Grilling like a pro with Al Roker
Our reporter takes the weatherman’s tutorial.
There are people who can’t cook … and then there’s me.
For all the “food porn” accounts I follow on Instagram, and hundreds of restaurants I’ve bookmarked on Yelp, my own skills in the kitchen are less than exemplary. I can’t make a grilled cheese sandwich without setting off the smoke alarm and admittedly know the Seamless guy who delivers my bagels on a first-name basis.
Embarrassed by my ineptitude, I decided to course-correct by taking an online cooking class. And who’s a better teacher than “Today” weatherman Al Roker?
“Backyard Grilling and Barbecuing With Al & Matt” (celebrity chef Matt Abdoo) is a five-episode crash course on all things charbroiled, now streaming on NBC’s craftsy new Bluprint digital network. Modeled after the star-studded “MasterClass,” Bluprint gives subscribers more than 3,000 hours of ondemand classes for $14.99 a month on topics ranging from woodworking and yoga to knitting and ballroom dance.
The “Backyard” hosts share upscale takes on grilled favorites: Recipes include pork-and-turkey burgers with Asian slaw, grilled Baharat chicken kebabs and blackened swordfish with charred green onions. Episodes average 15 minutes, and comprehensive instructions are available to reference as you watch.
As the summer cookout season draws to a close this Labor Day weekend, I tried my hand at two of the most accessible recipes: Roker’s King of Steaks porterhouse and Abdoo’s Pig Beach burger, named for his Brooklyn BBQ joint. But first I needed my grill: a rickety charcoal rig that set me back $14 and (no joke) three hours of assembly. (Word to the wise: It’s worth splurging on something that’s not one burger flip away from falling apart, particularly if you have ambitions of being a grillmaster.)
Both recipes required minimal prep. I marinated the steak in olive oil, rosemary and garlic, sticking extra cloves inside the meat as advised, only to watch them fall into a charcoal abyss as soon as they hit the grill.
After 16 minutes of rotating and simmering, Roker’s steak was coated by a palatable brown crust of herbs, with perfect sear marks emblazoned across the lightly pink meat that he could cut with a butter knife. “Fight for your right to bite,” Roker jokingly advises, eating directly off the bone.
My steak, on the other hand, resembled a tawny, chewy slab of shoe leather – the result of overcooking and undermarinating the meat. Thankfully, I was able to drown it in warm, homemade rosemary-orange butter, which may have been the only thing on the menu I aced.
Since a $13 porterhouse steak isn’t advisable for a first foray into grilling, I moved on to the less-labor-intensive Pig Beach burger, nestled in a potato bun with dill pickles and doused in white American cheese and a homemade sauce (made of mustard, mayonnaise, ketchup, pickles and shallots). It’s fast, easy and guaranteed to “blow your mind,” promises Abdoo, who took the reins from Roker for this lesson.
Because I was too impatient to preheat the grill properly, one of my patties was slightly undercooked, and the other crumbled into a juicy, oily mess on the cooking grate. Although the end result was far less appealing than Abdoo’s mouthwatering short-rib burger, it was still tasty enough to make me want to give it another shot sometime.
All in all, Roker and Abdoo make for affable, erudite teachers, sharing personal techniques and occasional quips as they breeze through the grilling process. The video component of the class is most helpful to show how your finished food should look, but the detailed recipes you can download – some of which are used in New York restaurants – are at least as valuable.
My only advice for fellow grilling newbies: Pick up some tongs and cook a few hot dogs before jumping in with the pros. While “Backyard” has sparked a newfound interest in grilling, my skills aren’t quite up to char with theirs.