Cooking Outdoors! » Book reviews

The Best Barbecue on Earth by Rick Browne

The Best Barbecue on Earth is my dream book, dreaming I am traveling the world book. This is the cookbook I turn to when I want to learn about cooking around the world, so much easier to read about cooking around the world than trying visit all of the great places to do this! Though I would never turn down an opportunity to try.

Mr. Rick Browne literally went to dozens of countries around the world and experienced first-hand from cooks on 6 different continents about grilling around the world. The Best Barbecue on Earth contains visits to 25 countries, includes 170 recipes, dozens and dozens of full colored photographs and beautiful resources of world wide grilling! This soft-covered book is 254 pages long covering the countries of Argentina, Australia, Brazil, Canada, England, France, Germany, Guadalupe, and St. Barthelemy, Hong Kong, Ireland, Jamaica, Japan, Korea, Mexico, Morocco, Portugal, Scotland, Singapore, South Africa, Spain, Tahiti and Fiji, Thailand, Turkey, the United States and Uruguay.

The Best Barbecue on Earth is extremely current and copyrighted in 2008 by Rick Browne. It is not only a fantastic reference for cooking around the world but also a coffee table reference that your guests are sure to flip through if they can rip it away from your hands. The recipes of The Best Barbecue on Earth are just incredible, none of them being over the top where anybody couldn’t cook them.

Filled with recipes like:

Stuffed Grilled Bass
Coconut Cupcakes
Pumpkin Seed-Crusted Salmon
Beef Wellington
Grilled China Sea Tuna
Grilled Spicy Shrimp with Lime
Date-Stuffed Game Hens
Barbequed Oranges
Eggplant Satay

Plenty of recipe that are guaranteed to water your appetite and make you adventurous. The pictures are just incredible. I have to go on and say that if you don’t want to read, you can just flip through the pictures and enjoy this book page after page after page.

About the Author:

Rick Browne is the Creator, Host and Executive Producer of the Public Television Series Barbeque America. His previous books include:

The Practical Camp Cook by Fred Bouwman

Practical Camp Cook by Fred Bouwman is a reference book for any camp cook. You won’t find any fancy recipes in The Practical Camp Cook but you will find some great practical knowledge on how to cook in the outdoors. Author Fred Bouwman is an experienced Outdoorsman, an Outdoor writer, a Photographer, and a former Professional Chef. By looking at the recipes you can recognize his many outdoor skills.

The Practical Camp Cook is a soft-covered book and is a full 220 pages of outdoor cooking tips. It is full of dozens of black and white photos showing you the “how”, the “what”, the “who”, and the “when to do it” of camp cooking.

There’s a whole chapter about meat. You can take a look at cleaning wild meat, skinning small birds and animals, venison, dealing with deer, and making jerky. Another chapters deal with recipes and cooking tips for sea foods, wild veggies and fruits and much more.

The Practical Camp Cook book not only covers heartwarming recipes but also includes great tips on gathering, hunting, cooking and preparation techniques for meat, fish, vegetables and fruits. There is even one chapter for camp baking that will surely help you create exciting and delicious camp desserts. And not only that, “must know” basic info about camping has also been dealt with in a whole chapter covering areas such as campfire safety, the basic trench fire-lay design, selecting wood for your campfire, the advantages of camp stoves, how to build a fire, caring for your stove, and the ever popular tin cans hobo stoves.

It also includes articles about:

Outdoor ovens
Over the open fire
The wok
Sauce it
Water
Trip to the grocery store
Freeze-dried camp food
Cans and retorts
G.I. food in the camp.

Having read and reviewed The Practical Camp Cook I can certainly recommend it for its versatility and the wide variety of topics that it covers. You could take The Practical Camp Cook with you out on your trip and use it as an outdoor reference for camp cooking. The documentation, the photos, the recipes and the tips on how to deal with certain situations make this book a valuable, valuable resource. It even covered areas about water purification.

Some of the unique recipes in here are:

Grocery Store Sea Deep Stew
Supermarket Fried Rice
Venison and Marinade
Chicken or Game Bird Marinade
Stir-fried Crayfish Tails
Beef Jerky Oriental
Stuffing for the fish
Camp Coffee Cake and many more

I can highly recommend The Practical Camp Cook as an addition to any cookbook collection. I think you’ll agree with me that The Practical camp Cook is a unique resource for camp cooking not only for a day or for a weekend but also for a week or even longer.

I hope you enjoy The Practical Camp Cook !

Fred Bouwman is also the author of Camp Cooking: A Practical Handbook.

6 Myths About Grilling Steaks

From the “Barbecue Bible” websites June 8, 2009 newsletter ”Up in Smoke”:

THE SIX MYTHS ABOUT GRILLING STEAK

There are a number of myths concerning how to cook a great steak, T-bones included. So let’s separate fact from fiction.

Myth number 1: Let the steak warm to room temperature before grilling.

Bad idea. Meat at room temperature is a formula for microbial disaster. Steakhouse pros keep their meats ice-cold and bacteria-free until the moment of grilling.

Myth number 2: Salt toughens steak, so don’t salt before grilling.

On the contrary, a generous dusting of salt (kosher or coarse sea salt) and cracked black peppercorns right before grilling gives you the rich flavor and savory crust characteristic of a great steakhouse steak. So, season the steak right before it goes on the grill. Do not, however, season a steak hours ahead, or the salt will draw out the juices and make the steak dry.

Myth number 3: A barbecue fork is the proper tool for turning a steak.

Wrong. The only purpose served by puncturing a steak with a fork is to drain out the flavorful juices. Always use tongs when turning a steak.

Myth number 4: Turn the steaks often.

False. Most of the world’s meat masters turn the steaks only once. Why? This helps achieve a better crust.

Myth number 5: The best way to check for doneness is to cut into the steak with a knife.

False. Again, the last thing you want to do is cut or puncture the meat. For the same reason, don’t buy Dad one of those temperature-reading barbecue forks for Father’s Day. The best way to check for doneness is to use the poke test: Press the thickest part of the steak with your finger. When the meat is rare, it will feel soft and squishy. When medium-rare, the meat will feel semi-soft and yielding. When medium, the meat will yield just a little, while when well-done, the meat will feel hard and springy. Not that we advocate serving a T-bone (or any steak) well done.

For really thick steaks, use an instant-read meat thermometer. Insert it through the side of the steak to get an accurate reading. Here are the temperatures that define varying degrees of doneness:

Rare: 125 degrees F
Medium-rare: 145 degrees F
Medium: 160 degrees F
Well-done: 180 degrees F

Myth number 6: Steak tastes best sizzling hot off the grill.

False: A steak hot off the grill will be dry and leathery. You should let all grilled steaks (all meats, actually) “rest” for a couple of minutes on a hot platter. This allows the meat to “relax,” redistributing the juices. The result: a more tender, succulent steak.