Archive for March, 2010
Spice Rack Rosemary
Spice Rack: Rosemary
In our first few Spice Rack posts, we’ve covered the basics used in grilling – salt and the various varieties for peppercorns you can use in grilling. Now, we’re moving on to some more specialized herbs that can make a delicious impact on even just a plain piece of grilled meat. Leading us off – Rosemary.
Originating out of the Mediterranean, Rosemary has had quite the long history – dating back to around 500 B.C. where it was used by both Greeks and Romans alike in medicine and cuisine. Although it’s evolved into primarily a cooking herb, many natural folk remedies still use it medicinally as well. › Continue reading
New Online Spring Promotion
New Online: Spring Indoor/Outdoor Grill Promotion Launching Today
Spring is just around the corner and to celebrate the start of the outdoor grilling season, we’re offering a special promotion exclusive to our website for 10% off the purchase of any of our indoor/outdoor dome cover grills.
These versatile products feature a removable grill pedestal that you can attach to the base to cook in the backyard, patio or any outdoor area where you want some great grilled food. Then, for colder or bad weather cooking days, you can remove the pedestal and set the grill base on your counter for easy indoor cooking.
Both grills feature a 200+ Sq. In. cooking surface, so you have room to cook for your whole party with ease. The grill plates on both are also removable and dishwasher-safe thanks to our George Tough™ nonstick coating, so you’ll enjoy no-hassle cleanup once cooking is complete. › Continue reading
Electric Skillet New Online
New Online: 15” x 12” Electric Skillet
New to our website today is an electric skillet, featuring an attractive range of features that let you cook healthier and minimize skillet cleanup. The 15” x 12” cooking surface is large enough to let you cook for the whole family, with extra high walls that let you have more in the pan than a standard stovetop skillet for bigger meals with ease.
The George Tough™ nonstick coating gives you the ability to minimize or eliminate the amount of added fats and oils that you add to a typical skillet meal; then an adjustable tilt option lets you drain grease and unhealthy fat out of your food for healthier meals in minutes. Simply use the adjustable tilt leg to angle the skillet surface and grease drains away from your food. › Continue reading
New to Market Hot Zone Griddle
New to Market: Hot Zone™ Griddle
It’s a busy time for product launches and promotions here at George Foreman, so we wanted to give our blog and Facebook fans a first look at all of the exciting new products that will be hitting the shelves and some exciting new offerings we’ll have available through our website.
First up is our Hot Zone™ Griddle – a product that many of our team members have fallen in love with as we’ve worked with it in the test kitchen during development. The really unique thing about this griddle is the specialized temperature control probe that not only features easy-to-use digital controls, but also an exclusive 2-minute sear setting for the Hot Zone™ cooking area.
With this one-touch control, you can heat part of the cooking surface to 525°F. This allows you to sear meats and vegetables at the same time that you cook the rest of your food on the regular griddle surface. It expands the realm of cooking possibilities you have available – letting you sear steak, chops, scallops and asparagus, just to name a few!
The other major innovation is the George Tough™ Ceramic Nonstick Coating that makes the cooking surface easier than ever to use and to clean. It lets you keep away from added fat in extra oils and butter, plus provides no-hassle cleanup with just a few simple wipes of a warm, soapy cloth.
The Hot Zone™ Griddle is available at select retailers, nationwide, this week. It will become widely available next month and we’ll be doing a longer feature article in our April newsletter, along with an exciting recipe you can use with it. Stay tuned for more information!
Making Great Grilled Chicken
Hot on the Grill: Making Great Grilled Chicken
Cooking chicken correctly will yield exceptionally juicy results
One of the most common and perhaps least raved about meats on the grill is the chicken breast. It is a staple of the average weekly menu plan in many homes, but it’s also typically considered one of the least exciting. In truth, though, chicken can be a flavorful, juicy main course – so why the bad rap?
Most of the trouble comes in the fact that chicken can be easy to cook wrong, so often people are judging the meat based on their experience eating it. However, if you cook chicken correctly, your opinion of it may start to drastically change and chicken night just might become one of your favorite meals of the week.
The first key to cooking chicken correctly is to take care with the cuts before you put them on the grill. Trim all the fat for healthier cooking; then, make sure all of the breasts or pieces are the same size – preferably from the center to the ends on each piece as well. As mentioned in our last post, having different thicknesses of meat will mean that the thin parts dry out while the thicker parts are still cooking. Even thickness ensures even cooking.
The next step is to carefully monitor cooking progress to ensure that you’re not overcooking. Chicken is extremely easy to dry out, so once it’s cooked it needs to be taken off the grill immediately to keep it moist, juicy and delicious. Obviously follow the recommended cooking times in your Use & Care and use them as a guide, but you need to monitor the cooking progress as well since the cuts might be thicker or thinner than what was used.
A meat thermometer is a huge help in making sure you don’t dry your chicken out, because you can check the temperature and simply remove once it hits 165°F – the FDA’s recommended internal temperature on chicken. If you don’t have a meat thermometer on hand, you can do a touch test, but this is definitely more of an art than a simple thermometer check. To touch test, simply press on the center of the breast; it should be firm, but not hard – hard means that you’ve overcooked.
If at all possible, use one of the two methods above to avoid slicing into the breast to check the center for pinkness. Once you slice the breast, juices will run and the chicken will dry out if you have to put it back on to cook longer. This is true for all meats, but can be especially problematic for chicken, since it dries out so easily.
Between cutting your pieces correctly and monitoring cooking progress closely, you should be able to get a really well cooked piece of chicken without a lot of extra work. Even without any extra marinades or sauces, you should notice a difference in the taste of the chicken itself and find it a lot more appetizing. If you’re still less than wowed, the best thing you can do is add a marinade or a rub to provde some extra imparted flavor to the meat.
If you decide to go this route, try to avoid anything that uses salt, as this is a big contributor to drying meat out as it cooks. If you use salt at all, using it extremely sparingly – again, it’s better if you can leave it out entirely. For marinades, always give at least a few hours for the chicken to marinate in the fridge (6-8 hours is the ideal). You want to let chicken marinate for a long time because the liquid needs time to work into the deep tissue; otherwise, your marinade might not provide the bold flavor you were expecting. For rubs, as is typical, you want to do the rub just prior to cooking to avoid drying the meat out – even when it doesn’t use salt.
Once you’ve pretreated your chicken to your taste, you will still need to follow the first two suggestions above to achieve the results you want. The chicken will be good itself, with the seasoning simply adding more flavor.
