Fire up grill, bring on the mayonnaise

In this season of outdoor parties and cookouts, we self-professed grillmasters deftly showoff our live-fire cooking skills in front of family and friends. That is, until the grill flares up and those beautiful steaks are reduced to charcoal andwe’re peeling them off the grill through a cloud of smoke.

It’s an all-too-common tragedy played out in backyards everywhere. What if therewere an easierway?

My challengewas always fish, whichwould glue itself to the grill whether I oiled the fillets, or the grill racks, or both. But then I noticed chef Michael Cimarusti, of Providence in LA, lightly brush delicate halibut fillets with mayonnaise before grilling. Yes, mayo— the stuff of cafeteria bologna sandwiches and picnic potato salads. Cimarusti, who knows his fish, explained the mayonnaise keeps the fish from sticking. He adds a very thin layer, “so it’s almost not there.” Grilling guruMeathead Goldwyn is a believer. “This is an area I’m playing a lot more with now. Mayonnaise reallyworks,” said Goldwyn, founder of the popularwebsite, AmazingRibs.com and author of “Meathead: The Science of Great Barbecue and Grilling.” “It sticks reallywell to the food, helps release food from the hot grill surface, and gets a beautiful golden color.”

Part of the reason mayonnaiseworks sowell is because of its composition. “Mayonnaise is an emulsion, which means you have small droplets of oil surrounded by egg yolk, and that has a couple of really cool properties,” said Greg Blonder, professor of product design and engineering at Boston University and coauthor of Goldwyn’s cookbook.

This emulsion allows the oils in the mayonnaise actually to stick to the food, unlike plain oil. Oil andwater don’t mix, which iswhy it’s so hard to get the fat to adhere to foods you want to grill, particularly meats. So as you grill, you’re left with a very limited amount of oil to keep the food from sticking. Additionally, as the oil runs off, it’s likely to result in more flareups.

“Mayonnaise acts like little time-release oil capsules, and you can put it on thick,” Blonder said.

And where oil only heats and browns the food thermally, mayonnaise is able to brown food chemically— that goldenbrown color— through what is known as theMaillard reaction. TheMaillard reaction requires sugars and proteins towork; as these are heated, the nonenzymatic reaction produces browning. “When you just put regular oil on meat, it doesn’t bring these to the table. It only brings fat,” Blonder said.

In the last couple ofweeks alone, I brushed mayonnaise on everything I’ve grilled, fromchicken breasts to pork chops , asparagus to mushrooms. When I added a dill-flavored mayonnaise to salmon, itwas as if Iwas grilling on Teflon, the fish released so easily. I almost felt like Iwas cheating.

RICARDO DEARATANHA/LOS ANGELES TIMES PHOTOS Trying to pry grilled fish from the grates has frustrated many a cook. But a trick can solve the problem, for fish and other foods: mayonnaise. The condiment can also add flavor, as with the fresh thyme used with salmon, above.