and fresh seasonal ingredients, and the American passion for big flavors and ingenious grilling techniques.
Cured and Smoked: In humankind’s long march to food security, two ancient preserving techniques have stood out over the millennia: curing and smoking. The first involves preserving foods with salt, soy sauce, or sodium nitrite, and the second technique involves blasting foods with flavorful clouds of wood smoke. Today, we’re pushing the envelope on traditional curing and smoking.
The Improbable Grill: In this show we explore three unexpected techniques for grilling. The first stands the vertical rotisserie used in Mexico and the Middle East. The second involves a piece of equipment you don’t usually find at a barbecue—a roofer’s torch. The third involves a mystery ingredient that virtually no one on the planet has ever grilled.
Maryland Crab Feast: This show focuses on my favorite food growing up: callinectes sapidus, better known as the Maryland blue crab. Maryland seafood markets and restaurants come alive with soft shell crabs, eaten shell and all, traditionally deep-fried, here seared over live fire. Which brings us to the summum of the Maryland crab experience: a crab feast known as Maryland steamed crabs.
Grilled Pound Cake with Berry Salsa and Smoked Whipped Cream, Salt Slab-Grilled Pears with Amaretti And Smoked Whipped Cream, Dessert Quesadillas, Smoked Ice Cream with Rum Raisin Sauce.
When it comes to barbecue, St. Louis isn't yet as famous as Kansas City or Memphis, but the Gateway City is experiencing a live fire renaissance. They're famous for plate-burying pork steaks and eponymous spareribs (trimmed, rubbed, and slow-smoked over applewood). And get ready for a Project Fire first: St. Louis toasted ravioli with homemade marinara sauce.
Ever since humankind first put food to fire, the world’s grill cultures have wrapped and rolled flavorful ingredients. Steven explores two South American grilled classics—a stuffed chicken breast from Uruguay called pamplona, and a colorful stuffed beef roll Argentineans know as matambre. Plus, a Project Fire Mystery Box recipe that may involve a crustacean.
Whether you’re hosting overnight guests, a late morning brunch, or seeking a reason to get out of bed, this show amps up your breakfast game by firing up the grill. First, a spectacular breakfast pizza. Next, a supremely satisfying grilled vegetable frittata. Finally, the most outrageous cinnamon rolls we’ve ever tasted from executive chef Russel Cunningham of St. Louis’ Union Station.
Scroll through the images on Instagram, Facebook, and TikTok, and you’ll find grilled and smoked dishes of astonishing ingenuity. In the spirit of this new style of barbecue, we’ve invited three of my favorite influencers to grill with me - Derek Wolf from Over the Fire Cooking, Scott Thomas from Grillin’ Fools, and Susie Bulloch from Hey Grill Hey.
Wagyu, “Japanese cow” literally, was once an obscure cattle breed from Japan. Today, it’s on restaurant menus and in butcher shops around the world. Get ready for a sumptuous Japanese A5 Rib-Eye with sesame salt and grilled rice cakes, followed by wagyu steak tomahawks with fire-roasted marrow. Then feast your eyes on wagyu smash burgers with parmesan crisps.
For many, barbecue means meat. But you may be surprised to learn that one of the earliest recorded barbecues featured fish wrapped in grape leaves. Today Steven begins with saffron-scented Catalan shrimp kebabs, followed by trout Mexican style with a sizzling garlic cilantro sauce. Then there’s a Mystery Box that will astonish you as much as it surprised Steven.
Skewering and spit-roasting meat rank among the world’s oldest and most universal grilling methods. Forty thousand years ago, Neanderthals roasted hunks of meat over a campfire. Today, Steven spit roasts a pork loin stuffed with onions followed by an Indian rotisserie leg of lamb perfumed with saffron. He then skewers the unknown ingredient inside the Mystery Box.
What's America's most popular meat? It's Poultry. Americans consume more than 112 pounds per person each year. Today Steven prepares an astonishing array of grilled poultry from brandy brined rotisserie chicken to duck legs flame roasted Peking-style. And with a specia guest a Project fire first: Turkey "ribs" - found in St Louis and virtually nowhere else
Steven has always enjoyed showing extreme grilling techniques that, though unconventional, deliver unabashedly delectable results, such as his Caveman T-Bones or salmon on a shovel. Taking your grilling to the next level, that tradition continues with Lomo al Trapo with Fiery Colombian Salsa, grilled Brussels Sprout Stalks with Curry Butter and a Project Fire Mystery Box
The Mediterranean Grill: Lamb Chops, Grilled Artichokes, Fennel-Grilled Branzino.
Sandwiches Hit the Grill: It’s a simple formula: bread + protein + condiment, but it adds up to a triple decker of pleasure. In today’s show, the sandwich hits the grill. From a glorious BLT made with home cured and smoked bacon, to pan bagnat—a magisterial grilled tuna sandwich inspired by the French Cote d’Azur. And then it's a sandwich for dessert in a Project Fire mystery box.
No one knows what spectators ate at the first Olympic games, held in ancient Greece in 776 BCE, but today’s sports fans and grill fanatics like to celebrate their obsession with a barbecue. Tailgating favorites come hot off the grill in this episode as we tackle Project Fire Rib Wings, Buffalo Brisket Burnt Ends, and a Balkan Mixed Grill with some special guests.
Seventy percent of the earth is covered with water and yet, the combination of live fire and seafood can be a grillers worst nightmare. For this season’s Raichlen’s Rules, we’ve decided to ease your anxiety. A lot of people are intimidated by the prospect of grilling seafood, but by strategically picking the method, fire can make the bounty of the sea wondrous.
