The Grill is On

It’s not quite warm enough to eat outside, but we were having turkeyburgers for dinner, and they really needed to be grilled. OK, *I* needed them to be grilled. The smell of natural hardwood smoking in the grill (we do it old school at Wayfarer House), combined with the heavenly aroma of meat over flame makes my mouth water every time!

It was unfortunate that the year’s first effort did not come out as well as I would have liked. It wasn’t the fault of the grill, though. It was the meat. Turkeyburger is low in fat. This is a good thing dietarily, but it is a decided negative in terms of its grillability (and, yes, I’m saying that’s a word). Meat that is low in fat comes off the grill looking like a rock and, much like meat that’s left in the crockpot too long, ends up feeling dry and tough in the mouth. It has bad mouth feel.

There are two things needed to keep meat moist when it’s cooked: Low heat and high moisture (usually, fat). Pan-frying turkey burgers is easiest because you can control both elements, but on a charcoal grill this is more difficult to manage. I have lots of tricks figured out for chicken, fish and red meat, but I’ll admit that pork and turkey have proven more challenging to master. I’m going to do some research, though. This year, I will conquer both!

A true grillmaster never accepts that meat cannot be properly done over flame.